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. And the LORD appeared unto him, and said, Go not down into Egypt; dwell in the land which I shall tell thee of; 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 swore unto Abraham thy father; 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; because that Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws. And Isaac dwelt in Gerar; 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. 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. 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. And Abimelech said, What is this thou hast done unto us? one of the people might lightly have lien with thy wife, and thou shouldst have brought guiltiness upon us. And Abimelech charged all the people, saying, He that toucheth this man or his wife shall surely be put to death. And Isaac sowed in that land, and found in the same year an hundredfold; and the LORD blessed him. And the man waxed great, and grew more and more until he became very great; and he had possessions of flocks, and possessions of herds, and a great household; and the Philistines envied him. Now 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. And Abimelech said unto Isaac, Go from us; for thou art much mightier than we. And Isaac departed thence, and encamped in the valley of Gerar, and dwelt there. 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. And Isaac’s servants digged in the valley, and found there a well

20 of springing water. And the herdmen of Gerar strove with Isaac’s herdmen, 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 22 Sitnah. 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 23 for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land. And he went up from thence to Beer-sheba. 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 25 Abraham’s sake. And he builded an altar there, and called upon the name of the LORD, and 26 pitched his tent there : and there Isaac’s servants digged a well. Then Abimelech went to 27 him from Gerar, and Ahuzzath his friend, and Phicol the captain of his host. And Isaac said unto them, Wherefore are ye come unto me, seeing ye hate me, and have sent me away from 28 you ? And they said, We saw plainly that the LORD 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 the LORD. 30 And he made them a feast, and they did eat and drink. And they rose up betimes in the 31 morning, and sware one to another : and Isaac sent them away, and they departed from him 32 in peace. And it came to pass the same day, that Isaac’s servants came, and told him con- 33 cerning the well which they had digged, and said unto him, We have found water. And he it called Shibah : therefore the name of the city is Beer-sheba unto this day. 34 And when Esau was forty years old he took to wife Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, 35 and Basemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite : and they were a grief of mind unto Isaac and to Rebekah.

The story of Isaac is brief ; his life uneventful, perhaps we might say monotonous. The chapter shows that the Lord appeared to him on two distinct occasions ; at Gerar (2-5), renewing the covenant previously made with Abraham, with a very full restatement of all its salient points ; also at Beersheba (23-25) where we are told “he builded an altar and called on the name of the Lord,” in the steps of his godly father. H. C.—Isaac was 75 at the time of his father’s death, and 137 at the time of Jacob’s flight to Haran. All that we know about him during the sixty-two intervening years is told us in this single chapter. Within its short compass is related everything in his recorded history which has an independent and distinctive character of its own, and is not wholly secondary and subordinate to some event in Abraham’s life on the one hand, or to Jacob’s on the other. In the absence of all note of time, it is impossible to say when in the course of the sixty-two years the events narrated in this chapter occurred. W. H.

It is the main purpose of this chapter to sketch the character of Isaac, and to exhibit the peculiar guidance of this patriarch as occasioned by his moral and spiritual wants. Elasticity of endurance, which does not resist evil nor contend against it, but by patience and yielding overcomes it, constitutes the fundamental type of the character of Isaac, and in this lies his real claim to greatness. It does not take from this greatness that in Isaac it is not free from weakness and instability.

1-12. A famine more grievous than that in the time of Abraham had visited the land of Promise. Following the example of his father, Isaac journeyed southward to Gerar, intending thence to pass into Egypt, which was considered the granary of the ancient world. But Jehovah appears unto him (for the first time). He prohibits him from leaving the land of his pilgrimage, and formally and solemnly transfers to him the blessing and promise given to Abraham, in all its threefold bearings (the outward increase of his descendants, the possession of the land, and the salvation of all nations through him). Isaac therefore remains in Gerar. The continuance of the famine induces Isaac to attempt combining tillage with his former occupation of rearing cattle. He is blessed with an hundred-fold harvest, and he learns that even in a year of scarcity and famine, he need not have recourse to Egypt. K.

1. The present famine is distinguished from that which occurred in the time of Abraham (12 : 10). The interval between them is at least a hundred years. The author of this, the ninth document, is acquainted with the seventh document ; and the famine to which he refers is among the earliest events recorded in it. There is no reason to doubt, then, that he has the whole history of Abraham before his mind. Unto Abimelech unto Gerar. The

Abimelech with whom Abraham had intercourse about eighty years before may have been the father of the present sovereign. Both Abimelech and Phichol seem to have been official names. M.

