The Story Through the Bible Gen 26
The Story through the Bible • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Here we truly pick up Isaac’s story.
Here we truly pick up Isaac’s story.
We’re immediately however reminded of Abraham’s story in Gen 12. There is famine - now Abraham went down to Egypt when that happened. We also see Abimelech again which was in Abraham’s Gen 20 story. We find that Isaac is specifically told NOT to do the same thing Abraham did. Well lets just read the story here.
Now there was a famine in the land, besides the former famine that was in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went to Gerar to Abimelech king of the Philistines. And the Lord appeared to him and said, “Do not go down to Egypt; dwell in the land of which I shall tell you. Sojourn in this land, and I will be with you and will bless you, for to you and to your offspring I will give all these lands, and I will establish the oath that I swore to Abraham your father. I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and will give to your offspring all these lands. And in your offspring all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.”
So we get very obviously reminded of the stories we’ve read before as well as the explicit re-affirmation of the promises given to Abraham that they will be promises for Isaac as well. God is reminding him where he came from (which reminds you of how God provided) and affirms the promises of God.
Isaac obeys this settling down in the area but he’s still essentially a foreigner. When asked about Rebekah Isaac pulls the same move his dad did saying that she’s a sister but for Isaac, unlike Abraham that’s a lie. Then they’re caught we read
When he had been there a long time, Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out of a window and saw Isaac laughing with Rebekah his wife. So Abimelech called Isaac and said, “Behold, she is your wife. How then could you say, ‘She is my sister’?” Isaac said to him, “Because I thought, ‘Lest I die because of her.’ ” Abimelech said, “What is this you have done to us? One of the people might easily have lain with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us.” So Abimelech warned all the people, saying, “Whoever touches this man or his wife shall surely be put to death.”
ESV differs from most of the other common translations here when it uses “laughing” where many of the other translations like NIV, NASB, HCSB, NET, LSB use the word ‘caressing’ KJV uses the term ‘sporting’ or NKJV is “showing endearment” but ESV catches something. Remember when we talked about the name of Isaac meaning laughter? Well here in the hebrew it’s essentially saying Isaac is Isaacing with Rebekah. There is a play on words here. So laughter is correct in it’s direct meaning most of the time. Words don’t ever just mean one thing though, and from the context they’re not merely laughing at knock knock jokes. They’re playing with each other in a way a man would with no one else but his wife.
Unlike prior times with Abraham in a similar situation this is discovered prior to a plague or a disturbing dream and everyone is warned not to mess with Isaac’s wife.
And Isaac sowed in that land and reaped in the same year a hundredfold. The Lord blessed him, and the man became rich, and gained more and more until he became very wealthy. He had possessions of flocks and herds and many servants, so that the Philistines envied him. (Now the Philistines had stopped and filled with earth all the wells that his father’s servants had dug in the days of Abraham his father.) And Abimelech said to Isaac, “Go away from us, for you are much mightier than we.”
Things are going well for Isaac, too well in fact. The implied part here is the Philistines are jealous or upset at his prosperity so they sabotage him by stopping up and filling in the wells that were rightfully his, that his father had dug up. He then is asked to leave by King Abimelech. He immediately goes elsewhere but not all that far. He re-digs the wells of his father in the land of the Philistines and re-names them the same name Abraham had given. Then when he starts digging wells in the valley he had moved to not far away and still in Gerar problems started. Twice this happens. Then we see in vs 22
And he moved from there and dug another well, and they did not quarrel over it. So he called its name Rehoboth, saying, “For now the Lord has made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land.”
Sometimes when that opposition is hitting we just have to move on. There will be a place where there isn’t opposition. God’s plans are for Isaac’s prospering and growing mightily, not for becoming a warlord that will conquer the land. So Isaac moves and the opposition to him ends.
From there he went up to Beersheba. And the Lord appeared to him the same night and said, “I am the God of Abraham your father. Fear not, for I am with you and will bless you and multiply your offspring for my servant Abraham’s sake.” So he built an altar there and called upon the name of the Lord and pitched his tent there. And there Isaac’s servants dug a well.
God again confirms his promise and plan and Isaac responds in worship. This place is the same place that Abraham made a treaty with Abimelech and Phicol. I also want to point out now the parallels between Philistines and Lot. Abraham and Lot’s herdsmen also fought over land and water availability and Abraham let Lot pick the territory and took what was left. The grace of Abraham to not demand what was his by promise of God is a credit to him but also a picture of his reliance on God. It didn’t matter where Abraham ended up because God’s plans would be accomplished. Likewise Isaac sees this tension and moves on. God has already promised blessings, Isaac isn’t fighting to make those things happen, he’s living in blessing as he trusts on the Lord.
When Abimelech went to him from Gerar with Ahuzzath his adviser and Phicol the commander of his army, Isaac said to them, “Why have you come to me, seeing that you hate me and have sent me away from you?” They said, “We see plainly that the Lord has been with you. So we said, let there be a sworn pact between us, between you and us, and let us make a covenant with you, that you will do us no harm, just as we have not touched you and have done to you nothing but good and have sent you away in peace. You are now the blessed of the Lord.” So he made them a feast, and they ate and drank. In the morning they rose early and exchanged oaths. And Isaac sent them on their way, and they departed from him in peace. That same day Isaac’s servants came and told him about the well that they had dug and said to him, “We have found water.” He called it Shibah; therefore the name of the city is Beersheba to this day.
So like Abraham before him Isaac also makes a covenant between himself and Abimelech at Beersheba.
