The account of Isaac’s birth does not mention a location. Context suggests somewhere in the vicinity of Gerar and Beersheba.
When Ishmael laughs at Isaac, the child named “laughter,” Abraham exiles Hagar and Ishmael to wander in the wilderness of Beersheba. Ishmael later lives in the wilderness of Paran (which we will again see during the Israelites’ wilderness wandering following the Exodus) and marries a wife from Egypt.
Abraham negotiates with Abimelech of Gerar for wells in Beersheba. It is apparently from there that God calls Abraham to sacrifice Isaac on a mountain in Moriah. Assuming this is the same Mount Moriah Solomon builds his temple on (2 Chronicles 3:1), it is in the vicinity of Melchizedek’s Salem.
The following accounts are sparse and focus on Abraham, so we do not have certainty about Isaac’s whereabouts. Interestingly, after the sacrifice of the ram rather than Isaac on Mount Moriah, we learn that Abraham returned with his servants to Beersheba but nothing about where Isaac went. When Abraham buys the field and cave of Machpelah and buries Isaac’s mother Sarah, the account is silent about Isaac.
We next hear of Isaac and his location when Abraham sends a servant to find a wife for him. He is mourning his mother in the wilderness near Beer Lahai Roi, where Hagar realized God saw her. Though unclear on their meeting place, it seems most reasonable to receive Genesis 24:62 to mean that Isaac came to Hebron (though Beersheba is also a strong candidate) from Beer Lahai Roi to meet Rebekah, while Rebekah came from Aram Naharaim. It appears that Isaac travels from just inside the Genesis 15:18 southwestern border of the land - “the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, ‘To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates…’” (ESV) – while Rebekah travels from just outside its northern border. They approach one another, traversing the whole length of the land to meet and become one.
Rebekah and her son Jacob’s stories spend significant time north of the Euphrates River with Abraham’s extended family. Rebekah lives in a region called Aram Naharaim and the city of Nahor, Abraham’s brother. Isaac later tells Jacob to flee to Paddan Aram, where Rebekah’s family lives. The distinction between the regions of Aram Naharaim and Paddan Aram is unclear if there is one at all. The fact that Abraham left from Haran and his grandson Jacob flees there suggests that the extended family remained in the same region and that the use of different names may emphasize their different meanings or the region’s name in two languages rather than two distinct locations. Paddan Aram means “Plain of Aram” in Aramaic and Aram Naharaim means “Aram between Two Rivers.” Rebekah’s brother is called “Laban the Aramean,” so the repeated use of Aram and Aramean likely gives intentional weight to Abraham’s family’s background as Arameans.
God tells Rebekah that her twin sons Jacob and Esau are two nations, but we do not learn the location of their birth.
During a famine, Isaac travels to Gerar where God forbids him from going to Egypt for help and tells him instead to rely on God’s provision. After an episode recalling Abraham’s in which he lies about and uses his wife in attempt to gain favor with Abimelech, like Abraham, God blesses Isaac despite his bad behavior. He becomes an annoyance to the people in the land because of his success and the resources all his cattle are consuming, so he moves progressively farther from Gerar until he and Abimelech can resolve the conflict, allowing him to settle peacefully at Beersheba.
The account of Isaac’s sons’ birth does not mention a location. Jacob’s ruse to steal the blessing Isaac intended for Esau likely took place at Beersheba because Jacob flees from there to meet Rebekah’s family. At this point, the focus shifts to Jacob’s story. Isaac and Rebekah’s experience is a mystery. Jacob returns to Isaac in Mamre outside the city of Kiriath Arba also known as Hebron. Jacob and Esau bury him there with Rebekah in the cave where his father and mother are buried.
Regarding Ishmael’s family, Genesis 25 tells us “His descendants settled from Havilah to Shur, which runs next to Egypt all the way to Asshur.” Interestingly, these boundaries are similar to those given to Abraham for Canaan. They reach from the northern Sinai peninsula to the vicinity of Nineveh in the northeast, between the Tigris and Euphrates. The location of Havilah is not known. Ishmael’s descendants’ territory stretches from a little west of Abraham’s promised land toward Egypt in Shur to the vicinity of the Tigris River, northeast of the apparent north border of the promised land - from Shur to Asshur. In Genesis 16 and 17, God says to Abraham that Ishmael will live away from his brothers and “I will indeed bless him, make him fruitful, and give him a multitude of descendants. He will become the father of twelve princes; I will make him into a great nation.” (Genesis 17:20, NET) The scope of his descendants’ territory is the fulfillment of God’s promise to Ishmael’s father.
The locations in Isaac’s story tell a subtle story of their own. Early in his life, he lives with Abraham, but following his near-sacrifice on Mount Moriah, he disappears from Abraham’s story until after his mother Sarah’s death. We next find him near Beer Lahai Roi, where Hagar fled with Ishmael after Sarah ordered them away from her family. Was he seeking God in the wilderness after nearly being sacrificed? Was he running away from his family as Hagar did? Was he in a kind of exile that prefigures future events? It’s difficult to know. Much of Isaac’s story is an enigma. We know with specificity where he was nearly sacrificed and later that he re-opened his father’s wells after the Philistines filled them in, finally settling at Beersheba. When his son Jacob returns, years after fleeing his Esau’s wrath, Isaac is in Kiriath Arba, and his wife is not mentioned. Finally, Jacob and Esau bury him in the cave of Machpelah with his mother and father.