The Promise of Blessing - Genesis 26:12-33
THE PROMISE OF BLESSING
INTRODUCTION:
During our time in Israel our guide often spoke about the importance of water, man needs water to exist. When Herod built his fortress on Masada he built it with 12 massive cisterns to catch and hold the rain. Each cistern could hold up to 140,000 cubic feet of water. Hezekiah’s tunnel in Jerusalem is a tunnel cut through solid rock by hand to bring water from the Gihon spring into Jerusalem so that Jerusalem would not be cut off from water during a siege. Water was always a sought after commodity in Israel. Today Israel desalinates water from the Mediterranean Sea and has plenty of water.
Our passage this morning is full of water, it is all about this precious commodity and how God used it to bless Isaac. Eight times the word well or wells is mentioned in this passage showing how important water was to the welfare of the people in those days. Jacob as he watches his father should learn an important lesson from his father’s life, a lesson that Isaac learned the hard way after trying to bring good into his life by lying about Rebekah because of fear and then being disgraced and rebuked by a pagan king when his lie was found out at the cost of hurting his family, having his character brought into question, he could not be trusted to be a man of integrity and honesty, and having his testimony destroyed. Isaac then picks up the pieces and he does what he should have done to begin with and he begins to trust God, he takes hold of the promises that God has given him and he puts his faith in God, no longer fearing and God blesses him as he promised. Let’s pray and then get into our passage this morning.
--PRAY--
SCRIPTURE:
Turn in your Bibles this morning to Genesis 26:12-33. Please stand in honor of the reading of God’s Word and follow along as I read.
Genesis 26:12-33,
“Now Isaac sowed in that land and reaped in the same year a hundredfold. And the Lord blessed him, and the man became rich, and continued to grow richer until he became very wealthy; for he had possessions of flocks and herds and a great household, so that the Philistines envied him. Now all the wells which his father’s servants had dug in the days of Abraham his father, the Philistines stopped up by filling them with earth. Then Abimelech said to Isaac, ‘Go away from us, for you are too powerful for us.’ And Isaac departed from there and camped in the valley of Gerar, and settled there. Then Isaac dug again the wells of water which had been dug in the days of his father Abraham, for the Philistines had stopped them up after the death of Abraham; and he gave them the same names which his father had given them. But when Isaac’s servants dug in the valley and found there a well of flowing water, the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with the herdsmen of Isaac, saying, ‘The water is ours!’ So he named the well Esek, because they contended with him. Then they dug another well, and they quarreled over it too, so he named it Sitnah. He moved away from there and dug another well, and they did not quarrel over it; so he named it Rehoboth, for he said, ‘At last the Lord has made room for us, and we will be fruitful in the land.’ Then he went up from there to Beersheba. The Lord appeared to him the same night and said, ‘I am the God of your father Abraham; Do not fear, for I am with you. I will bless you, and multiply your descendants, For the sake of My servant Abraham.’ So he built an altar there and called upon the name of the Lord, and pitched his tent there; and there Isaac’s servants dug a well. Then Abimelech came to him from Gerar with his adviser Ahuzzath and Phicol the commander of his army. Isaac said to them, ‘Why have you come to me, since you hate me and have sent me away from you?’ They said, ‘We see plainly that the Lord has been with you; so we said, “Let there now be an oath between us, even between you and us, and let us make a covenant with you, that you will do us no harm, just as we have not touched you and have done to you nothing but good and have sent you away in peace. You are now the blessed of the Lord.”‘ Then he made them a feast, and they ate and drank. In the morning they arose early and exchanged oaths; then Isaac sent them away and they departed from him in peace. Now it came about on the same day, that Isaac’s servants came in and told him about the well which they had dug, and said to him, ‘We have found water.’ So he called it Shibah; therefore the name of the city is Beersheba to this day.” (Genesis 26:12–33, NASB95)[1]
ISAAC TRUSTS GOD AND RECEIVES GOD’S GOODNESS (Genesis 26:12-14)
As I said in my introduction Isaac learned a lesson from the outcome of his lie, the lesson he learned was that he needed to trust God and not fear. The Lord had promised to be with him and Isaac now puts his trust in God and God blesses him abundantly. We are told that Isaac sowed in the land, Isaac is still living in Gerar and apparently he has leased some land and he sowed in it and we are told he reaped a hundredfold that same year. Up until now Isaac has been a rancher and a sheepherder, here we read that he tried something new and God blesses him. Donald Sunukjian writes this concerning Isaac’s crop, “…God gives them incredible success in their new business, wealth beyond expectation—an astounding yield per acre, an unbelievable return on their investment. They ‘reaped a hundredfold’—that’s way beyond the average return. A hundredfold is the epitome of blessing. And the word reaped in the Hebrew language carries the idea of a surprised discovery—something way beyond normal.”[2] Moses goes on in his account and tells us plainly that the Lord blessed Isaac and he became rich, and continued to grower richer until he became very wealthy. This word wealthy means more than just well off, but also carries the idea that not only did he become rich, but he also became powerful. God blessed his flocks and herds and they increased, and Isaac had to hire more servants to work for him and if he was anything like his father those servants were trained for battle. If you remember Abraham had 300 trained servants that he armed and sent out for battle when his nephew Lot was taken captive. Isaac becomes a force to be reckoned with and the Philistines in Gerar and the surrounding area become envious of this foreigner. They do not like the fact that Isaac is becoming rich and powerful in their land.
