Beyond The Basics

Transcript:

Welcome to the Beyond the Basics Bible Study Podcast. My name is Dan Snyder and I am your host. Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of Beyond the Basics, where we are exploring the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, one chapter at a time.

Welcome this week. We’re to be going through Genesis chapter 26. But before we do I want to give you a little bit of news the first big news that I have is that all the study guides that I’ve been talking about on the show that were available through subscription on the website, those are now all available for free. So if you go to beyondthebasics.blog, go to the free download section, and you can get all the study guides for free. You no longer have to subscribe to get the access to these study guides. Just go ahead and download them right onto your computer.

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Alright, so let’s get into the episode. So we’re into Genesis chapter 26 and this comes directly after the birth of Jacob and Esau. Although chronologically I believe that it actually happens before they were born and I’ll tell you why in a little bit.

But what happens here is that there’s a famine and so Isaac goes down to Gerar. There Isaac tells the men of Gerar that Rebekah was his sister, the same thing that Abraham did with Sarah. And Abimelech, the king of Gerar, saw them together, realized that they were married, so he rebuked him.

So Isaac stayed there in Gerar and became very wealthy and that led to several conflicts between Isaac and Abimelech and the Philistines there. So he tried digging wells and the Philistines and the herdsmen there would quarrel with him over it.

So Isaac went up to Beersheba. God appeared there and gave him a blessing. Abimelech after that came to Isaac to offer a covenant of peace. Then at the end of the chapter we’re told that Esau takes two wives from the Hittites.

That’s the overview of the chapter. So let’s get deeper into the chapter.

So in verse 1 we’re told, now there was a famine in the land, besides the former famine that was in the days of Abraham. So it tells us that Isaac went to Gerar to Abimelech king of the Philistines.

So moving on. Verse 2 it says, and the Lord appeared to him. So this is the first time that God has appeared to Isaac and God says, “Do not go down to Egypt.”

He’s telling him, “Don’t make the same mistake that Abraham did. Abraham did not respond rightly to the trouble of the famine. He did not respond to that famine with trust in me.”

He says, “Don’t make that mistake. Trust in me. I will take care of you.”

So the Lord says in verse three, “Sojourn in this land, and I will be with you and bless you.”

God is telling Isaac to stay in Gerar for a while. He goes on to give Isaac the promises. He says, “I will bless you. I will be with you and will bless you, for to you and your offspring I will give all these lands, and I will establish the oath that I swore to Abraham your father.”

So he’s saying, “Isaac, if you stay here in Gerar, I’m going to give you the same promises that I gave to Abraham, which is protection, offspring, and land.”

And this is framed in a very interesting way. If you notice, God says, “Sojourn in this land and I will be with you and will bless you.” So he’s basically saying, “If you stay here, I will bless you.”

So what happens if Isaac doesn’t stay there? Will God not bless him? Will God not establish the oath that he gave to Abraham with Isaac? Is God saying that his promise is conditional on if Isaac stays in Gerar? We’re already told earlier in the book of Genesis that Isaac is the one that would inherit the promise that was given to Abraham. So what happens if Isaac doesn’t obey God? Does Isaac lose that promise?

Well, I think that the Lord tells Isaac something very important here. He says, “In your offspring all the nations of the earth shall be blessed,” in verse five, “Because Abraham obeyed my voice.”

God is giving this promise to Isaac because Abraham obeyed God’s voice. What Abraham already did was set in stone. That cannot be changed. It was in the past. And God is saying, “Because Abraham was faithful, because Abraham obeyed, I will now be faithful to him and to his offspring.”

I think God is saying, “Isaac, I want you to enter into what Abraham did.”

I think it’s an invitation to partner with God in what God was doing through Abraham and his family.

Verse 6, the author tells us that Isaac then settled in Gerar.

Verse 7: When the men of the place asked him about his wife, he said, “She is my sister.”

And here’s why I believe that this took place before Jacob and Esau were born, because he wouldn’t have been able to say this if they had children. Because if they had children, it would have been clear that Rebecca would not have been Isaac’s sister. The only way she could have passed for his sister is if she didn’t have any children with him.

So unfortunately, Isaac did not learn from his father’s mistakes. At least not all of them. Even though God had just appeared to Isaac and promised to protect him and promised to prosper him.

I think God knew that he was going to be tempted to lie about Rebekah. This is clearly a problem that this family has in this area of the world. And I don’t know all the cultural aspects around it, although I do think that Abraham and Isaac had reason to fear for their lives if they had told people in these cities that they were married to their wives, but God had just appeared to Isaac. He just told him, “I’m gonna protect you.”

