Genesis 26
Notes
Transcript
Sermon Tone Analysis
A
D
F
J
S
Emotion
A
C
T
Language
O
C
E
A
E
Social
Background
Last week we witnessed the death of Abraham, and the generations that came from his sons born to him by his concubines. We also saw the children of Isaac born, Esau and Jacob.
1 Now there was a famine in the land, besides the previous famine that had occurred in the days of Abraham. So Isaac went to Gerar, to Abimelech king of the Philistines.
2 The Lord appeared to him and said, “Do not go down to Egypt; stay in the land of which I shall tell you.
3 “Sojourn in this land and I will be with you and bless you, for to you and to your descendants I will give all these lands, and I will establish the oath which I swore to your father Abraham.
4 “I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven, and will give your descendants all these lands; and by your descendants all the nations of the earth shall be blessed;
5 because Abraham obeyed Me and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes and My laws.”
6 So Isaac lived in Gerar.
For those who have been going through Genesis with us, this will seem like a very familiar story. We saw similar scenarios with Abraham in Genesis 12 and in 20.
While sojourning through the land that God had promised to his descendants, Abraham traveled to Egypt because of a famine.
There he lied about his wife being his sister.
Abraham again lied about his wife to Abimelech in Gerar.
In both instances, the lie was revealed by God in dreams.
In Isaac’s story, he went to Gerar because of the famine. God appeared to Isaac and told him not to go to Egypt as Abraham did.
This is the first recorded conversation between Isaac and God. In the previous chapter, Isaac prayed to God and He opened Rebekah’s womb, but this is the first time God gave Isaac the promise that He had made to Abraham.
He continued the covenantal promises of land and descendants with Isaac.
Note the reason why: because of Abraham.
15 Then the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven,
16 and said, “By Myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this thing and have not withheld your son, your only son,
17 indeed I will greatly bless you, and I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your seed shall possess the gate of their enemies.
18 “In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.”
Isaac was the promised son, through whom God would fulfill these promises.
God is faithful to keep His promises.
God is faithful to keep His promises.
7 When the men of the place asked about his wife, he said, “She is my sister,” for he was afraid to say, “my wife,” thinking, “the men of the place might kill me on account of Rebekah, for she is beautiful.”
8 It came about, when he had been there a long time, that Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out through a window, and saw, and behold, Isaac was caressing his wife Rebekah.
9 Then Abimelech called Isaac and said, “Behold, certainly she is your wife! How then did you say, ‘She is my sister’?” And Isaac said to him, “Because I said, ‘I might die on account 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 charged all the people, saying, “He who touches this man or his wife shall surely be put to death.”
Here we see Isaac repeating the sin of his father - lack of faith. We discussed before that Abraham lied out of fear, and Isaac did the same thing.
This was right after God appeared to him and promised that He would bless him and his descendants in the land.
Abraham was guilty of this as well.
This was also with the same man, Abimelech.
Some think that this may be a different king, or that Abimelech was a title and not a name. The most simple and consistent understanding is that it is the same Abimelech.
As an aside, the Hebrew word translated “caressing” is actually the same word used to describe what Ishmael was doing with Isaac, “sporting.” The translation was chosen based on the context.
Isaac’s fear revealed that he lacked faith, like his father did in this particular area. They feared men more than they believed God.
36 But Jesus, overhearing what was being spoken, said to the synagogue official, “Do not be afraid any longer, only believe.”
28 “Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
God used Isaac’s fear to grant him protection through Abimelech.
12 Now Isaac sowed in that land and reaped in the same year a hundredfold. And the Lord blessed him,
13 and the man became rich, and continued to grow richer until he became very wealthy;
14 for he had possessions of flocks and herds and a great household, so that the Philistines envied him.
15 Now all the wells which his father’s servants had dug in the days of Abraham his father, the Philistines stopped up by filling them with earth.
16 Then Abimelech said to Isaac, “Go away from us, for you are too powerful for us.”
17 And Isaac departed from there and camped in the valley of Gerar, and settled there.
18 Then Isaac dug again the wells of water which had been dug in the days of his father Abraham, for the Philistines had stopped them up after the death of Abraham; and he gave them the same names which his father had given them.
19 But when Isaac’s servants dug in the valley and found there a well of flowing water,
20 the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with the herdsmen of Isaac, saying, “The water is ours!” So he named the well Esek, because they contended with him.
