Isaac: Like Father, Like Son

In Episode #1 of Biopic #2, we picked up the story of Isaac where it had left off at the end of Genesis 24—that is, with his marriage to Rebekah.  In spite of the blissful beginnings of their relationship, it wasn’t long before their marriage began to suffer under the strain of Rebekah’s barrenness.  However, following Isaac’s intercession on behalf of his wife, and after a twenty-year wait, the Lord answered his prayers and Rebekah conceived.

We should note that in the Bible, whenever a woman is barren and then conceives, it is…

• • • To highlight the miraculous intervention by God; and/or,
    • Because the child has a special role to play in God’s Story of Redemption.

This was true not only of Abraham and Sarah and Isaac and Rebekah, but it was also the case with Samson and his parents (Judges 13:2), and Samuel and his parents (1 Samuel 1:2,5).  In this instance, the children born to Isaac and Rebekah were Esau and Jacob—twins who were complete opposites of one another.  As we learned last week, Esau was the firstborn, like Cain, who presents us with a picture of the natural or fleshly man, the one with absolutely no interest in the covenantal promises of God.  For that reason, he was rejected from the line of those leading the way to the Messiah.

On the other hand, Jacob placed so much value on these promises that he was willing to stoop to anything—lying, cheating, or stealing—in order to obtain them.  This may have been the reason that God chose him to become the father of the Twelve Tribes of Israel, as well as an example of someone wholly undeserving who has been saved by the grace of God to become (eventually) a righteous or spiritual man.

In this episode from Genesis 26, we will be looking at the only chapter in this book that is devoted solely to Isaac.  Unlike his father, Isaac was not called to pack up and leave his country and move to a new one, he never had to wage war against a coalition of foreign kings to rescue a wayward relative, and he was not called upon to offer up one of his sons as a sacrifice to God.  Still, as we shall see in this episode, he was called upon to demonstrate his faith and patience in other ways, along with the frailty of his human nature as he makes the same mistake that his father made about a hundred years before.

 

Episode #2 of Biopic #2
Cast:  Narrator     The Lord     Abimelech    Isaac     Servants

When the curtains open on this episode, we find that life has suddenly become very hard for Isaac because…

Narrator:  There was a famine in the land, besides the first famine that was in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went to Abimelech king of the Philistines, in Gerar.  Then the LORD appeared to him and said…

The Lord:  Do not go down to Egypt; live in the land of which I shall tell you.  Dwell in this land, and I will be with you and bless you; for to you and your descendants I give all these lands, and I will perform the oath which I swore to Abraham your father.  And I will make your descendants multiply as the stars of heaven; I will give to your descendants all these lands; and in your seed 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.

Narrator:  So Isaac dwelt in Gerar.  And the men of the place asked about his wife. And he said, ‘She is my sister;’ for he was afraid to say, ‘She is my wife,’ because he thought, ‘lest the men of the place kill me for Rebekah, because she is beautiful to behold.  Now it came to pass, when he had been there a long time, that Abimelech king of the Philistines looked through a window, and saw, and there was Isaac, showing endearment to Rebekah his wife.  Then Abimelech called Isaac and said…

Abimelech:  Quite obviously she is your wife; so how could you say, ‘She is my sister’?”

Isaac:  Because I said, ‘Lest I die on account of her.’ 

Abimelech:  What is this you have done to us?  One of the people might soon have lain with your wife, and you would have brought guilt on us. 

 

 

Narrator:  So Abimelech charged all his people, saying…

Abimelech:  He who touches this man or his wife shall surely be put to death.

Narrator:  Then Isaac sowed in that land, and reaped in the same year a hundredfold; and the LORD blessed him.  The man began to prosper, and continued prospering until he became very prosperous; for he had possessions of flocks and possessions of herds and a great number of servants. So the Philistines envied him.

Now the Philistines had stopped up all the wells which his father’s servants had dug in the days of Abraham his father, and they had filled them with earth.  And Abimelech said to Isaac…

Abimelech:  Go away from us, for you are much mightier than we.

Narrator:  Then Isaac departed from there and pitched his tent in the Valley of Gerar, and dwelt there.  And Isaac dug again the wells of water which they had dug in the days of Abraham his father, for the Philistines had stopped them up after the death of Abraham. He called them by the names which his father had called them.