But instead, Isaac takes his protection into his own hands. And it’s not even a half truth. Like with Abraham, Abraham truly did marry his half sister. Sarah was his half sister, but Rebecca was Isaac’s cousin. She wasn’t even his sister. Abraham could at least justify it in saying, “It’s true, it’s just not full truth.”

This was not even a half-truth. Rebecca was his cousin, not his sister. So Isaac was outright lying here.

So moving on, in verse 8, it says: When he had been there a long time – we don’t know how long, but he’d been there a while – Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out of a window and saw Isaac laughing with Rebecca his wife.

Other translations are going to suggest an intimate relationship. I’m using the ESV here and this is a pretty mild translation of this word, laughing. Other translations are going to say things like “showing endearment” in the new King James or “caressing” in the New International Version. So what it’s saying here is Isaac is clearly being very intimate with Rebecca, more intimate than a brother and sister would normally be.

So Abimelech recognized something was going on and that Isaac and Rebecca were not telling the truth. And maybe he heard from his father what this family tended to do when they were in his land, like lie about the relationship to their wives.

So verse 9, Abimelech called Isaac and said, “Behold, she is your wife.”

So Abimelech knew that Isaac was lying. Isaac thought his sin was hidden. Isaac was lying and he thought that nobody could know. He thought nobody could tell. But really it was obvious to everybody else. Again, he was there a long time. It did take a while. But that sin didn’t stay hidden. Eventually that sin came to light.

Eventually sin is always going to come to the light. Try to hide it. We can hide it for a little while. But we can’t hide it forever. It’s going to come to the light eventually.

So Isaac gives some excuses of why he lied to Abimelech. Abimelech says he almost destroyed us, he almost brought guilt upon us. What if somebody had touched your wife? We’d be in deep trouble.

So in verse 11, Abimelech warned all the people saying, “Whoever touches this man or his wife shall surely be put to death.”

So thankfully Abimelech never took her to be his wife. This verse makes this clear that even though Isaac had been there a long time and told everybody that Rebekah was his sister, nobody took her to be his wife, and especially Abimelech, which means he learned from his father’s sins. Isaac did not learn from his father, but Abimelech learned from his father.

So, verse 12, the story shifts. And we’re told that Isaac sowed in that land, even though he probably didn’t have to, he received everything that Abraham had. All the flocks, all the herds. Isaac didn’t need to sow seed in the land. We’re told that he reaped in the same year a hundredfold. During a famine, he reaped a hundredfold on what he sowed in the ground.

And then verse 13, notice the progression, verses 12 to 13. It says, the Lord blessed him and the man became rich, and gained more and more until he became very wealthy.

He became rich, then he became more rich, and then he became wealthy. So what that progression is telling us is that Isaac could not possibly be more rich. He could not possibly be more wealthy than he was. He gained so much wealth during this period of time where he was sowing in the land.

The author here is telling us that God still held up his end of the bargain even though Isaac didn’t trust God. Just like Abraham was given wealth by Pharaoh and Abimelech after lying to them. And those men actually took Sarah as a wife. Abimelech here in this story in chapter 26 didn’t even take Rebekah to be a wife. But Isaac didn’t trust God, but God still kept his promise to bless Isaac.

Let’s go back. God appeared to Isaac and said, “Trust me, I will take care of you, I will protect you.”

Isaac didn’t trust God and lied to Abimelech, but God still blessed him anyway. What does this say about the generosity of God? What does this say about how God keeps his promises?

Verse 14, we’re told he had possessions of flocks and herds and many servants, so that the Philistines envied him. So we’re gonna have trouble with the Philistines now.

And in verse 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.

Wells were extremely expensive to dig. It shows the extreme envy of the Philistines to attack in this way. This is actually attacking Isaac’s wealth and well-being, his life. Because especially since he had flocks and herds, is how he would water his flocks and his herds.

And it’s interesting because the previous Abimelech had made a covenant with Abraham over these same wells. Abraham had dug these wells and Abimelech made a covenant to say, “These seven wells are yours. You can have them. I will not attack your wells. I will not try to take over your wells in any way.”

But this Abimelech decided to go on the offensive rather than to make peace. This Abimelech decided to attack these wells and break that covenant that his father had made with Isaac’s father and go on the offensive and start stopping up these wells.

He did this because in verse 16 he says, “Go away from us, for you are much mightier than we.”

