Genesis 26:1-6

PART THIRTY-EIGHT

THE STORY OF ISAAC: HIS SOJOURN IN PHILISTIA

(Genesis 26:1-34)

The Biblical Record
1 And there was a famine in the land, besides the first famine that was in the days of Abraham, And Isaac went unto Abimelech king of the Philistines, unto Gerar. 2 And Jehovah 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 lands, and I will establish the oath which I sware unto Abraham thy father; 4 and I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven, and will give unto thy seed all these lands; 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, 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 because of her. 10 And Abimelech said, What is this thou hast done unto us? one of the people might easily have lain with thy wife, and thou wouldest have brought guiltiness upon us. 11 And Abimelech charged all the people, saying, He that toucheth this man or his wife shall surely be put to death.

12 And Isaac sowed in that land, and found in the same year a hundredfold: and Jehovah blessed him. 13 And the man waxed great, and grew more and more until he became very great: 14 and he had possessions of flocks, and possessions of herds, and a great household: and the Philistines envied him. 15 Now all the wells which his father's servants had digged in the days of Abraham his father, the Philistines had stopped, and filled with earth. 16 And Abimelech said unto Isaac, Go from us; for thou art much mightier than we. 17 And Isaac departed thence, and encamped 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 herdsmen of Gerar strove with Isaac's herdsmen, saying, The water is ours: and he called the name of the well Esek, because they contended with him. 21 And they digged another well, and they 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 Reho-both; and he said, For now Jehovah hath made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land.
23 And he went up from thence to Beer-sheba. 24 And Jehovah 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 Jehovah, and pitched his tent there: and there Isaac's servants digged a well.
26 Then Abimelech went to him from Gerar, and Ahuzzath his friend, and Phicol the captain of his host. 27 And Isaac said unto them, Wherefore are ye come unto me, seeing ye hate me, and have sent me away from you? 28 And they said, We saw plainly that Jehovah was with thee: and we said, Let there now be 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 Jehovah. 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 Shibah: therefore the name of the city is Beersheba unto this day.

34 And when Esau was forty years old he took to wife Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Basemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite: 35 and they were a grief of mind unto Isaac and to Rebekah.

1. Isaac's Migration to Gerar (Genesis 26:1-6). It will be recalled that Isaac was tenting in the vicinity of Beerlahai-roi (the well of the Living One who sees me, cf. Genesis 16:14) at the time of his marriage to Rebekah (Genesis 24:62). Later, he journeyed to Hebron where he and Ishmael buried their father, Abraham, in the cave of Machpelah (Genesis 25:9). Isaac then returned, we are told, and continued to dwell by Beer-lahai-roi (Genesis 25:11); evidently it was here that the twins were born and Esau sold his birthright (Genesis 25:11; Genesis 25:19-34). This is obviously where we find him at the beginning of the account in ch. 26, prior to his removal to Gerar. But there was a famine in the land (Genesis 26:1), a second famine, long after the first, which was the one that was in the days of Abraham. In time of famine, people of Palestine were accustomed to migrate to Egypt or to the fertile Philistine maritime plain (about 50 miles long and 15 miles wide) extending along the Mediterranean Sea from what in our time is Joppa at the north to some distance below Gaza at the south. All Semitic peoples seem to have done this: the Egyptian records are full of accounts of such migrations for the purpose of obtaining food. (Cf. for example, Abraham, Genesis 12:10; Jacob and his sons, chs. 45, 46; Elimelech and his family, in Moab, Ruth 1:1).

