Or, How Grace Enables Our Dependence Rather Than Removes Our Need for It
Scripture: Genesis 26:1-35
Date: September 18, 2016
Speaker: Sean Higgins
Everybody wants blessing. Everybody wants to be blessed, to have good things and favor from others. Everybody wants blessing, but not everybody knows what true blessings are or the conditions for getting them.
Genesis 26 is a chapter about blessing. The word “blessing” is used four times (verses 3, 12, 24, 29). And the multiple parallels between Isaac and his father Abraham will demonstrate that Isaac is indeed the one through whom God’s blessing is channeled. Covenantal blessing is kind of a big deal.
But all of this could have been, I might argue should have been, written after Genesis 25:20. The content of chapter 26 is significant, but it is even more significant because of its placement.
The “generations of Isaac” started in 25:19 with the reminder that he married Rebekah. At the start of chapter 26 Isaac and Rebekah head toward Egypt because of a famine, just like Abraham and Sarah. God stopped them in Gerar at the bottom of Canaan and Isaac fears that the people will think his wife is so beautiful that they will kill him, just like Abraham with Sarah. Like his father, the son tells the people that she is his sister. They had “been there a long time” (verse 8) when King Abimelech saw Isaac and Rebekah interacting in the way of spouses not siblings. But didn’t we already learn about their twin boys, Esau and Jacob? Wouldn’t sons have been an obvious giveaway of their marital status? At least the first part of chapter 26 fits before Genesis 25:21 chronologically.
And what are verses 34-35 doing in this chapter? We are learning how Isaac is like his father. We are seeing how God confirmed His promises to the second generation patriarch. These are Isaac’s key moments. Why put this bitter news at the end?
The Esau stuff fits better at the end of the material in chapter 25. He sold his birthright. He didn’t care about his family responsibilities. He marries foreign women. He still doesn’t care. That would also flow neatly into chapter 27 when we see Esau and Jacob at it again, except that Esau does care about part of the blessing that belongs with his birthright.
Chapter 26 shows that God’s blessing on Isaac is like God’s blessing on Abraham. Chapter 26 also shows the nature of God’s blessing, which is not always as obvious to men such as Esau. God’s idea of blessing and Esau’s idea of blessing are not the same. Esau wants the part that he can see, but he evidently doesn’t want the Person he can’t see. Esau wants the blessing of God without depending on God. And that’s not how it works.
Gerar is in between Beersheba and Egypt, the route Isaac took to get away from a famine. In Gerar he receives the blessings of revelation, protection, and prosperity from the LORD.
There was a famine in the land, besides the former famine that was in the days of Abraham. Always there are people who see parallel stories in the Bible and conclude that the repetition must be a revision, not a new event. But it is an incompetent editor who refers to the previous story in his telling of another if he doesn’t want readers to make the connection.
Like father, the son heads toward Egypt where food is more likely to be found. Unlike his father, the LORD stops Isaac from crossing the border.
The rest of the paragraph is what the LORD told him.
And the LORD appeared to him and said, “Do not go down to Egypt; dwell in the land of which I shall tell you. Sojourn in this land, and I will be with you and will bless you, for to you and to your offspring I will give all these lands, and I will establish the oath that I swore to Abraham your father. I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and will give to your offspring all these lands. And in your offspring all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.” (Genesis 26:2–5)
Most of these things God already told Abraham. These are promises Isaac probably knew about because his father told him. But now, for the first time, the LORD personally reveals His purpose to bless Isaac to Isaac. Maybe Isaac heard the LORD’s voice on Mt. Moriah, but the LORD was talking to Abraham. Now the LORD is talking to Isaac directly.
In these verses God gives guidance: stay here. He gives reassurance: I’ll be with you. He gives hope: land and offspring are coming. And He gives reasoning: because Abraham obeyed. While God could have revealed Himself to Isaac at any time, the context of this word of blessing is famine, trouble, uncertainty. The blessing comes when Isaac needs to depend on the LORD, the blessing does not come so that Isaac won’t need to depend on Him.
Like his dad, Isaac didn’t always depend on the LORD even though he had every reason to do so. Like his dad, Isaac received the blessing of protection from the LORD, sanctioned through the highest level of government.
He obeyed and settled in Gerar. But when the men of the place asked him about his wife, he said, “She is my sister” because he was in a panic. Abraham’s servant immediately recognized Rebekah’s beauty (Genesis 24:16) and that’s why the men were asking about her now.
But nothing came of it for a long time. When he had been there for a long time, so he had no need to hold onto his fear due to Rebekah. The longer it went on, the more reason he had to fear because of holing onto his lie.
Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out of a window and saw Isaac laughing with Rebekah his wife. Pharaoh and his house were afflicted in such a way that he figured out that Sarah was married to Abraham (12:17); Abimelech had a dream in which God told him about Sarah and Abraham’s marriage (20:3). Here in chapter 26 Abimelech doesn’t need supernatural insight, just his eyesight. This may be the same Abimelech that Abraham lied to, though that would make him quite old. Age might explain why Rebekah hadn’t been taken into his harem; he was past collecting women. Maybe this is Abimelech a son, using the same name as a title, like Pharaoh in Egypt.
The king saw them laughing. It’s the same root as Isaac’s name. It’s the same root of Ishmael’s mockery. But through a window Abimelech didn’t see them sharing an inside joke or bickering like a married couple. More than likely he saw them behaving like married people who don’t know they’re being watched. The king must have thought highly enough of Isaac to assume that Isaac had lied rather than that Isaac was romantically interested in his sister.
