Beersheba
Notes
Transcript
Call to Worship
Call to Worship
A Psalm.
Oh, sing to the Lord a new song!
For He has done marvelous things;
His right hand and His holy arm have gained Him the victory.
The Lord has made known His salvation;
His righteousness He has revealed in the sight of the nations.
He has remembered His mercy and His faithfulness to the house of Israel;
All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.
Shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth;
Break forth in song, rejoice, and sing praises.
Sing to the Lord with the harp,
With the harp and the sound of a psalm,
With trumpets and the sound of a horn;
Shout joyfully before the Lord, the King.
Let the sea roar, and all its fullness,
The world and those who dwell in it;
Let the rivers clap their hands;
Let the hills be joyful together before the Lord,
For He is coming to judge the earth.
With righteousness He shall judge the world,
And the peoples with equity.
Intro
Intro
Last week, we saw the promised son Isaac was born.
Sarah laughed with Joy
Isaac was circumcised.
and then we skip forward several years to Isaac’s weaning and a party is thrown to celebrate Isaac officially becoming Abraham’s heir.
Ishmael, Isaac’s older half-brother by 14 years, mocks the young boy
Sarah gets offended and demands that Ishmael and his Egyptian mother Hagar are removed from the household
Abraham is upset, but God tells Abraham to listen to his wife.
So he send the woman and the lad on their way
They’re in the wilderness, about to die
But then God appears to Hagar, reassures her that her son will live and become a mighty people
We then concluded seeing that God would be with the boy.
Our primary takeaway from last week was that God keeps his promises of blessings even when it seems like it’s not going to happen.
God had already promised to bless Ishmael because he was a son of Abraham.
Even though it looked like Ishmael was going to die in the wilderness, God was going to keep his promise.
For us, we are sons and daughters of Abraham.
God has given us certain promises.
But even though things might look really bad in our life right now, we need to hold on to his promises.
Today, before we move on to the next portion of this Chapter, I wanted to point out something that I didn’t address last week.
Nations are of God’s making
He founds them
He forms them
He fixes them, places them
Many are full of the blessings of God’s Providence that are strangers to the blessings of his Covenant.
If you look forward in your Bible to the point where Abraham dies, you will see that his son Ishmael comes to join his half-brother Isaac in mourning their father’s death.
God was with Ishmael, the text says.
I find no reason to not believe that Ishmael was a believer in the true God and we will see him in Paradise.
His children and the nations that came from him?
not so much.
But his children might not have been blessed spiritually to follow the true God, but they were blessed temporally and became nations.
This ties into what I pointed out earlier, specifically when discussing the sons of Noah and their descendants.
the Prophecies given to Japeth about enlarging and filling the tents of Shem
Some of those blessings were temporal and came before Christianity.
It’s ok to recognize that some nations are more blessed physically, even if that doesn’t coincide with the spiritual blessings that come with salvation and true worship.
Many godless nations experienced massive temporal blessings with technology, economy, empire.
A modern example would be Israel.
They reject God, but if they do claim to be religious, worship a god that they can trick with loopholes
But at the same time, they are experiencing many temporal blessings.
We see from last week’s text that physical blessings of a people don’t always coincide with spiritual blessings.
Matthew Henry: The children of this world often fare the better, as to outward things, for their relation to the children of God.
And we will see this play out a bit in today’s text.
Body
Body
And it came to pass at that time that Abimelech and Phichol, the commander of his army, spoke to Abraham, saying, “God is with you in all that you do. Now therefore, swear to me by God that you will not deal falsely with me, with my offspring, or with my posterity; but that according to the kindness that I have done to you, you will do to me and to the land in which you have dwelt.”
And Abraham said, “I will swear.”
Then Abraham rebuked Abimelech because of a well of water which Abimelech’s servants had seized. And Abimelech said, “I do not know who has done this thing; you did not tell me, nor had I heard of it until today.” So Abraham took sheep and oxen and gave them to Abimelech, and the two of them made a covenant. And Abraham set seven ewe lambs of the flock by themselves.