Also Isaac’s servants dug in the valley, and found a well of running water there.  But 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 quarreled with him.  Then they dug another well, and they quarreled over that one also. So he called its name Sitnah.  And he moved from there and dug another well, and they did not quarrel over it. So he called its name Rehoboth, because he said…

Isaac:  For now the LORD has made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land.

Narrator:  Then he went up from there to Beersheba.  And the LORD appeared to him the same night and said…

The Lord:  I am the God of your father Abraham; do not fear, for I am with you. I will bless you and multiply your descendants for My servant Abraham’s sake.

Narrator:  So he built an altar there and called on the name of the LORD, and he pitched his tent there; and there Isaac’s servants dug a well.  Then Abimelech came to him from Gerar with Ahuzzath, one of his friends, and Phichol the commander of his army.  And Isaac said to them…

Isaac:  Why have you come to me, since you hate me and have sent me away from you?

Abimelech:  We have certainly seen that the LORD is with you. So we said, ‘Let there now be an oath between us, between you and us; and let us make a covenant with you, that you will do us no harm, since we have not touched you, and since we have done nothing to you but good and have sent you away in peace. You are now the blessed of the LORD.’

Narrator:  So he made them a feast, and they ate and drank.  Then they arose early in the morning and swore an oath with one another; and Isaac sent them away, and they departed from him in peace.  It came to pass the same day that Isaac’s servants came and told him about the well which they had dug, and said to him…

Servants:  We have found water.

Narrator:  So he called it Shebah.  Therefore the name of the city is Beersheba to this day.

When Esau was forty years old, he took as wives Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Basemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite.  And they were a grief of mind to Isaac and Rebekah.

And with these seemingly misplaced lines, this episode comes to an end.

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Our Review

As usual, for our review, we will now highlight…

The Most Important Points in this Episode

Famine in the land—this is the second recorded famine in Scripture, the first being the one during Abraham’s time.  When the pressure sets in, Isaac—like his father—starts toward Egypt, however, he is warned by God not to go there.

Abimelech—was the title given to the king of the Philistines.  This is probably not the same Abimelech that Abraham had known earlier.

Egypt—as always, Egypt is a picture of the world and its system.

Dwell in this land—like his father, Isaac was told to stay in the Land of Promise.  When Abraham left it, he got into trouble.  God then passed on to Isaac the Covenant Promises that He had made to Abraham.

Your seed—is a reference to Christ.

Like his father, he said “She is my sister”—when Abraham used this same ruse before, his claim was at least based upon the fact that Sarah was his half-sister. But this was an outright lie on Isaac’s part.

Like his father, He was afraid—given that God had just renewed His Covenant with Isaac, there was no legitimate reason for him to fear or to lie.

Like his father, he said, “Lest I die on account of her”—here, Isaac does not offer up a good portrayal of a godly man, as described for us in Ephesians 5:25 &28…

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her…So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself.

Guilt upon us—once again, the Philistines demonstrate a higher degree of morality than either Abraham or Isaac had given them credit for.

Sowed in the land/a hundredfold—this is the first mention of sowing in Scripture.  Perhaps Isaac took up farming as a means to better provide for his household.  A New Testament counterpart for this would be the Parable of the Sower who, when he had sown on good soil, reaped a hundredfold.

Began and continued to prosper—once Isaac’s deception had been exposed and the matter was put behind him, the Lord began to pour out even more blessings upon him.

Envied him—in the Old Testament, God’s plan was to bless His people with material blessings.  Then, when the surrounding peoples saw it, they would be drawn to faith in the Lord.  Here, however, instead of coming to faith in the God of Isaac, the Philistines resented the blessings God had bestowed upon him.

Stopped up all the wells—in the ancient Middle East, waste lands were called “God’s Lands,” and anyone who could reclaim them and irrigate them became the owner of them.  Naming a well was a public announcement of ownership to the area.  To stop up or destroy one was considered a violation of one’s property rights and tantamount to an act of war.

Much mightier than we—given this, the Philistines must have feared a reprisal on Isaac’s part—which probably would have been the case if it had been anyone other than Isaac.

Like his father, Isaac dug wells/calling them the names his father had given them—Isaac reclaimed the wells that were rightfully his by inheritance.