2. Abraham might go safely to Egypt—Isaac might not: in firmness and decision of character there was a wide difference between the two men. A. C.

3. I will be with thee.** Chaldean, “My Word shall be an help unto thee.” To satisfy Isaac that he should never want a guide or a provider, the Lord renews to him the promises that had been made to his father Abraham. Bush.—The oath which I swore unto Abraham thy father. The Bible, from beginning to end, is the development of this grand idea of blessing from God to sinful man through redemption. It lies here in the beginning of history, in the promise to Abraham and Isaac, the key to the entire Bible and to all God’s action in man’s redemption; the key-note of that divine harmony of many parts which sweeps through all human history. This alone lifts the Old Testament above all heathen literature, and stamps it as divine. S. Harris.

6-11. Isaac had now laid aside all thoughts of going into Egypt, and in obedience to the heavenly vision sets up his staff in Gerar, the country in which he was born, yet there he enters into the same temptation that his father had been once and again surprised and overcome by, namely, to deny his wife and to give out that she was his sister. It is an unaccountable thing that both these great and good men should be guilty of so strange a piece of dissimulation, by which they so much exposed both their own and their wives’ reputation. We see that very good men have sometimes been guilty of very great faults and follies. Let those therefore that stand, take heed lest they fall, and those that are fallen not despair of being helped up again. We see that there is an aptness in us to imitate even the weaknesses and infirmities of those we have a value for; we have need therefore to keep our foot, lest while we aim to tread in the steps of good men, we sometimes tread in their by-steps. H.—The fall of them that have gone before us, are so many rocks on which others have split; and the recording of them is like placing buoys over them, for the security of future mariners. Fuller.—But the incident teaches another and quite as important a lesson, viz. that in swerving at all from the strict path of duty, we may be furnishing a precedent to others of whom we little dream. No man knows, in doing wrong, what use will be made of his example. Bush.

The most celebrated saints of God are not secure from sinning: and from their faults there is no arguing to the prejudice of the Book, in which, as we find them recorded as matter of history, so we find them condemned as matter of morality. God has informed us of what passed, but not authorized it; and set the example before us, not for a pattern, but for a warning. Augustine.—Forgetting all the differences of time and place, we persist in giving these ancient Bible characters a modern conscience, with all Christian lights and virtues, and reading in their minds that which belongs to ours. This is unjust to these spiritual forefathers of the race, whose elevation we can never appreciate but by knowing their limitations and ignorance. Mercer.

12. He “sowed in that land, and received in the same year a hundredfold.” In those eastern lands “the rates of increase vary from thirty to a hundred. A hundredfold was rare, and only in spots of extraordinary fertility.” The town of Gerar, in the vicinity of which this first attempt at agriculture was made, lay on the southern edge of the great plain which stretched up northward till it joined that of Sharon. Of this plain, Mr. Grove tells us that “its fertility is marvellous; for the prodigious crops which it raises are produced, and probably have been produced almost year by year for the last forty centuries, with no manure beyond that naturally supplied by the washing down of the hill-torrents, without irrigation, without succession of crops, and with only the rudest methods of husbandry.” The largeness of the return in the case of the first year’s crop at Gerar may have been exceptional, but it was in harmony with the enlargement, in other directions, of Isaac’s possessions, a memorable instance of the meek inheriting the earth. W. H.

13. The man waxed great.** There is a strange and observable occurrence of the same term in the original: And the man was GREAT, and he went, going on, and was GREAT, until that he was exceeding GREAT. How simple is this language, and yet how forcible! A. C.—14. Flocks and herds and a great household. He who blessed him in the increase of his fields, blessed him also in the increase of his flocks; and as he had extensive possessions, so he must have many hands to manage such concerns; therefore it is added, he had great store of servants.

15. All the wells the Philistines had stopped.** In such countries a good well was a great acquisition; and hence in predatory wars it was usual for either party to fill the wells with earth or sand. The filling up the wells in this case was a most unprincipled transaction; as they had pledged themselves to Abraham by a solemn oath, not to injure each other in this or any other respect. A. C.—A more effectual mode of expressing envy or enmity could not well have been devised, as it was in effect to destroy the flocks and herds which could not subsist without water. Bush.—The well is the spring of life. It is the place of resort for the shepherds and herdsmen—here we may witness acts of courtesy or of stratagem—acts of religion—acts of civil compact—acts commemorative of things past—here the journey ends—hither the fugitive and the outcast repair—here the weary pilgrim rests himself—the lack of it is the curse of a kingdom. It enters as an element into the language of Holy Writ, and the simile, the illustration, the metaphor, are still telling forth the great Eastern apothegm, that of “all things WATER is the first.” Of such value was the well—so fruitful a source of contention in those parched and thirsty lands was the possession of a well! Blunt.

