Sunday, October 11, 2020

Sunday Morning Bible class at Lake Marburg Baptist Church - Genesis 26:1-33

 


Genesis 26:1 ¶  And there was a famine in the land, beside the first famine that was in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went unto Abimelech king of the Philistines unto Gerar. 2  And the LORD appeared unto him, and said, Go not down into Egypt; dwell in the land which I shall tell thee of: 3  Sojourn in this land, and I will be with thee, and will bless thee; for unto thee, and unto thy seed, I will give all these countries, and I will perform the oath which I sware unto Abraham thy father; 4  And I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars of heaven, and will give unto thy seed all these countries; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; 5  Because that Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.

Now we are returned to the narrative, the story of Isaac and Rebekah, after the flash forward about Esau and Jacob. Sometimes the Bible not only flashes back to explain why something happened but in this case flashes forward to prepare us for what is going to happen.

Here, Isaac follows in his father’s footsteps and seeks relief in a famine in the land of the Philistine king, Abimelech. Remember, I said Abimelech may be a title like Pharaoh and might not be the name of the king. It is most likely that this is a different king than the one which encountered Abraham earlier. But, whether it is or isn’t God had specifically told Isaac not to go into Egypt but to stay in Canaan, the land which his seed would eventually inherit. God repeated His promise to Isaac that He made to Abraham about the grant of land He will provide which will be completely fulfilled upon Christ’s return to rule from Jerusalem. God says this is because Abraham obeyed Him and kept His part of the agreement, and make sure you understand how the Holy Spirit speaking through Moses has provided for our understanding here; charge, commandments, statutes, and laws. These words are synonyms and you should keep this in mind as you read these words throughout the Bible.

In addition, you can see that the word LORD has every letter capitalized. This is the translation of the word Jehovah, 6510 times as LORD, four as God, and four as Jehovah according to Strong’s. God’s name is provided and translated as LORD.

Amos 5:8  Seek him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night: that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The LORD is his name:

Genesis 26:6 ¶  And Isaac dwelt in Gerar: 7  And the men of the place asked him of his wife; and he said, She is my sister: for he feared to say, She is my wife; lest, said he, the men of the place should kill me for Rebekah; because she was fair to look upon. 8  And it came to pass, when he had been there a long time, that Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out at a window, and saw, and, behold, Isaac was sporting with Rebekah his wife. 9  And Abimelech called Isaac, and said, Behold, of a surety she is thy wife: and how saidst thou, She is my sister? And Isaac said unto him, Because I said, Lest I die for her. 10  And Abimelech said, What is this thou hast done unto us? one of the people might lightly have lien with thy wife, and thou shouldest have brought guiltiness upon us. 11  And Abimelech charged all his people, saying, He that toucheth this man or his wife shall surely be put to death.

Here again we have a picture of a righteous heathen king and a picture of one of God’s men acting in a most unbecoming and cowardly manner. Isaac repeats the lack of faith in God’s protection as did his father, Abraham. Clearly, the possibility of being killed and having your wife taken for another man’s pleasure must have been a cultural practice and a grave danger in the ancient world for Isaac, like Abraham, to be too afraid he might be killed for his wife.

Abimelech, though, after a long time, looks out a window and sees Isaac sporting with his wife. This, we assume, is some kind of sexual play that would not be expected between a brother and a sister. Sporting can mean play or a jest or even mocking but common sense tells us that this play would have to be in such a manner as to reveal Isaac and Rebekah’s relationship. See here how sport and sporting are used elsewhere.

It can be to take delight in;

2Peter 2:13  And shall receive the reward of unrighteousness, as they that count it pleasure to riot in the day time. Spots they are and blemishes, sporting themselves with their own deceivings while they feast with you;

Proverbs 10:23  It is as sport to a fool to do mischief: but a man of understanding hath wisdom.

Perhaps to mock and make fun of if the following has no more sinister meaning considering the nature of the ancient world’s culture and religion;

Judges 16:25  And it came to pass, when their hearts were merry, that they said, Call for Samson, that he may make us sport. And they called for Samson out of the prison house; and he made them sport: and they set him between the pillars…27  Now the house was full of men and women; and all the lords of the Philistines were there; and there were upon the roof about three thousand men and women, that beheld while Samson made sport.

Or clearly just to mock and make fun of;

Proverbs 26:19  So is the man that deceiveth his neighbour, and saith, Am not I in sport?

Isaiah 57:4  Against whom do ye sport yourselves? against whom make ye a wide mouth, and draw out the tongue? are ye not children of transgression, a seed of falsehood,

In any event, this righteous Abimelech has caught the deception played on him and announces that anyone who touches Rebekah or Isaac will die. Here is a heathen man who understands righteousness and God’s standard regardless of his culture and we will see that again. This brings to mind Peter’s statement;

Acts 10:34 ¶  Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: 35  But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him.

It was not so many hundreds of years ago that all men would have known God’s standards of righteousness through Noah and clearly, as that knowledge became degraded over time, the strains of judgment and righteousness were still present in some form. Some heathen knew in their heart, or at least acknowledged they knew, what God regarded as right and wrong, unlike even many Christians today.