Isaac’s servants dug in the valley—and located three wells…

Esek—the “quarrel well”
Sitnah—the “hatred well”
Rehoboth—the “well of ample room”

Beersheba—as a result of the conflict, like his father, Isaac ended back up in Beersheba (Genesis 21:22ff), the place where his father had entered into a covenant with the other Abimelech, in which his property rights to the well there was established.

The Lord appeared to him—once he was back in the land, the Lord appeared to him and reassured him.

He built an altar/pitched his tent—in response, Isaac builds the only altar that Scripture credits him with.  He also establishes this as his home base.

Abimelech came to him/the Lord is with you—when Isaac left Philistine territory, to be sure the blessings of God went with him.  One can only imagine that Abimelech was not only missing the overflow of God’s goodness to Isaac, but he was also intimidated by Isaac and his wealth and power. To protect himself, he comes to Isaac to establish a covenant with him—and like his father, Isaac entered into a non-aggression treaty like the earlier Abimelech had done with Abraham.

The same day/new well at Beersheba—once the treaty had been ratified by a meal and an oath, and the Philistines had departed, Isaac’s servants discover a new well.

 

 

Esau took as wives two Canaanite women—although this seems completely out of place here, it sets the stage for the events that will take place in the next chapter—events that will lead Jacob to Padan Aram, his future wives and their shifty father, Laban—someone who will teach Jacob a thing or two about cunning and deception, sowing and reaping!

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In Summary

 And, as usual, in order to summarize this episode, we will try to answer these all-important questions…

What Life Lessons can we take away from this part of the story?
What contributions does this episode make to the One Big Story of the Bible?
What, if any, revelations of God do we find in this episode of the story?

 Life Lessons—or some things to remember

It doesn’t matter what our station is in life, or whether we are currently in or out of the will of God, everyone is going to confronted at some time by things that they have absolutely no control over. However, if we are to successfully navigate through these challenges, we must seek God’s help and rely on His guidance.

Even when we are in the will of God, we can still make poor decisions and do stupid stuff that could potentially jeopardize our well-being and that of our families and do damage to our witness and testimony before the world around us.

Unless repented of, the sins of one generation will more than likely be repeated by the next or future generations.

When we come up against opposition, we need to do as Isaac did and respond in a godly manner–  remembering the admonition of Romans 12:17-21 to…

Repay no one evil for evil. Have regard for good things in the sight of all men. If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men. Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord. Therefore, ​​“If your enemy is hungry, feed him; ​​If he is thirsty, give him a drink; ​​For in so doing you will heap coals of fire on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good…

…and trusting the promise in Proverbs 16:7 that…

When a man’s ways please the LORD, He makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.

 

Contributions to the Story

As a digger of wells, Isaac foreshadows Christ as the Living Water which He offered to the woman at the well in Samaria, and to all who would believe…

Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”

“Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.” (John 4:10,14)

He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. (John 7:38)

As a sower of the seed, Isaac also foreshadows Christ as He was seen in the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares…

Then He [Jesus] spoke many things to them in parables, saying: “Behold, a sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds came and devoured them. Some fell on stony places, where they did not have much earth; and they immediately sprang up because they had no depth of earth. But when the sun was up they were scorched, and because they had no root they withered away. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked them. But others fell on good ground and yielded a crop: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!” (Matthew 13:3-9)

But he who received seed on the good ground is he who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.” (Matthew 13:23)

He who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, the good seeds are the sons of the kingdom, but the tares are the sons of the wicked one. The enemy who sowed them is the devil, the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are the angels. Therefore as the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of this age. The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness, and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears to hear, let him hear! (Matthew 13:37-43)

Revelations of God

Although God remains in the background throughout much of this episode, His appearances at crucial junctions in it serve as reminders to us that…

• • • When we come up against insurmountable challenges, God will always be there to guide us through them and give us the strength to overcome them.
    • When we acknowledge and repent of our sins and poor choices, God will always be there to forgive and restore us.
    • When we are surrounded and harassed by our enemies, God will always be there to protect us and to bless us.

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In our next episode, we will shift our focus from Isaac and onto Jacob, whose choices and actions will take our story into an entirely new direction.