21. Isaac took the right course: he said, “Pass on and find another well.” His men “digged another well,” and the men of Gerar “strove for that also: and he called the name of it Sitnah”—Hatred. Let us beware of hatred; it takes the angel out of you; distorts the countenance, takes out of the voice its frank trustfulness and sympathetic music. Hatred does not expend itself upon the victim: it expends itself in the ruin of the soul of the man who hates. He who hates cannot pray; he who hates can offer no sacrifice upon God’s altar that shall be accepted.

22. The leader being of sweet temper, the men went forward—“removed from thence and digged another well; and for that the Philistines strove not.” So Isaac said, “We will call this well Rehoboth”—Room, a place to stand upon. There is a place for every one of us, could we but find it; some have a long, long search in quest of the right place. The well you have found is God’s gift: your beautiful home, your happy family, your prosperous business. You did not perhaps come to that estate of contentment and enjoyment all at once. Remember your own difficulties, and have pity upon the fruitless exertions of other men. After that another well was dug, and Isaac said, “We will call it Sheba”—an oath, a covenant: a settled and unchangeable blessing. So the course of life runs—strife, hatred, room, striking of the hands in holy covenant. Happy is the consummation; it is possible to us all under the providence of God. It is a surprising thing that we should have all this friction to pass through, if we look at some aspects of our character; but if we look at other aspects, it is surprising that we have so little discipline to encounter and to endure. J. P.

Few things are more pleasing than the picture of Isaac, the gentle patriarch, yielding everything and finding everything; as if his history was an antique pictorial illustration of the very words, “Give, and it shall be given to you.” He yields his life on the altar on Moriah, and he finds it. In the strife he always gives up. By patience he is successful. And so “the man waxed great, and grew until he became very great.” Yet we must not forget that there are things over which we should stand and strive. The all-yielding Isaac was rewarded more than the war-like Abraham, and Isaac led a far happier life than Jacob; yet the character even of Jacob was higher; and as to Abraham, he rises far above both. Mercer.—Men count that in a world of violence and wrong the meek will inevitably make themselves a prey; that an Isaac, who gives up the well again and again rather than contend for it, will at length have nothing left him which he may call his own. But it is not so. Wonderful under God is the strength and power of meekness; with it is ever the victory at the last: in the words of the eastern proverb, “The one staff of Moses breaks in shivers the ten thousand spears of Pharaoh.” These “meek” shall in the end inherit all things, even this “earth,” from which it seemed at the outset as if they would be thrust out altogether. Trench.

23. To Beersheba. Wearied with such disturbances in the Philistine country, he is all the more ready to go to Beersheba, the border town of the promised land, and the paternal homestead where the covenant blessings had been promised. Here God appeared to Abraham (chap. 20:1), and now he again appears here to Isaac (ver. 24), and yet afterward to Jacob (chap. 46:1-4). This place, therefore, was the place of high covenant interest. Jacobus. The first traveller in modern times who visited Beersheba was Dr. Robinson. Having, without knowing it, followed the very track which Isaac took from the valley of Gerar northward toward Hebron, “we reached,” he says, “Wady-es-Sebá, a wide water-course. Upon its northern side, close upon the bank, are two deep wells, still called Bir-es-Sebá, the ancient Beersheba. The larger one is 12½ feet in diameter, and 44½ feet deep to the surface water, 16 feet of which at the bottom is excavated in the solid rock. The other well lies 55 rods W.S.W., and is 5 feet in diameter and 42 feet deep. The water in both is pure and sweet, and in great abundance. Both wells are surrounded with drinking-troughs of stone for camels and flocks, such as were doubtless used of old for the flocks which then fed upon the adjacent hills. The curb-stones were deeply worn by the friction of the ropes in drawing up water by hand." Since this account was written, Beersheba has had many visitors, two of the latest being Dr. Tristram and Mr. Palmer. “About two o’clock,” says the former (Feb., 1864), “we reached Beersheba, where the tents were already pitched round one of Abraham’s wells. In front an behind is a vast uneven plateau, almost green, pastured over by thousands of goats, horned cattle, and camels, while several Arab encampments were in sight, drawn to this favored spot by the grateful wells and the comparatively abundant herbage.” W. H.