They were envious. They were scared. Who knows what they thought Isaac would do? Maybe they thought Isaac would try to take over. Maybe they thought Isaac would try to conquer the Philistines. Maybe they thought he was going to try to gain financial domination over them. Who knows? But they were jealous and they were scared.

So over the next several verses we read a story about how Isaac dug three wells and quarreled with the Philistines over two of them. But we’re told that he was the one who named them, so he must have maintained control over them.

The first one that he digs, in verse 20, we’re told that 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. That word Esek means contention. So that was the first one he dug, but maintained control of that.

The second one, in verse 21, they dug another well and they quarreled over that also, so he called its name Sitnah. That word Sitnah means enmity.

He’s naming these wells based on what’s happening at the same time. He’s naming these wells because it’s a reminder of what he’s going through with the Philistines at that time.

So then he digs a third well. Verse 22, 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.”

And that word Rehoboth means broad places. They’re quarreling over land. We find out in verse 22 it’s because there wasn’t enough room for all of them. Remember, there’s a famine going on right now. So everybody’s probably fighting over the best wells, the best places to water their flocks, the best places to try and stay alive.

And in fact, wells in the Bible represent life. We’ve talked about wells several times already and we haven’t discussed too much about what they represent. Although we did, if you remember in the chapter about the servant going to find Rebecca, talked about the well in that chapter. Wells represent life. They were the only source of life in a lot of areas in the wilderness, especially during dry periods and during famine. They were resources that were intended to stick around for many generations. They were long-term sources of life.

So that’s what they’re quarreling over. And it’s significant that Isaac digs three wells and they argue over two of them and then the third they no longer quarrel over. Because three is the number of testing. So here Isaac’s faithfulness is being tested. Isaac’s response – he’s being given another chance to trust in God’s protection. He didn’t trust in God’s protection with his wife and he was called out on it, but now he’s being given another chance.

The question that’s being tested here is, will Isaac be a blessing or a curse to the nations? He’s living among the nations. He was living among the Philistines. Is he going to be a blessing to them? And like Abraham, is he going to defer to the Philistines and allow them to use the wells and show humility, even though he has a right to maintain control over them? Just like Abraham had a right to choose the land first, is Isaac going to defend his right to maintain control of these wells, or is he going to be a blessing and defer to the Philistines out of humility and preference for others? Or is he going to be a curse to the nations, and is he going to fight the Philistines over these wells?

And then the other question that’s being tested here is that will God provide for Isaac in the midst of opposition and in the midst of attack? Will Isaac trust God? Like I said, he didn’t trust God with his wife, but he’s being given another chance. Will Isaac trust God here with these wells, with the land?

Well, it appears that he did. It appears that he allowed the Philistines to maintain control of the land and the wells because in verse 23 it says that he went up to Beersheba. So this is where he had been before. So he went back north, which means Isaac now trusted God to provide for him.

So in verse 24, the Lord appeared to him the same night for the second time. And he says, “Fear not.”

Why did he need to tell Isaac not to fear? Well, I mentioned he was kicked out of Gerar. He was attacked while digging wells. Isaac was afraid of being killed. Isaac was afraid the Philistines were going to come after him and kill him. So God appeared to him again and said, “Do not fear. You are under my protection. I will protect you. I will take care of you. I will bless you. I will multiply you.”

That’s what God was telling Isaac. That’s why God appeared to him. God shows constant grace to Isaac. This is a theme in his life. We don’t get a whole lot of chapters devoted to Isaac. There’s only a few of them, but this is a theme in Isaac’s life. God provides. God provided the lamb for the altar. God provided for Isaac when he was under attack by the Philistines. God provided wealth during a famine.

This is God’s grace at work. And this is how God’s grace works. God’s grace doesn’t mean that everything goes great and wonderful and perfect all the time. It means that when there’s difficulty God gives us the strength and the power and the ability to trust him through the difficult times. That’s what grace is.

So in verse 25, we’re told that Isaac built an altar there and called upon the name of the Lord

So Abimelech, after the Lord appeared to Isaac, now Abimelech went to appear to Isaac. He comes and says, “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.”

Well that’s not true because the men of Gerar, the herdsmen of Gerar had been attacking Isaac. But they recognized that Isaac was blessed of the Lord. So they made a covenant of peace.

And that same day Isaac’s servants came and told him about the well that they had dug and said, “We have found water.”

So they found water the same day that peace was established. This well, the fourth well, would be the one that Isaac would keep.

Then at the very end of this chapter we’re told that when Esau was 40 years old, he took Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite to be his wife, and Basemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite, and they made life bitter for Isaac and Rebekah.