Then Abimelech asked Abraham, “What is the meaning of these seven ewe lambs which you have set by themselves?”
And he said, “You will take these seven ewe lambs from my hand, that they may be my witness that I have dug this well.” Therefore he called that place Beersheba, because the two of them swore an oath there.
Thus they made a covenant at Beersheba. So Abimelech rose with Phichol, the commander of his army, and they returned to the land of the Philistines.
In this text, we once again encounter the character Abimelech.
Abimelech was a main figure in the previous chapter
The King of Gerar of the Philistines
Abraham and Sarah lied about their relationship saying they were brother and sister
Abimelech took Sarah to be his wife
God came to Abimelech in a dream, warning him of his grave sin and preventing him from defiling Sarah
Abimelech restores Sarah to Abraham
Abraham, as God’s prophet, prays for Abimelech’s household to heal,
God restores the health to his household and they start conceiving again.
Oh yeah, God rebukes Abraham through Abimelech in there as well.
So Abimelech with his Army Commander comes to Abraham to make a treaty
He recognizes that God is with Abraham and that he is being blessed.
They want to share in that blessing, they want to ally with Abraham.
They can see that if things keep continuing, that Abraham will become more mighty than them, so this is good diplomacy at play.
Remember, Abraham is still a stranger in this land, yet his name is being honored, fulfilling the promises of Genesis 12:2 “I will make you a great nation; I will bless you And make your name great; And you shall be a blessing.”
The blessings that come from following God will eventually manifest to the people around you
People will want to partner with you in some way.
Even unbelievers
Now you might think of the verse about being unequally yoked from 2 Corinthians and think there is a contradiction:
Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said:
“I will dwell in them
And walk among them.
I will be their God,
And they shall be My people.”
Therefore
“Come out from among them
And be separate, says the Lord.
Do not touch what is unclean,
And I will receive you.”
“I will be a Father to you,
and you shall be My sons and daughters,
says the Lord Almighty.”
Should you have an agreement or partnership with someone who is an unbeliever?
well, it depends on the nature of that partnership.
Are you the head of state negotiating peace with another nation? Then yes.
As far as you and the unbeliever can agree to the goal, you can partner to pursue that goal.
Do you enter into marriage with an unbeliever? Obviously, no.
Your Goal and mission in marriage is to glorify God
An unbeliever cannot have the same goal, so you cannot partner in this way.
What about friendship or a business venture?
As long as your goals in that endeavor can be agreed upon by the unbeliever.
What kind of business? What kind of morality or ethics might be involved.
What kind of character does the person you are partnering with have.
What are the implications if the person does not hold up their end of the agreement?
Politics is something we’ve discussed that applies to this.
Last year before the elections, I mentioned that it is ok to vote for someone who has questionable morals.
It’s not ideal, but in politics, very rarely do we get ideals
Politics is not about blueprinting utopia, but about constantly and perpetually choosing between alternatives.
So Abraham agrees to the conditions of treating each other and their ancestors well
Genesis 21:23 “Now therefore, swear to me by God that you will not deal falsely with me, with my offspring, or with my posterity; but that according to the kindness that I have done to you, you will do to me and to the land in which you have dwelt.””
The same kindness Abimelech showed to Abraham (think about how Abraham deceived him with Sarah as his sister),
Abraham should show the same kindness to Abimelech and to the land that he is now dwelling in.
Abraham says “I swear” and then immediately rebukes Abimelech for his men stealing a well from Abraham.
Abraham had a genuine offense, but being a stranger and guest in the land, was not going to bring it up to his host.
However, if Abimelech was wanting a life long treaty between them, this was going to need to be resolved in order to have true peace.
Abraham provides an example for us of how Matthew 18:15 looks outside
Abimelech, in a sense, is wanting to be brothers with Abraham.
For that to happen, they have to be able to resolve conflict as brothers.
So Abraham brings to light the offense over the well.
Abimelech confesses his ignorance of the matter and his innocence in his own heart.
To show his intent in keeping the covenant and to return kindness to Abimelech, Abraham gives him a gift of sheep and oxen.