24. I am the God of Abraham.** These promises are the same for substance as were made to him on his going to Gerar (v. 2-4). But this prefatory declaration would at once renew the memory of all the promises before made, and direct the mind of Isaac to that abiding covenant entered into with Abraham, and to be transmitted to his posterity. Bush.—If Isaac himself had not also possessed his father’s faith, he would not, merely for his father’s sake, have received this divine promise of blessing. But by the mention of his father God appeals to his filial affection, and reminds him of his great example. The appellation is also admonitory of the close connection between parents and children, to the latter of whom, even after the former are departed, God remains unchangeably faithful. In fine, according to the exposition of Jesus himself (Luke 20: 37, 38), it contains a loving intimation of the continuance of Abraham’s existence before the Lord, C. G. B.

For my servant Abraham’s sake. Upon the only two occasions (v. 5) on which the Lord was pleased to hold personal intercourse with Isaac the renewal of the promises to the son was linked in a peculiar manner with the obedience of the father. All through this section of his life we trace the strong disposition to copy his father’s conduct. Placed thus in like circumstances, he says of Rebekah, as Abraham had said of Sarah, “She is my sister.” As the weaker man he is spared the trial to which Abraham was exposed. His wife is not taken from him. The protection comes before the peril. The discovery of the relationship is made. The peremptory edict of Abimelech is issued, and Isaac is permitted to dwell in the land in peace. W. H.

25. He builded an altar there.** As an expression of his grateful sense of the divine goodness on the present occasion, and as a part of his habitual practice, he set up the stated worship of God on the spot which had been consecrated by similar observances in the days of his father. Bush.—We are no better than brute beasts if, contenting ourselves with a natural use of the creatures, we rise not up to the Author; if, instead of being temples of his praise, we become graves of his benefits. Isaac first built an altar, and then digged a well. Trapp.

28, 29. “When a man’s ways please the Lord, even his enemies shall be at peace with him,” and there is something sacred in the character of a good man, to which the wicked often pay an involuntary tribute of respect and admiration. Discarding the envy which he may have cherished, he comes to do homage to a man highly favored of the Lord. Bush.

30,31. Isaac entertained them hospitably, entered into a treaty of peace with them, and dismissed them courteously. Thus, in Isaac, we have a type of faith operating in an unostentatious, undemonstrative, and thoroughly quiet and self-sacrificing way; and yet producing an impression, as we have seen, both salutary and powerful. Hughes.

It is certainly striking that the events of Abraham’s life, and even the resolutions which he took in consequence of them, repeatedly recur in the history of Isaac. In the one and in the other case there was famine in the land of Promise. In the one case the patriarch actually passed into Egypt, in the other he intended to do so; in both cases recourse is had to the same falsehood by which a wife is passed as a sister; in one and in the other case a covenant is made with Abimelech; in one and in the other case, we read in part of the same stations, of the same wells, of the same origin of the name Beersheba; while lastly the manifestation of God and the promises appear in both cases to have taken place in the same manner and with the same tendency, and in consequence of them each of the two patriarchs erects an altar and serves Jehovah. Still, however similar the aspect of his life to that of Abraham, how different was his inward and outward position, owing to the difference of character between the two patriarchs! Abraham takes refuge in Egypt, and Isaac is about to imitate him. But Abraham learns only by the complications and dangers in which he is involved that

this device was contrary to the will of God. On the other hand, Isaac, whose greater weakness of character would not have been equal to the dangers which there threatened him, is by Divine intervention preserved from following the same device. Abraham loses his wife. The protection of God does not preserve him from this trial, although it delivers him from dangers which might thence have resulted. The weaker Isaac is spared this trial, and the protection of God manifests itself in this, that the falsehood of his pretence appears before it is too late. The similarity of their nomadic occupations and the continuance of former circumstances, account for the fact that in both cases we read of the same stations and wells, and of another alliance with Abimelech. But what a contrast between the personality of Abraham, who commands respect, and the patient yielding of Isaac. People do not interfere with the rights and privileges of Abraham, but Isaac must give place before continual hostilities and interferences. K.