Room to Flourish

Two weeks ago, we began Part 3 of our study of Genesis which is all about “the generations of Isaac, Abraham’s son” (Gen 25:19). That means that these chapters we are studying now are mostly about the life of Isaac’s son, Jacob. Isaac himself is not the central character of these chapters, except for in this chapter before us today.

Here we find Isaac and Rebekah travelling to Gerar and settling there to escape a famine. There is no hint that they have twin boys with them; in fact, if they did have a couple of children, even adult children, it is unlikely that the relationship between the two of them could have been unknown to the local people.[1] Genesis 26 seems to be out of chronological order, coming as it does after we’ve been told about the births and even early adult lives of Isaac’s twin boys.

The effect is something of an interruption to the Jacob story that we have just begun. There are at least two more interruptions like this that come later, in Genesis 34 and 38. Genesis 38, in fact, has many similarities with the present chapter in the way the interruption comes. Just after we get introduced to the Joseph story in Genesis 37 and he is sold by his brothers as a slave to the Midianites, we come to Genesis 38 which says nothing about Joseph before picking up his story again in chapter 39.

In other words, these kinds of interruptions seem to be intentional to how the book of Genesis is put together. One commentator says these interludes provide a “symmetrical design” to the narrative.[2] We get the sense that the stories are not presented here simply to “report the facts” but to also engage us in the theological emphases that are being brought out in them.

Of course, the narrator doesn’t usually come right out and tell us what theological points we are supposed to see. But what he does here in this chapter is tell us a narrative in the life of Isaac that in some way is meant to summarize his life and give the original audience of Genesis as well as us today something that we are supposed to take away from it.

My take away for us today is this: Those who inherit the promises of Abraham have a responsibility to live under its terms in order for those promises to flourish out into the world.

These verses can be analyzed in three sections. Verses 1-6 reiterate the blessing of Abraham that is now passed on to Isaac, the blessing which is meant to be the hope of the nations of the world. Verses 7-17 demonstrate Isaac’s act of fear and the frustration it brought to the nations. Then, verses 18-33 show him being faithful to God and finding peace with the nations.

The Hope of the Nations

First, the chapter begins by telling us about a famine in the land that caused Isaac and Rebekah to travel looking for relief. They arrive in Gerar and the LORD appeared to Isaac, giving him instructions as well as reiterating promises that were originally given to Abraham. And those promises, let’s once more remind ourselves, are meant to be the hope of the nations. The blessings are not just to go to Abraham, but also through Abraham to the whole world.

“Do Not Go Down to Egypt”

The “famine in the land,” we are told, is yet another famine distinct from the one “in the days of Abraham,” which we read about in Genesis 12, right after God called Abraham to leave his homeland and go “to the land that I will show you” (Gen 12:1). On that occasion, Abraham had gone to Egypt to escape the famine. Isaac, it seems, is on his way there as well, but God appeared to him and told him not to go there. Instead, Isaac was to stay right there where he was and “sojourn” in the land of the Philistines. Verse 6 tells us that Isaac obeyed the direction and “settled in Gerar.”

It is in that context of command and obedience that Isaac also receives the same promises that Abraham received at the beginning of his story in Genesis 12. It seems as though the narrator of Genesis wants us to see Isaac very much like we saw Abraham in the previous section of the book. Just as God gave Abraham travelling instructions and also gave him his great promises, so he is also doing with Isaac. Those great promises continue to be at the heart of what the book of Genesis (and the whole Bible) is all about. We do well to remember that.

The Promises Made to Isaac

So, let’s look at these promises, in verses 3-4. To Isaac, God promises that he will 1) “be with you,” 2) “bless you,” 3) give to him and his offspring “all these lands,” 4) “establish the oath” that he had made with Abraham, 5) “multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven,” and again, 6) “give to your offspring all these lands.” 7) Finally, God promises Isaac that “in your offspring all the nations of the earth shall be blessed.”

You can see how similar these promises are to the ones made to Abraham throughout his life, most recently in Genesis 22:17-18, right after the near-sacrifice of Isaac in the land of Moriah.

But there are a few new things seen here.[3] This is the first time that God has explicitly promised to “be with” someone. It also seems to emphasize not just that Isaac’s descendants will inherit the lands but he will get that inheritance himself. And “all these lands” may suggest that the land gift will include territory beyond the boundaries of Canaan. If anything, the promises are being enlarged and expanded. The God of Abraham is also the God of Isaac. Same God, same promises, but the promises are even greater than before.

These are the promises that command a central place in our understanding of the biblical message. These are the promises that are, quite literally, the hope of the world. As we are reminded here once again at the end of verse 4, it is in these promises that “all the nations of the earth shall be blessed.” We the people of the world will find our salvation in the fulfillment of these promises.

Because Abraham Obeyed

We should really have a grip on this by now. It has been repeated so many times in the story of Abraham and here we see it again as we begin this next section in Genesis. This is the plan of salvation that God has revealed—notice that this “plan of salvation” is not about how to get to heaven.