Additionally, Since Abimelech knew nothing of the dispute, Abraham gifts him seven ewe lambs to establish his right as owner of the well.
Abraham names this place Beersheba
The well of the oath.
It’s easy to make a claim.
But when you’re willing to make a sacrifice of personal cost to support that claim, it adds to the credibility.
Something else I would like to point out.
An interesting side note that interacts with later events, but doesn’t really change what we covered here today.
In the Septuagint, there is an additional character mentioned that comes with Abimelech
Ochozath his friend
Now that alone isn’t too interesting, but if you look at the greek word translated “Friend” it means “wife-bringer”
“wife-bringer” likely refers to an important near-eastern official who was involved with diplomatic relations, including arranging marriages between nations to strengthen alliances.
So some just think he came along for the journey as part of this important meeting because of his position.
It makes me wonder if there was more to this treaty by Abimelech.
Isaac, the heir to Abraham had just been weaned previous to this encounter.
It makes me think that Abimelech was also intending to set up a marriage between Abraham’s heir and one of his own daughters, to bind these to nations together.
This is a bit of speculation on my part.
I do believe the Septuagint is likely more trustworthy than the masoretic text, so this character should be included in our Bibles,
But the connection with arranging a marriage with Isaac is not directly stated in the text.
But if you remember what happens in a couple chapters, Abraham insists on his own servant, performing a bride-bringer role, in going back to their own people to find a bride for Isaac.
He ends up bringing back Rebekah from the city of Abraham’s brother Nahor.
Then Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba, and there called on the name of the Lord, the Everlasting God. And Abraham stayed in the land of the Philistines many days.
This place, Beersheba, becomes one of the homes of Abraham, Isaac, and their descendants.
It seems like the nature of their vocation as herders of cattle and sheep causes them to live a nomadic life.
But Beersheba becomes one of the main settlements, in addition to Mamre (or Hebron) further to the north.
Also interesting that in the Septuagint, it says Abraham planted a field, not a specific tree or bush.
If you look into the Hebrew, no one actually knows what the word translated “tamarisk tree” means.
It was just Rabbis, hundreds of years after Christ interpreting it to mean a certain tree.
So I definitely think the proper translation should be field.
Again, this doesn’t really change the application of what is written, but it should give pause as to why English translators were so willing to trust the interpretation of people whose religious existence was based on their rejection of Jesus Christ.
Conclusion/Application
Conclusion/Application
These men, these heads of state.
There were witnesses, yes, but there were no lawyers.
Abraham named that place Beersheba in memorial.
He planted a field there, he established a settlement there, and lived there in that place of the oath.
And in that place, he called on the name of the Lord, the everlasting God.
Abraham’s word was binding, as should ours.
One of the things about our current time, living in the year 2025, is that you can’t trust what anyone says.
Politicians lie
Think of the Covid scamdemic: government officials, doctors, celebrities: countless people lied to you and nothing of consequence has happened to them because of their lies.
Lawyers figure out ways to “technically” not lie, but with all the confusing legalese, the effect is that they might as well just be lying to you.
And in our every day life, nobody trusts someone at their word.
from facebook marketplace
time in ministry, people asking for money, always promised to pay back.
Even something as insignificant as kids’ sports.
parents sign up and pay
but don’t bother to bring their kid to practice and games and probably don’t communicate either
likely because they signed their kid up for a dozen other activities and there is no way to be able to do all
but it’s just rude.
As Christians, we need to be men and women of our word.
Not even talking about big legal commitments, but just in our every day life.
If someone asks if you can do something, you do it.
to your own detriment.
Too often, we over commit and under deliver.
Many people, Christians included, don’t want to be mean, so we don’t say no.
We’ll say sure, or I’ll try, even if we have no intention of even considering it.
Numbers 30:1–2 “Then Moses spoke to the heads of the tribes concerning the children of Israel, saying, “This is the thing which the Lord has commanded: If a man makes a vow to the Lord, or swears an oath to bind himself by some agreement, he shall not break his word; he shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth.”
