Genesis 26--Like Father, Like Son

​God's Promise to Isaac

26 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. 2 And the Lord appeared to him and said, “Do not go down to Egypt; dwell in the land of which I shall tell you. 3 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. 4 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, 5 because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.”

Isaac and Abimelech
6 So Isaac settled in Gerar. 7 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. 8 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. 9 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.’” 10 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.” 11 So Abimelech warned all the people, saying, “Whoever touches this man or his wife shall surely be put to death.”

12 And Isaac sowed in that land and reaped in the same year a hundredfold. The Lord blessed him, 13 and the man became rich, and gained more and more until he became very wealthy. 14 He had possessions of flocks and herds and many servants, so that the Philistines envied him. 15 (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.) 16 And Abimelech said to Isaac, “Go away from us, for you are much mightier than we.”

17 So Isaac departed from there and encamped in the Valley of Gerar and settled there. 18 And Isaac dug again the wells of water that had been dug in the days of Abraham his father, which the Philistines had stopped after the death of Abraham. And he gave them the names that his father had given them. 19 But when Isaac's servants dug in the valley and found there a well of spring water, 20 the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with Isaac's herdsmen, saying, “The water is ours.” So he called the name of the well Esek, because they contended with him. 21 Then they dug another well, and they quarreled over that also, so he called its name Sitnah. 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.”

23 From there he went up to Beersheba. 24 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.” 25 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.

26 When Abimelech went to him from Gerar with Ahuzzath his adviser and Phicol the commander of his army, 27 Isaac said to them, “Why have you come to me, seeing that you hate me and have sent me away from you?” 28 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, 29 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.” 30 So he made them a feast, and they ate and drank. 31 In the morning they rose early and exchanged oaths. And Isaac sent them on their way, and they departed from him in peace. 32 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.” 33 He called it Shibah; therefore the name of the city is Beersheba to this day.

​34 When Esau was forty years old, he took Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite to be his wife, and Basemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite, 35 and they made life bitter for Isaac and Rebekah.

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You might think this a strange title at first for today's blog, but as you read through the passage, see how Isaac is reacting in exactly the same ways to the same kinds of situations that his father Abraham did (and we will again see Jacob reacting in the same way again later in Genesis).

Whenever famine arose in the land and it got difficult to be a shepherd due to lack of food and water, the patriarchs started to head for Egypt because the Nile River was the largest known river at the time (and possibly still is today, but there is debate about if it or the Amazon River is larger), and the Nile River Valley was fertile and lush and brought life to the desert areas around it.  It would make sense to head for the largest fresh water source in the known world when there was drought and famine in the land of Canaan.  God intervenes though and tells Isaac not to go to Egypt, but to have faith and stay in the land that belongs to him according to the covenant that God had given to Abraham and now is his.  God would show Isaac where to go and would be responsible for keeping him safe.  All he needed to do was trust and obey.

Isaac does end up going south toward the land of the Philastines and we see another repeat of a scene from the life of Abraham.  Isaac also lies to the Philistines about Rebekah being his wife and says that she is his sister (this is not even a "half-truth" like it was with Abram because they are some kind of cousins).  The men are perceptive enough to know when they see Isaac and Rebekah flirting with each other that they are married to each other, and this is not the first time Abimelech and his men have seen this, nor is it the first time that God will have to use the Philistine leader to correct the lying tongue of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

God does not bring a plague on Abimelech or his men as it seems like they have learned their lesson about taking other women into their harems after the incident with Sarai when God nearly destroyed them for her sake.  Instead the treaty with Abraham's household seems to be renewed and Isaac and Rebekah are given protection by Abimelech and God blessed the work of Isaac as he sowed seed in the desert land of the Negev desert and it yielded a crop that was one-hundredfold what he had sown.  Isaace became wealthy and acquired many possessions such as flocks herds and servants.

Remember those wells that had been dug by Abram while he was in the Negev and that the Philistines made covenant to always respect as belonging to Abram and his family and to treat with respect and to treat them as boundaries between the two peoples?  It appear that the green-eyed monsters of jealousy and envy, and possibly even greed, got the best of the Philistines and they filled up the wells with dirt so that they could not be used (or would have to be dug again at some point) and told Isaac and his herds and flocks and servants that they were no longer welcome in the land of the Philistines because they had become too large and powerful and the two nations could no longer co-exist.  The peace treaty was broken.

Isaac moved away from the Philistine camp, but did not leave the area and dug again all the wells that his father Abraham had dug so as to reclaim that land and restore the original boundaries.  He also gave the original names to the wells that Abraham had given to them and in so do remembered and recounted the things that God had done for Abraham at each and every one of those locations because each well's name that we've seen so far seemed to be a memorial for God's provision and to remember his character, nature, and covenant.

Isaac's men even started to dig new wells and found a fresh spring of water, but the herdsmen of the area fought with Isaac claiming territorial rights to the land and any water that was on or under it, even though they had not found the spring that was the source of the well or done any work to dig the well.  That well was called Esek, meaning "contention."  From there he went on and dug another well where there was no contention and it was called Rehoboth meaning "spaces" or "places" and having the meaning that the Lord had made a place for them and given them a space to grow and be fruitful and multiply according to His covenant.

From there, Isaac went back towards the land of Canaan to Beersheba (remember this is the "well of the oath" that the Philistines tried to take from Abraham in the past that they made a covenant that it would always belong to Abraham and his descendants).  It was here that God appeared to Issac and renewed his covenant (His oath in a sense) to Isaac and he was promised safety, blessing, and descendants for the sake of Abraham and the covenant that God cut with him.  They made camp there and Isaac dug again the well there at Beersheba.

The Philistines see how God has continued to bless Isaac and rethink the stupidity of sending God's protection and provision away--my guess is that the land has not been as fruitful for them since Isaac departed.  The Philistines come with an official delegation of the king, his advisors, and his generals   Isaac asks plainly why they are coming to him when they hate him and have sent him away--possibly a bit dramatic, but the feelings of being hurt are palpable in this statement.

The Philistines respond that it is clear that the Lord has been with Isaac and their best option (because they know the nation that Isaac leads is going to continue to get bigger and stronger with God's blessing) is to form a peace treaty, maybe even an alliance, hoping that the nation of the Philistines would be under the protection and provision provided by Isaac and his descendants.  After the oaths were made and the covenant was cut, Isaac's servants found yet another well and named it Shiba ("oath") and the city of Beersheba keeps this name today as "Well of the oath" as a reminder of the oaths that were made by the Philistines to both Abraham and Isaac.

We then get a little "tag" at the end of this narrative to let us know where the narrative is going next.  Apparently we're going to change focus for a bit to Esau because the author at this point tells us about the marriage of Esau to a Hittite woman (the Hittites were one of the Canaanite clans) and Esau knew this would be upsetting to his parents as they had apparently given instructions to both of their children not to take wives from among the Canaanites, but Esau did what he wanted.  He saw it, he liked it, he acquired it.  That seems to be his philosophy in life.  This event did not result in Isaac sending Esau away, though it probably should have.  Instead we are going to see in the next chapter that Isaac thinks he's dying and is getting his affairs in order and tries to give the blessing to Esau (he knows that Esau has sold his birthright and there is nothing he can do about that).  This act by Isaac was in direct disobedience to God's command to Isaac and Rebekah at the time that Rebekah was pregnant with Jacob and Esau and at their birth where it was made clear to them that the blessing and birthright belonged to the younger.  God is still in control though and things still will work out according to God's sovereign plan.