Chapter 26
There is another famine, different from the one in Abraham's day that drove him to go to Egypt and led to the lie about Sarai being his sister.
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,
Genesis 26:4 ESV
God's covenant with Abraham is repeated to Isaac, but Isaac must stay where God tells him during the famine and not go to Egypt. Isaac settles in Gerar, where Abimelech is still King of the Philistines. (or a descendant still using his name is king). So in some sense the covenant is conditional wrt Isaac.
Then there is this:
because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws."
Genesis 26:5 ESV
Doesn't say the promises are conditional, more like a reward.
2024 - We continue to see God speaking directly with those who have a central place in the unfolding of His plan for mankind. He speaks mainly with the patriarchy, but remember that he spoke with Hagar...how many others? Consider this direct communication a characteristic of this time, this dispensation.
When the men of the place asked him about his wife, he said, "She is my sister," for he feared to say, "My wife," thinking, "lest the men of the place should kill me because of Rebekah," because she was attractive in appearance.
Genesis 26:7 ESV
Like father like son, and for the same reason. Only this time it really isn't true. She is his first cousin, once removed. Was this part of the culture they lived in then, that if you wanted another man's wife, you could just kill him and have her? Why would they allow murder for women? That doesn't seem right. What other reasons would there be? If you killed the husband did you get all his goods, and not just his wife? Abraham and Isaac seem more worried about being killed for their wives than for their wealth...Something about how that culture handled each situation?
2023 - Maybe it was just because they were outsiders, and outsiders had no "right to life" or anything else. They were barely better than outright enemies. Like Islam and infidels perhaps.
12 And Isaac sowed in that land and reaped in the same year a hundredfold. The LORD blessed him, [Gen 26:12 ESV]
This is a pretty good year for a farmer...Isaac's wealth continues to grow, and he becomes a competing "nation" with Gerar. Seems the servants of Abimelech had filled in all the wells that Abraham had dug somewhere along the line, perhaps to remove any claim to the land that Abraham's descendants might have. Abimelech asks Isaac to leave the area. This verse:
17 So Isaac departed from there and encamped in the Valley of Gerar and settled there. [Gen 26:17 ESV]
This implies to me that while Isaac may have moved out from under Abimelech's immediate location, he stayed in that kingdom, and did not go to Egypt. Hmm...is the famine over, or did Isaac get 100 fold increase during the famine? That would certainly have made him rich very quickly.
MSB doesn't really talk about where Isaac moves to, but we read that Isaac digs the wells again that had been plugged up, and gives them the same names Abraham had given them. He doesn't declare war on Abimelech, he just re-digs the wells. This seems to be his strategy. There are more conflicts over wells, and each time, rather than draw a line in the sand, Isaac gives up the well and digs another in a different place. Eventually, they leave him alone.
2026 - And this verse finally comes:
22 And he moved from there and dug another well, and they did not quarrel over it. So he called its name Rehoboth, saying, "For now the LORD has made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land." [Gen 26:22 ESV].
Isaac just kept doing what he did. He let these others take what he could use but did not really need, and he moved on and tried again. Instead of going to war and killing people of possessions that would have only increased the wealth he already had, he'd move on. Did his wife, his family, his servants believe him to be a coward because he wouldn't fight for what was his? Jacob would have seen how Isaac handled conflict. He'd have seen the basis for Isaac's decision not to fight over water.
2026 - There is no note here about another appearance of God to Isaac. We saw it in vvs 2-4, and now again in vs 24. There is no conditional stated this time. The promise is that Isaac will be blessed and have lots of offspring. Nothing here about land or kings. Those are about Abraham. I think what we see happening here is that God is building the offspring of Abraham - this particular lineage that runs through Isaac and not Ishmael, into a people he will call his own. This family line will become the Hebrews, God's chosen. Many of the promises to Abraham will also roll down to his many other children. All blessed, all multiply, but through Isaac will his seed be called.
As he grows more powerful, Abimelech and Phicol (So still the same king from Abraham's time?) come and make a deal with Isaac. This also may have been a cultural thing, like lying about your wife being your sister. Abimelech first wanted an oath from Abraham - a sort of contract to leave each other alone. Now he wants this same promise from Isaac. If Isaac will leave them alone, they won't be plotting against him. Much the same kind of agreement that Abimelech had with Abraham. Hard to realize that one man could have enough wealth, servants, and trained fighters (as Abraham had) to be a threat and a challenge to a king. But today, I think we have much the same. Billionaires make policy. They dictate to Kings, Presidents, and Prime Ministers.
When Esau was forty years old, he took Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite to be his wife, and Basemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite, and they made life bitter for Isaac and Rebekah.
Genesis 26:34-35 ESV
Bitter for his parents. How, I wonder? MSB says that Esau had deliberately broken the standard set by Abraham for Isaac to take his wife from among their own people back in Haran. He has intermingled the family of Abraham with those who are to be expelled later. This will certainly result in a lot of conflict. At this point, the descendants of Abraham will be driving out their own relatives - kinsmen is the word I believe - when they come in to conquer Canaan.
2021 - But this is also true of Ammon and Moab, and all the Ishmaelites. But I guess up until Esau marries these Hittites, there had been no intermingling with the inhabitants of Canaan itself. Note also that this means Canaan was inhabited originally by both Hittites - which we now know came there from Turkey, and by Philistines who came from Egypt. Turkey was inhabited by the descendants of Japheth, and Egypt by the descendants of Ham. I guess when it all goes back to an original three, you don't have to look far to find yourself fighting your own family.