This “salvation” comes as a result of God fulfilling his promise, yes? At the same time, we find here another instance in which the fulfillment of the promise is in some way tied to human agency, because you see there in verse 5 that God can reaffirm to Isaac the promise he made to Abraham “because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.”

Theologians often like to discuss whether the great promises of God like the one made to Abraham is conditional or unconditional. The viewpoint one holds on this often determines whether one thinks the Bible teaches that national Israel must still receive the land promises or if that aspect of the promise has been forfeited by their disobedience. It is best not to frame the debate in this either/or way, since God’s covenants contain a blend of conditional and unconditional elements which creates “a deliberate tension” in the biblical story which finds its resolution only in Jesus.[4]

Clearly, Abraham’s obedience to God has something to do with the fulfillment of God’s promise, as verse 5 makes plain. The effort to ensure that we do not preach salvation by works must not become the opposite heresy of preaching salvation that does not bring about what Paul calls “the obedience of faith.”

Perhaps we can set out today by making this one point: Isaac receives these promises because of the obedience of another. In the obedience of Abraham he has become blessed. We, too, find our blessing in the obedience of another.

But now the story turns to Isaac and the expectation that he will show the same kind of obedience of faith. God has issued him a command here in verse 2 which sounds a lot like the command Abraham received at the beginning of his story, to go and dwell in the land that God will show him (Gen 12:2; 26:2). Isaac is called to imitate his father’s faith.

And that he does. Almost too well.

The Frustration of the Nations

We see in verses 7-17 a story about how things went for Isaac as he settled there in Gerar, as God had commanded him to do. Having received the promises of Abraham, and obeying God’s direction to live here in the midst of the Philistines, we might expect the story to move in a positive direction. But that’s not what we find.

Like Father, Like Son

Instead, we find Isaac afraid for his safety. “When the men of the place asked him about his wife, he said, ‘She is my sister,’ for he feared to say, ‘My wife,’ thinking, ‘lest the men of the place should kill me because of Rebekah,’ because she was attractive in appearance” (v. 6). This, of course, sounds familiar, doesn’t it? On two different occasions we are told of Abraham using the same deception (Gen 12:13; 20:2). What Isaac does here is what his father had done before him.

Now what are we to make of this? What point is being made by telling us about Isaac acting in very similar ways to how his father acted?

There can be no doubt that “a conscious effort is being made to compare the career of Isaac with that of his father Abraham.”[5] The comparisons stand out throughout the whole chapter, in the blessings mentioned in the first 5 verses, in the details of this story here about the patriarch’s relationship with his wife, and even in the last verses about the digging of wells and controversy about those wells (see Genesis 21:25-34). In fact, Abraham is explicitly mentioned just 15 times after this chapter in the rest of Genesis, but he is mentioned by name 8 times in this chapter alone. One point being made is that Isaac is going down the same path his father walked. Like father, like son.

Isaac’s Laughter

Of course, we can also spot some of the differences in this account with the ones we read about in Abraham’s life. One of the differences here is the way in which Isaac’s lie about his relationship with his wife was discovered. Abraham’s lie about Rachel in Egypt was discovered when God afflicted Pharaoh and his house with severe plagues (Gen 12:17-18), and in Gerar God appeared to the king in a dream and told him what was going on (Gen 20:3). But here, the trickery is discovered when the king “looked out of a window and saw Isaac laughing with Rebekah his wife” (Gen 26:8).

Laughing with her? The ESV note says, “Hebrew may suggest an intimate relationship.” You think? Many English translations say he saw Isaac “caressing” her, which is probably too much of an interpretive translation. But let’s just say that whatever the king saw going on between Isaac and Rebekah, it was enough to make it plain that they were not siblings.

The narrator has used this verb here not simply to be PG about the whole thing, but rather to emphasize his point. The verb is from the same root as the name Isaac, which is why the ESV has translated it the way it has. “To laugh” is the primary meaning of the word and is something of a theme for Isaac’s entire life.[6] Here, Isaac is Isaac-ing with his wife, which of course it is entirely appropriate for him to do.

The Envy of the Nations

So here we have Isaac just being himself with the woman who is his wife, and that’s what exposes the lie. Abimelech, the king of Gerar, rebukes Isaac for not being true to his identity and thus putting him and his people in danger (v. 10).

Isaac’s fears were unfounded; he did not die because this beautiful woman with him was his wife. His lie exposed, he can go on being himself, and verses 12-13 show that he was blessed by God and became very wealthy. This blessing from God was envied by the Philistines—not the kind of envy that motivates but the kind of envy that separates. Abimelech drives Isaac away from them in verse 16. His stay in Gerar, in obedience to God’s directions, resulted in his prosperity, but not in blessing to the nations as God had promised. Why? Is it not because of Isaac’s lie? Isaac is the chosen son of Abraham. God is going to bless him, as he promised. But in order for those blessings to come not just to Isaac but also through Isaac to the nations, Isaac would need to be true to his God and not resort to deceitful schemes that would only bring frustration between him and the nations around him.

