Genesis 26:1-35
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.
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.
12 Then Isaac sowed in that land, and receiveda in the same year an hundredfold: and the LORD blessed him.
13 And the man waxed great, and wentb forward, and grew until he became very great:
14 For he had possession of flocks, and possession of herds, and great store of servants:c 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 springingd 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;e because they strove with him.
21 And they digged another well, and strove for that also: and he called the name of it Sitnah.f
22 And he removed from thence, and digged another well; and for that they strove not: and he called the name of it Rehoboth;g 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.
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 sawh 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:i therefore the name of the city is Beersheba unto this day.
34 And Esau was forty years old when he took to wife Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Bashemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite:
35 Which were a griefj of mind unto Isaac and to Rebekah.
Genesis 26:1. Abimelech was a name common to the kings of Gerar, and the Philistines were of African descent. Genesis 10:14.
Genesis 26:2. The Lord appeared unto him. The infancy of the patriarchal family was the infancy of the church, which needed the fostering care of God. A removal to Egypt at this period might have been eventful to Isaac. The Egyptians might have seized his substance for the supply of bread. If Abimelech was jealous of Isaac, Pharaoh might have been so too. Besides, God had in view a far more auspicious occasion of bringing the Hebrews into Goshen than at this juncture of temporary scarcity. Happy the man who is thus under the eye and care of the Lord, and who in the time of trouble enjoys the tokens of his presence.
Genesis 26:7. She is my sister. Augustine in his City of God, book 16. chap. 36, undertakes to justify Abraham, and consequently Isaac, in the use of this precaution. But the Holy Ghost having recorded Abimelech's reproof of Sarah, we ought to admit its equity.
Genesis 26:11. He that toucheth this man shall be put to death. Perhaps this Abimelech recollected the judgment of God on one of his predecessors for the detention of Sarah, chap. 20. And if a heathen prince did not think death too severe a punishment for known and studied adultery, the guilty may tremble at the sentence which God is ready to pronounce against them: his revenge against murder and adultery has often been remarked in the course of providence.
Genesis 26:12. A hundredfold. Herodotus says, that the land about Babylon yielded two hundredfold. Gentlemen distinguished by agricultural science and their patronage of husbandry, are the best friends of the nation. Veteres siquem virum bonum colonum appellassent, amplissime laudasse extimabant. Cicero. The ancients thought it a very high encomium to be a good agriculturalist.
Genesis 26:23. He went to Beersheba, where the Lord again appeared to him, and where he built an altar, and called on the name of the Lord in regular acts of prayer and devotion, with all his camp. Men are bound to attend public worship, or to stay in their houses on the sabbath; to wander abroad is to live like the beasts, and to forget the God who made them.
Genesis 26:26. Phichol; that is, the mouth of all. The word therefore may indicate his office of speaker, as well as express his proper name. A man of the same name had come, and with another Abimelech to contract a covenant with Abraham, nearly a century before. Phichol was, it would seem, a military title.
Genesis 26:28. Let there be now an oath, &c. The wicked having driven Isaac from wells which his servants had dug, and grounds which he had cleared, were afraid of war from Isaac's angry camp. A good man's word is as his bond; yet the wicked want an oath.
Quo teneam vultus mutantum Protea nodo?
HORAT.
REFLECTIONS.
The covenant so often renewed to Abraham, we see confirmed to Isaac, and in the same words. Hence the children of the righteous, to whom in like manner the promises are positively made, should be careful to enter into the covenant of their fathers, and personally to renew it with God. If they neglect this, and devote themselves to vanity and the world, they may forfeit all its benefits, and the day may come when they shall see their parents in glory, and themselves excluded from the kingdom.
Was Isaac, notwithstanding the gift of much of his father's property to seven sons, made rich in cattle and patriarchal wealth; and did he receive in harvest a hundred measures for one? Then we have farther proof, that God will keep covenant and promise to the seed of the righteous. All ages have afforded evidence of this. The good man beginning the world with but a small capital, rises by industry and temperance, by fidelity and economy to affluence and honour. This is the blessing of God on the work of his hands. But alas, riches have their snares, and being therefore the nether gift, they are scarcely named in the new covenant. They generally draw families into a conformity to the world, and often tarnish the piety of good men with the excess of parsimony. And what is still worse; though many have a pious Isaac, yet those branches of the family whose passions are unrestrained by regeneration, dash away in the circles of gaiety and dissipation. In this sad case, a merchant had better throw his riches into the sea, than hoard them up for the corruption of his children.
The prosperity of Isaac, so evidently a sign that God was with him, provoked the envy of the Philistines. In the hundred and twelfth Psalm we have a remark to the same effect. David speaking of the prosperity of the righteous man, and the establishment of his sons, says, the wicked shall see it and be grieved, yea he shall gnash with his teeth: the desire of the wicked shall fail. Oh what blessings and comforts they forfeit by not being on the Lord's side.
Did the Lord appear to Isaac a second time after Abimelech had driven him away; and did Isaac, following the example of his father on the like occasion, raise an altar to God; may we therefore learn to improve all the calamities and vicissitudes of life for devotion, to live by faith, and be the more prepared for a state of unchangeable felicity.
On a review of Isaac's mercies and the divine protection afforded him, we cannot overlook the great condescension of Almighty God. Though he had called Abraham by his grace, and blessed him according to his good pleasure; yet he is pleased to say, that he had done it because Abraham had obeyed his voice. So also at the day of judgment, our Saviour, overlooking the whole of his redeeming love, will invite the saints to glory, because they gave meat to his hungry members. Oh how happy, how inconceivably happy must the society of the blessed be, where this endearment reigns between Christ and the church! But at the same time let us obey like Abraham, and be liberal according to our power, for the Lord will not applaud the saints in lying words.
But do we find a farther complaint against Esau, for having grieved both Isaac and Rebekah by his double and polluted marriage. Let all young men be warned to act in obedience to their righteous parents; and especially in not being unequally yoked with unbelievers, for this is an evil of which they will scarcely ever hear the last.