So these were Hittite women, the Hittites were a Canaanite tribe, and Abraham’s children were not supposed to be marrying Canaanite women. Abraham made that very clear to his servant when he sent him to find a wife for Isaac. Esau should not be marrying Canaanite women.

Not only did he marry a Canaanite woman, but he married two of them. And multiple wives are always a result of sin. At least that’s what we’ve found so far as we’ve read through the book of Genesis. It was either done by ungodly men like Lamech, if you remember, he married two wives. He was very ungodly, he was murderous, he was arrogant, or it was done out of sinful and impatient desires like Abraham. Abraham was impatient and wanted a son before it was God’s timing so he took a second wife. And these multiple wives always result in trouble.

So this is not a good thing that Esau is doing here. And it says that they made life bitter. So there is that trouble that it is resulting in because Esau disobeyed the commandment of God, married Canaanite women, married two of them.

And what’s interesting is that Isaac showed trust in God. He trusted God and he never took a second wife. He only married one wife, Rebecca. So he modeled this faithfulness to God and his commandments for his children, but Esau rejected the faith that his father had modeled for him.

That would make life very bitter for a parent. When you raise a child in a certain way, when you raise children in a godly way and they reject the faith that you raise them in, that makes life very bitter.

So how does this chapter point to Jesus?

First of all, God kept his promise to Isaac because of Abraham. I mentioned that it was because of Abraham’s obedience that God kept his promise to Isaac. And in the same way, God keeps his promises to us because of Jesus. Because Jesus was obedient, even to death, God keeps his promises to us. Works the same way.

God is showing here how his promises work. He makes his promise to one man who shows faithfulness and obedience. Because of that, his promises extend to his children and his children and his children and his children.

Same thing happened to David. God promised David that he would establish his kingdom because he was faithful, because he was a man after God’s own heart. And even though David made mistakes, he stayed faithful to God and he stayed repentant and God kept his promises to David’s sons and grandsons and grandsons and great-grandsons and great-great-grandsons and great and so on and so on and so on because of David’s faithfulness and obedience.

Even though his sons, even though his descendants ended up not being quite so faithful, this all points us to Jesus because this is what God does through Jesus. God made promises to humankind through Jesus and because Jesus remained obedient and faithful those promises are kept to us.

Another way this points to Jesus is that Isaac wandered in the wilderness. I mentioned that he was tested three times in the wilderness. We could also say that he was tempted three times to disobey God or he was tempted three different times to not trust God.

And in fact, that second well named Sitnah was actually from the Hebrew word Satan, which is the word for accuser. So it’s like the accuser tried to drive Isaac out of the Promised Land, just like Jesus wandered in the wilderness for 40 days and was tempted three times to disobey God. And there, the accuser, the Satan, tried to drive him out of God’s inheritance, which is the true Promised Land. Satan tried to drive Jesus out of receiving the kingdom and the people that God had promised him one day as an inheritance. He was tempted three times. Jesus resisted that temptation just like Isaac resisted that temptation.

Remember, I’ve mentioned in previous chapters, Isaac is a picture of Jesus. Once again, we’re seeing this parallel between Isaac wandering in the wilderness, or wandering around digging wells three times. He was tempted to lose faith in God, but he did not lose faith, even though the accuser tried to drive him out. Jesus did not lose faith. Jesus did not disobey God even though the accuser tried to drive him out.

So let’s ask some questions for reflection.

First, why is it so easy to give into temptation right after we have a significant encounter with God? This happened with Abraham and with Isaac. What do we need to do to avoid giving into temptation? Read 1st Corinthians 10 verse 12 when answering that question.

Second, what will happen if we try to keep our sin hidden from others? And see Luke chapter 8 verse 17 when answering that question.

What sins have you noticed that have persisted in your family and what can you do to end that cycle?

What wells have previous generations dug that have become a life-giving resource for you? Remember I talked about wells lasting for many generations being symbols of life and living water. What have previous generations done that you and your generation is still able to live off of spiritually?

And last, do you have children that have grown up to reject the faith you train them in and what would be the godly response to this?

Thanks once again for listening. Don’t forget to go to Patreon and subscribe there for only $4 a month to hear this full episode. Don’t forget to subscribe on whatever app you’re listening to click follow, click like, whatever you’re listening on. Whether it’s YouTube or Spotify, whatever, go ahead and rate the show. Always a big help. Always appreciate your support.

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Thanks once again for listening. Talk to you next episode when we discuss Genesis chapter 27.