What if the church, the people of God today, took this message to heart? What if we decided to let go of the fear of how the world around us will treat us and went on with just being who we are? Perhaps the world would not be so frustrated with us.

It is no surprise, of course, when the world hates us or we experience open hostility; Jesus told us such things would happen. But responding to such things in fear means essentially responding in kind, hating those who hate us, retaliating in the name of justice to get back what it is our right to have. All of a sudden, laughter is gone and “we become,” Dallas Willard observed, “insufferably grim.” No wonder the world sees no hope in us. We need our identity back, we need our laughter back, not just for our own souls but for all our relationships. Willard remarked that “genuine shared laughter is one of the surest ways for human beings to come together and break the stalemates of life.”[7]

What if we had the reputation of always being ourselves, true to our identity in Christ, secure in his love? Gone would be the fear that drives us to deceitful schemes. Present would be the laughter of pure joy—the joy of knowing that God’s salvation was our inheritance. And just perhaps we’d see something of what Proverbs 16:7 envisions: “When a man’s ways please the Lord, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.”

Peace with the Nations

And that is exactly what we see in the rest of this story in Genesis 26. In verse 16, Abimelech drives Isaac away. But by the time we get to the end of the chapter, Abimelech and Isaac have made peace with each other. What happened? How did Isaac end up at peace with the nation around him? Let’s see.

Digging Wells

As his father before him had done, Isaac started digging wells as he sought to set up his house in the Valley of Gerar, somewhere outside the city where he had been driven out. We are told in verses 19-20 that the discovery of water was the occasion for Isaac and the herdsmen of Gerar to get into a quarrel about who had the water rights. Isaac named that well Esek, a name which means “contention.”

But notice what Isaac and his servants did. “Then they dug another well” (v. 21). Instead of fighting over the well-rights, Isaac and his servants looked for water elsewhere. It reminds us of Abraham’s response to Lot when they were in a quarrel, back in Genesis 13. Remember how Abraham gave Lot the first pick of the land, saying he would take the part that Lot did not choose for himself (Gen 13:8-9)? So Isaac does something similar here. Rather than feuding with the herdsmen of Gerar, he just dug another well.

But then they got into a quarrel about that well, too. Isaac named this well “Sitnah,” a name which means adversary or opponent (it comes from the Hebrew word satan). Quarrels, those kinds of nasty arguments that agitate us toward an adversarial relationship, are no doubt one of the greatest schemes of the evil one.

Isaac does not engage. Verse 22 says, “He moved from there and dug another well.” And this time, there was no quarrel.

Arriving at Rehoboth

So he called the name of this well “Rehoboth,” a word which refers to a wide and open space. Isaac’s comment in verse 22 is important: “For now the LORD has made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land.”

It seems things are now back on track, because in the next couple of verses God appears to Isaac and once more reassures him that the Abrahamic promise is his inheritance. Isaac responds in genuine worship (v. 25). Oh, and “Isaac’s servants dug (yet another) well.”

That’s when Abimelech returns to Isaac, seeking to make a covenant with him, as he had done with Abraham back in chapter 21. Isaac is suspicious (v. 27), since the last time he encountered Abimelech, Abimelech had driven him away from him. What has changed?

Notice Abimelech’s response in verse 28. “We see plainly that the LORD has been with you.” Oh, that such a thing would be said by the nations of the world about the church of Jesus today! Tim Keller used to say that every local church’s motivation ought to be that the community around them would say, “Even if we don’t agree with everything they believe, we sure are glad they are here.”

Is that not what the blessing of Abraham is supposed to look like? When the people of God let God make room for them, the fruitfulness they experience is not just their own prosperity but also the peace that comes to everyone else around them. After a great feast, “Isaac sent them on their way, and they departed from him in peace” (v. 31).

There are no doubt so many applications of this truth to our individual lives and experiences today. But I trust we can see in this story the truth that those who inherit the promises of Abraham have a responsibility to live under its terms in order for those promises to flourish out into the world.

That is what God intends for his promises to us to do. Let us pray for the courage to trust him and live in our identity as his people. The world will thank us for doing so.

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[1] As pointed out by Gordon J. Wenham (Genesis 16–50, Word Biblical Commentary, vol. 2, ed Bruce M. Metzger, David A. Hubbard, and Glenn W. Barker [Dallas: Word Books, 1994], 185-186.

[2] Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis: Chapters 18–50, The New International Commentary on the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1995), 190.

[3] The following are noted by Wenham, Genesis 16–50, 189.

[4] Peter John Gentry and Stephen J. Wellum, Kingdom through Covenant: A Biblical-Theological Understanding of the Covenants, Second Edition (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2018), 663-64. Emphasis original.

[5] Wenham, Genesis 16–50, 187.

[6] Robert Alter, Genesis: Translation and Commentary (New York: W.W. Norton, 1997), 133.

[7] Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1998), 238.