The king summoned Isaac and confronted him as he had Abraham. And Isaac gives a similar self-protective answer, ”Because I thought, ‘Lest I die because of her.’”. But Abimelech was concerned about marital fidelity and the guilt that would fall on all the people if another man had taken Rebekah. The king shows more integrity than God’s chosen man. Again.
At the same time, God blessed Isaac with protection not only from the king but through the king. By grace God used Isaac’s fear of the men to get the men to fear the king. Abimelech protects Isaac with the severest legislation available. ”Whoever touches this man or his wife shall surely be put to death.” It would be a capital offense to touch Isaac or Rebekah. Blessing again comes in the context of need.
Even though Isaac was a sojourner, he had been in Gerar long enough to plant some crops and take in the harvest. The yield was exceptional, reaping in the same year a hundredfold. It wasn’t mere agricultural skill, the LORD had blessed him.
The men of Gerar already had reason to look at Isaac sideways, and his possessions of flocks and herds and many servants made it so that the Philistines envied him. The trial of the famine led to the blessing of promise. Now the blessing of great wealth led to the trial of fussy neighbors.
It wasn’t just that they looked at him wrong, they filled with earth all the wells that his father’s servants had dug. They didn’t capture the wells to use the water for themselves. They despised him so much that they deliberately ruined the wells so that no one could use them. That’s vandalism. So Abimelech urged him to leave the land, ”Go away from us.” Maybe the king called Isaac mightier because he was really concerned, maybe at this point he was being condescending.
He moved out of the city but trouble kept following him. Envy works best in proximity. Every time Isaac and his men dug out a well, presumably trying to mind their own business, the herdsman of Gerar quarreled saying, “The water is ours.” The first time it happened Isaac called the well Esek meaning “contention” because they argued. The second time it happened he called the well Sitnah meaning “opposition” because there was hostility. The third time it happened he must have wondered how many more times it was going to happen. But they did not quarrel over it. He had finally moved far enough away. That’s why Isaac called it Rehoboth meaning “open spaces.” Instead of fighting back or being frustrated, he gives credit to the LORD: ”now the LORD has made room for us, and Isaac anticipated more fruitfulness. He didn’t argue or complain but took his household where they would have peace.
Even though he found “open spaces” the famine conditions must have subsided enough to allow him to return home to Beersheba. When he arrived, the LORD appeared to him again.
And the LORD appeared to him the same night and said, “I am the God of Abraham your father. Fear not, for I am with you and will bless you and multiply your offspring for my servant Abraham’s sake.” (Genesis 26:24)
Isaac may have felt forgotten. But now the LORD reassured him. Isaac’s response is worship. He’s been moving around, but he built an altar there and called on the name of the LORD. Blessing wasn’t coming like he had imagined, but he could see good from God.
Then Abimelech and his adviser..and the commander of his army paid a visit to Isaac. He does not welcome them with open arms. ”Why have you come to me, seeing the you hate me and have sent me away from you?” He’s hurt.
They were undeterred. As Abimelech—the same or the father with the same name—did with Abraham, he desired a peace treaty so that Isaac would not attack them. They come humbly, the three of them, and they did it rather than calling Isaac to the king’s court. They said, “We see plainly that the LORD has been with you….You are now the blessed of the LORD.”
Of course, if Isaac really was blessed by the LORD, they probably didn’t have any reason to think Isaac would act unjustly toward them.
Isaac warmed up and made them all a feast. After exchanging oaths they departed from him in peace. Then Isaac’s servants reported that they had found water (again). The LORD provided again. Even his enemies were at peace with him (see Proverbs 16:7). These are all signs of the LORD’s blessing as Isaac depended on Him.
This point doesn’t parallel the others because these verses don’t match the others. For the most part Isaac trusted and obeyed the LORD. Isaac wanted and received and thanked God for blessings. Esau didn’t.
He already sold his birthright because he despised his position, now he despises the way of the family again. He did not depend on his father to help him find a wife. He looked or a wife from among the Canaanite peoples unlike his dad (see him do it again in Genesis 28:6-9). And he took two wives. Esau desired satisfaction on his own terms, he did not depend on the LORD to provide.
In the next chapter he wants his father’s blessing, but not his father’s God, or faith, or worship. This also makes Isaac’s determination to give the firstborn blessing to this son less respectable.
The blessing of Abraham to Isaac is worth fighting about. In the events of chapter 26 we see the blessings of revelation, guidance, presence, land, children, reputation, protection, provision. Whereas, by ourselves, we are ignorant, uncertain, alone, wandering, weak, and exposed.
Two things about blessing: its context and its condition.
The blessings didn’t come in trouble-free contexts. There were still problems (famine, risk, envy, armies), and Isaac had to trust the LORD. They weren’t “Blessings in Vacuum” or BIVs for short. In a vacuum there is nothing else, no conditions. To run an experiment in a vacuum is to isolate the experiment from the normal context to assess it. But BIVs are IDOLS. BIVs are lies. They don’t exist.
There are no trouble-free contexts of blessings from the LORD. There are also no blessings apart from trusting the LORD.
Dependence is the condition of blessings. Humans are made to depend on God. If we don’t depend on God, not only are we in rebellion against God, we are in rebellion against humanity. Autonomy is one of the most subversive soul tyrants, promising us freedom to do what we want while simultaneously enslaving us to despair.
Esau didn’t want his father’s blessing that way. He wanted the esteem from kings, a hundredfold yield on his crops and the wealth of flocks and herds. He wanted his servants to keep finding wells of water. But he didn’t want to depend on the LORD.
Esau wanted blessings in a vacuum. Esau wanted good things without standards, without dependence. But those are not true blessings.