21 Then they dug another well, and they quarreled over it too, so he named it Sitnah.
22 He moved away from there and dug another well, and they did not quarrel over it; so he named it Rehoboth, for he said, “At last the Lord has made room for us, and we will be fruitful in the land.”
23 Then he went up from there to Beersheba.
24 The Lord appeared to him the same night and said, “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 the sake of My servant Abraham.”
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.
Once again we see God faithful to His promises, Isaac is blessed with agricultural success.
Important note, Isaac inherited all that Abraham had left before he died, and Abraham was very wealthy.
In spite of that, much of his food stores would have been perishable and needed replenishing.
His success caused jealousy amongst his neighbors.
Unlike with his father, Abimelech did not want Isaac to stay amongst them, because everyone saw who wealthy he was.
In spite of this, Isaac was able to settle in the valley, which was where Abraham had settled.
This was the area close to Beersheba.
Isaac began to reclaim what had been abandoned after his father’s death by re-digging the wells.
Just like with Abraham, Abimelech’s servants seized Isaac’s wells.
25 But Abraham complained to Abimelech because of the well of water which the servants of Abimelech had seized.
Isaac kept moving and eventually was able to settle in the valley.
Much like his father, Isaac returned to Beersheba. In a turn of events that echo Abraham’s experience in Gen. 12 and 15, God once again reveals Himself to Isaac and promises again His blessings.
Like his father, Isaac built an altar and called out to God in the same place, Beersheba.
26 Then Abimelech came to him from Gerar with his adviser Ahuzzath and Phicol the commander of his army.
27 Isaac said to them, “Why have you come to me, since 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 now be an oath between us, even 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 Then he made them a feast, and they ate and drank.
31 In the morning they arose early and exchanged oaths; then Isaac sent them away and they departed from him in peace.
32 Now it came about on the same day, that Isaac’s servants came in and told him about the well which they had dug, and said to him, “We have found water.”
33 So he called it Shibah; therefore the name of the city is Beersheba to this day.
34 When Esau was forty years old he married Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Basemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite;
35 and they brought grief to Isaac and Rebekah.
This section is the best proof that this Abimelech is the same who dealt with Abraham, as he did the same thing.
He even brought the original commander, Phicol, with him, who would remember Abraham.
Along with his advisor, Abimelech would’ve once again traveled with a small contingent of soldiers.
Isaac’s greeting isn’t the most friendly, but reflects the difference in relationship between father and son with the foreigner king.
Once again, Abimelech acknowledges the wealth and prosperity of Isaac compared to their own, and seeks an alliance.
This time, there is no mention of wells, perhaps because Isaac had already settled near a well.
Abimelech would know about Isaac’s relationship with Abraham.
In similar fashion, the covenant is made with a feast and the exchange of oaths.
After Abimelech left, Isaac’s servants unstopped the well of Beersheba, which was the well Abraham dug.
31 Therefore he called that place Beersheba, because there the two of them took an oath.
God was blessing Isaac in the land that was promised to Abraham.
7 And He said to him, “I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess it.”
8 “I will give to you and to your descendants after you, the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.”
The most important part of the promise is that Abraham’s descendants will be a blessing to the nations around them.
29 And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise.
28 And you brethren, like Isaac, are children of promise.
Like Isaac, we are children of the promise made to Abraham.
Like Isaac, we are children of the promise made to Abraham.
24 knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ whom you serve.
The chapter concludes with Esau getting married at the same age as his father did, only he did not marry according to the same warning.
Isaac would be 100 years old at this time.
Esau married daughters of the Canaanites, whom Abraham had forbidden Isaac to marry.
He married 2 women instead of 1.
Foreign women + polygamy = grief.
APPLICATION
APPLICATION
God is faithful to keep His promises.
Like Isaac, we are children of the promise made to Abraham.
Next week, we will continue with the story of Isaac and his family.
Communion: We practice open communion, which means if you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, you may join the church in taking the Lord’s Supper. Communion is a practice of remembering what Christ has done by eating and drinking, and we are told that we must examine ourselves in the taking of communion, so that we do not eat the bread or drink the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner. Take this time to examine yourself before we take communion together.
23 For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread;
24 and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.”
25 In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.”
26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.