And Isaac went unto Abimelech, king of the Philistines, unto Gerar. The presence of the Philistines in this region in patriarchal times has been dubbed an anachronism by the critics. This view, however, is expressly refuted by evidence now available. In Scripture, the Philistines are said to have come from Caphtor (Amos 9:7,Jeremiah 47:4, Deuteronomy 2:23; cf. Genesis 10:14here the sentence, hence went forth the Philistines, is commonly viewed today as misplaced by a copyist and to belong after the name Caphtorim.). The monuments indicate that the Peleste or Philistines invaded Palestine with other sea peoples around 1200 B.C. In time they became amalgamated with other inhabitants of Canaan, but the name Palestine (Philistia) continued to bear witness to their presence. It is further evident that the Philistines had established themselves in this region in smaller numbers long before 1500 B.C. The region around Gerar and Beer-sheba was occupied by them as early as the patriarchal age (Genesis 21:32; Genesis 26:1) and before the Mosaic era settlers from Crete had driven out or destroyed the original inhabitants of the region of Gaza and settled there (Deuteronomy 2:23). The consensus of archaeological evidence in our day almost without exception identifies these sea peoples as spreading out over the Eastern Mediterranean world from Crete: at its height in the third and second millenia, Minoan Crete controlled a large part of the Aegean Sea, C. H. Gordon and I. Grinz consider that these early Philistines of Gerar came from a previous migration of sea people from the Aegean and Minoan sphere, including Crete, which is called Caphtor in the Bible and Ugarit tablets, and Caphtorian is the Canaanite name for Minoan (Cornfeldy, AtD, 72). Biblical notices, which are commonly viewed as anachronistic by critics, place scattered groups of these people in S. W. Palestine centuries before the arrival of the main body in the first quarter of the 12th century B.C. (UBD, 859). Recently an Israeli archaeologist, D. Alon, surveyed the site of Gerar and found evidence from potsherds that the city had enjoyed a period of prosperity during the Middle Bronze Age, the period of the Biblical patriarchs (DWDBA, 251). The early Caphtorian migration was one of a long series that had established various Caphtorian folk on the shores of Canaan before 1500 B.C.E. They had become Canaanitized, and apparently spoke the same language as Abraham and Isaac. They generally behaved peacefully, unlike the Philistines of a later day, who fought and molested the Israelites. They were recognized in Canaan as masters of arts and crafts, including metallurgy (Cornfeld, AtD, 72). The word Philistine is said to have meant stranger, sojourner (sea peoples?). These people gave their name to the country where they settled, Philistia (Joel 3:4; cf. Amos 1:6-8, Zechariah 9:5-7); from this name the Greek name Palestine was derived in turn. The five cities of the Philistines in Palestine were Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Ekron, and Gath. Gerar, though not one of the five great urban centers, was the seat of the royal iron smelting operations producing iron swords, spearheads, daggers, and arrowheads (1 Samuel 13:19-22). (See my Genesis, Vol. III, pp. 387-390).

2. Abimelech. Cf. the incident in Abraham's life, Genesis 20:1-18. The name means father-king in pure Hebrew; apparently it was the customary title, rather than personal name, of the kings of Gerar, as Pharaoh was of the kings of Egypt, as Agar was of the kings of the Amalekites (1 Sam., ch. 15), or as Ceasar was in later times, of the Roman emperors (cf. also Kaiser or Czar, etc.). Since some seventy or eighty years intervened between the accounts in chs. 20 and 26, we must conclude that the Abimelech of ch. 26 was the successor to the Abimelech of ch. 20. Leupold (EG, 717): The common assumption that Abimelech was a standing designation of all Philistine kings, like Pharaoh for the Egyptian, finds definite support in the heading of Psalms 34, where Abimelech is used as a title for the man who in 1 Samuel 21:10-15 appears as Achish. -Gerar-' appears to be identical with Umm-Jerar, about ten miles south of Gaza. (Achish was the personal name of the king of Gath, also a Philistine city). (For a discussion of the Abimelechs of these two Chapter s, see my Genesis, Vol. III, 390-396). For a discussion of the similarities of the stories in Genesis 12:10-20; Genesis 20:1-18; Genesis 26:6-11, and also of the striking differences, see my Genesis, Vol. III, 396-401, and especially 405-406. We conclude that these are not three variant accoounts of the same event, as claimed by some ofthe critics, but three different accounts respectively of three different originals).