Genesis 26:12 ¶  Then Isaac sowed in that land, and received in the same year an hundredfold: and the LORD blessed him. 13  And the man waxed great, and went forward, and grew until he became very great: 14  For he had possession of flocks, and possession of herds, and great store of servants: and the Philistines envied him. 15  For all the wells which his father’s servants had digged in the days of Abraham his father, the Philistines had stopped them, and filled them with earth. 16  And Abimelech said unto Isaac, Go from us; for thou art much mightier than we. 17  And Isaac departed thence, and pitched his tent in the valley of Gerar, and dwelt there. 18  And Isaac digged again the wells of water, which they had digged in the days of Abraham his father; for the Philistines had stopped them after the death of Abraham: and he called their names after the names by which his father had called them. 19  And Isaac’s servants digged in the valley, and found there a well of springing water. 20  And the herdmen of Gerar did strive with Isaac’s herdmen, saying, The water is ours: and he called the name of the well Esek; because they strove with him. 21  And they digged another well, and strove for that also: and he called the name of it Sitnah. 22  And he removed from thence, and digged another well; and for that they strove not: and he called the name of it Rehoboth; and he said, For now the LORD hath made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land. 23  And he went up from thence to Beersheba. 24  And the LORD appeared unto him the same night, and said, I am the God of Abraham thy father: fear not, for I am with thee, and will bless thee, and multiply thy seed for my servant Abraham’s sake. 25  And he builded an altar there, and called upon the name of the LORD, and pitched his tent there: and there Isaac’s servants digged a well.

Abimelech was wiser than the Pharaoh of Moses’ time would be. He realized (v.16) that Isaac was becoming, due to God blessing him mightily and in a short period of time, greater than Abimelech and his people. He ordered Isaac to move on.

Exodus 1:8 ¶  Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph. 9  And he said unto his people, Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we: 10  Come on, let us deal wisely with them; lest they multiply, and it come to pass, that, when there falleth out any war, they join also unto our enemies, and fight against us, and so get them up out of the land. 11  Therefore they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Raamses. 12  But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew. And they were grieved because of the children of Israel. 13  And the Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigour: 14  And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in morter, and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field: all their service, wherein they made them serve, was with rigour.

Isaac’s servants and Abimelech’s servants cannot get along. There is contention between them over the wells from which their cattle were watered. Esek, as the text points out, means contention. Sitnah means strife. Rehoboth, according to Strong’s dictionary, means a wide place, as God provided them enough room to not contend.

Jehovah appears to Isaac but God the Father is a Spirit and no man has ever seen Him.

John 1:18a  No man hath seen God at any time;…

Since we have already discussed the three parts of God we know which of them is seen by man, the part of God who created all things including man.

Colossians 1:15  Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:

John 1:18  No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.

Hebrews 1:3  Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;

John 14:9  Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?

John 10:30  I and my Father are one.

So, if your doctrine is consistent and you do not force the Bible to contradict itself to mean something you would like it to mean it is clear that when one of these people in the Old Testament actually saw God and He spoke to them, appeared to them, what they saw was the living Word by which all things were created, the pre-incarnate Christ, the second part of the three parts of God. Here, He enters time directly and is present in front of His person. At other times it is written that He appears as the angel of the LORD which is an appearance or presence of Him and He acts on things through that appearance. In this and other cases He appears to someone in a vision or His angel or presence although at times the text does not use the phrase angel of the LORD. As God the Father cannot be seen it is clearly talking about Christ in His pre-incarnate form. To see Christ is to see the Father.

John 14:9  Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?

God has blessed Isaac with wealth because Isaac’s part in His ministry of reconciling man to Himself requires a temporal base from which to nurture the future persons involved in this ministry, from whence Christ will eventually enter the world. Israel will be referred to on one occasion, in Amos 7:16, as the house of Isaac. God’s plan is moving forward which I hope you can see.

Genesis 26:26 ¶  Then Abimelech went to him from Gerar, and Ahuzzath one of his friends, and Phichol the chief captain of his army. 27  And Isaac said unto them, Wherefore come ye to me, seeing ye hate me, and have sent me away from you? 28  And they said, We saw certainly that the LORD was with thee: and we said, Let there be now an oath betwixt us, even betwixt us and thee, and let us make a covenant with thee; 29  That thou wilt do us no hurt, as we have not touched thee, and as we have done unto thee nothing but good, and have sent thee away in peace: thou art now the blessed of the LORD. 30  And he made them a feast, and they did eat and drink. 31  And they rose up betimes in the morning, and sware one to another: and Isaac sent them away, and they departed from him in peace. 32  And it came to pass the same day, that Isaac’s servants came, and told him concerning the well which they had digged, and said unto him, We have found water. 33  And he called it Shebah: therefore the name of the city is Beersheba unto this day.

Abimelech brings some back-up, a friend and the head of his army as witnesses. Earlier, in a scene when a king of the Philistines confronted Abraham and wanted an agreement between them I had noted that Phichol may have also been a title rather than the proper name of a person.

Abimelech had ordered Isaac away from him but realizing that God was definitely on his side he thought he better do one more thing. Isaac is charged to make a similar agreement with the Philistines that his father was. See chapter 21:22 and context.

The cultural ritual that followed included a feast and a verbal agreement before parting the next day. God then blessed Isaac with a well which they titled Shebah, which in the context one would think should have something to do with the oath made, as a blessing that came after that oath. Indeed, when you go to Strong’s dictionary that is what it means. God blessed Isaac with this well as a result of his making peace with his worldly enemies.

The mission is what is important, not Isaac’s ego or his feeling offended. The Bible, being the explanation and revelation of God’s plan of reconciling mankind, shows how God used men and women to move the plan of redemption forward, sometimes in fits and starts. We must always keep this in mind, especially if we wonder why Abraham and Isaac didn’t convert their wealth and large number of servants into a kingdom, carving out of their benefactors’ territories a land of their own. In God’s time this will happen, in His way, and by His will.

Back in 21:33 I noted that the name of the wilderness may have later been later named after the well and here we have the name of the town that arose around it named after the well of the sevenfold oath after the seven ewe lambs Abraham set apart for his oath with Abimelech.

Abimelech uses God’s name twice and acknowledged the importance of His blessing. This should be remembered as we look at Gentile kings and people before Christ’s resurrection and the gospel is preached to them.

Acts 10:34 ¶  Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: 35  But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him.

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