3. The Divine Communication to Isaac (Genesis 26:2-5). The situation seems to be sufficiently important to call for Divine intervention. God appeared to Isaac as well as to Abraham, but twice only to the former (here and in Genesis 26:24). The wording of Scripture here surely indicates that Isaac was contemplating a journey into Egypt such as his father Abraham had made under the same circumstances, i.e. a famine in the land. Evidently Yahweh interfered to prevent such a move. Probably his original purpose in going to Abimelech was to request permission to leave for Egypt or he may have gone to the king of Gerar to make special arrangements that would avert the necessity of his going there. At any rate, Yahweh intervened, and in doing so reaffirmed the Abrahamic Promise. Genesis 26:2, You were consecrated as a sacrifice to God and must therefore not leave the Holy Land. Set up your shepherd's tent here and do not fear for lack of pasture (SC, 144). The Oath, Genesis 26:3, was made directly and separately with each of the patriarchs. By remaining in the country you will take possession of it, to be able to transmit it to your children, and thus My oath will be confirmed (SC, 143). It had been previously announced to Abraham that Isaac was to be his sole heir; and now that, on the death of his father, he had succeeded to the patrimonial inheritance, he was to receive also a renewal of the Divine promise which guaranteed special blessings of inestimable value to him and his posterity. The covenant securing these blessings originated entirely in Divine grace; but it was suspended on the condition that Abraham should walk before God and be perfect (Genesis 17:1); and since he had, through the grace which had enabled him to attain an extraordinary strength of faith, fully met that condition by an obedience honored with the strongest expression of Divine approvalIsaac, his son, was now assured that the covenant would progressively take effect, the assurance being made doubly sure to him by a reference to the oath sworn to Abraham (Genesis 22:16). The first instalment of this promise was the possession of Canaan, here designated -all these countries,-' from the numerous subdivisions amongst the petty tribes which then occupied the land (Genesis 15:19-21); and in prospect of this promissory tenure of the land, Isaac was prohibited leaving it.. At all events, now that the Abrahamic covenant had to be executed, the elect family were not henceforth allowed to go into Egypt, except with the special sanction and under the immediate superintendence of an overruling Providence (CECG, 191). Genesis 26:5my commandments (particular injunctions, specific enactments, express or occasional orders,, cf. 2 Chronicles 35:16), my statutes (permanent ordinances, such as the Passover, -literally, that which is graven on tables or monuments, cf, Exodus 12:14-'), and my laws (which refer to the great doctrines of moral obligations). The three terms express the contents of the Divine observances which Abraham obeyed (PCG, 324-325).

Remarkable is the scope of divine blessings that are mediated through faithful Abraham. In order to make prominent the thought that Abraham conscientiously did all that God asked, the various forms of divine commandments are enumerated; sometimes, of course, a divine word would fall under several of these categories. They are a -charge-' or -observance-' if they are to be observed.. They are -commandments-' when regarded from the angle of having been divinely commanded. They are -statutes-' when thought of as immutable, and -laws-' insofar as they involve divine instruction or teaching. Under these headings would come the -commandment-' to leave home (ch. 12); the -statute-' of circumcision, the instruction to sacrifice Isaac, or to do any particular thing such as (Genesis 15:8) to sacrifice Isaac, or (Genesis 13:17-18) to walk through the land, as well as all other individual acts as they are implied in his attitude toward Jehovah, his faithful God. By the use of these terms Moses, who purposes to use them all very frequently in his later books, indicates that -laws, commandments, charges and statutes-' are nothing new but were already involved in patriarchal religion. Criticism, of course, unable to appreciate such valuable and suggestive thoughts, or thinking Moses, at least, incapable of having them, here decrees that these words come from another source, for though J wrote the chapter, J, according to the lists they have compiled, does not have these words in his vocabulary, and so the device, so frequently resorted to, is employed here of claiming to discern traces of a late hand, a redactor (Leupold, EG, 719-720). (The hypothetical redactor is, of course, an indispensable factotum for Biblical critics). Speiser translates Genesis 26:5as follows: All because Abraham heeded my call and kept my mandate: my commandments, my laws, and my teachings. Mandate he defines as something to be scrupulously observed, adding, the three nouns that follow spell out the contents (ABG, 198, 201). Note that the same Promise, in its various details, which was originally given to Abraham, is here renewed to Isaac (cf. Genesis 12:3, Genesis 22:17-18). Cf. Genesis 26:24: that is, not for the sake of Abraham's merit, but from respect to the covenant made with him, Genesis 12:2-3; Genesis 15:8, Genesis 17:6-7 (SIBG, 257). Cf. Genesis 26:6Abraham's obedience was not perfect, as we know, but it was unreserved, and as it flows from a living faith, is thus honored of God (Gosman, in Lange, CDHCG, 505).

Review Questions

See Genesis 26:34-35.