THE PHILISTINES WANT HIM TO LEAVE (Genesis 26:15-22)
Moses reminds us that Abraham had dug a number of wells in the area and Isaac was using them to water his flocks and herds and irrigate his crops and the envious Philistines fill them with dirt and stop them up so that they cannot be used. They sought to make it impossible for Isaac and his household to live among them, they removed that precious commodity that he needed to survive. I can imagine that the tension in Gerar was rising, and Isaac was not the foreigner he was when he arrived and Abimelech begins to see that if something is not done quickly then the tensions between Isaac and the inhabitants of Gerar might erupt into violence and Isaac is now powerful enough that he could potentially come out on top. So Abimelech goes to Isaac and tells him he is no longer welcome to live in Gerar, move away from us because you have become too powerful, or literally you have become much mightier than us. Isaac doesn’t have to take this, he could have fought for his “rights” and most likely could have beaten down the opposition and exerted his will on the situation; but Isaac is trusting God and he chooses peace because he knows that God is with him and God’s goodness is certain. So Isaac moves out of the city and into the valley of Gerar about 15 miles away from the city. Here he opens up some of the wells that had been dug by the servants of Abraham and he gives the wells the same names that his father had thus laying claim to them. Isaac by doing this shows his confidence in God’s goodness, that God will continue to be with them and provide for them and bless them and God does. As the family continues to prosper in this new location they need more water and so we are told that the servants of Isaac dig a well in the valley and they find a huge underground reservoir or spring, it is a well of flowing water. In the valley were other herdsmen from Gerar and when Isaac’s servants had dug this well the Philistines claimed it and said it was their water. Isaac named the well Esek which means contention because the herdsmen of Gerar contended or quarreled with Isaac’s servants over the well. Isaac left it to them and his servants dug again in the valley and discovered another well of water, and the herdsmen again quarreled and claimed it as their own. Isaac named the well Sitnah which means strife or enmity. Again he left the well to the Philistines, still trusting God to provide. Isaac moved further away from the herdsmen of Gerar and his servants dug another well and found water and no one quarreled over this one and Isaac named it Rehoboth which means broad places and Isaac said that Lord had provided them with broad places to live and they would continue to prosper. Everywhere that Isaac went God provided water showing His goodness to Isaac and Isaac continued to grow wealthier and more powerful and soon he had to move on again and we are told he left the Philistine area and went to Beersheba and settled there. That very night that he arrived the Lord appeared to him, it was as if the Lord was watching to see if Isaac would trust Him and finally put the Philistines behind him.
THE LORD RECONFIRMS THE COVENANT TO ISAAC (Genesis 26:23-33)
The purpose for appearing to Isaac is to reconfirm the covenant to him, and again the Lord tells Isaac not to fear, that God is with him and will multiply his descendants keeping His promise to Abraham. Then we see Isaac do something that confirms for us the change in his life, that God has transformed him; that he recognizes that his prosperity and power is not because of something he did, but is the goodness of God to him. He finally understands that God’s love for him is so great and God’s goodness is so certain that he can trust God without fear. Isaac builds an altar and calls upon the name of the Lord. This is the turning point in Isaac’s life, this is when the Lord truly becomes his God and he will not fear because God is with him and God’s goodness is never ending.
Isaac is not the only one who recognized God’s hand in his life, the Philistines of Gerar also see it and know now that there is nothing they can do to stop the family’s success. It is now obvious to everyone that God is going to continue to bless this family no matter what. Abimelech begins to worry, he begins to fear that Isaac may someday seek revenge for how he has been treated. Understand that Isaac is now a two day journey from Gerar, but Abimelech with two of his advisors makes that journey to negotiate water and grazing rights, to seek a non-aggression treaty with Isaac. Isaac shows no fear upon their arrival, he knows that the Lord is with him. He demands to know why they have come after the way they had treated him, he tells it like it is, you hate me. Listen to Abimelech’s words, and tell me who is lying now, “We see plainly that the Lord has been with you; so we said, ‘Let there now be an oath between us, even between you and us, and let us make a covenant with you, that you will do us no harm, just as we have not touched you and have done to you nothing but good and have sent you away in peace. You are now the blessed of the Lord.’” Abimelech tries to put him and his people in the best light, they hadn’t really sent them away in peace telling him he had to go and then making them move because of water, it was not peaceable and to claim that they had done nothing but good to them was a lie. God’s blessing on Isaac’s life is obvious that Abimelech wants to be on good terms with him.
By now Isaac is convinced of God’s goodness, he doesn’t need to fight over the past. He extends hospitality to Abimelech and his entourage and makes a treaty with them and sends them away in peace.
And God’s goodness continues to flow over Isaac, his servants who had begun to dig another well come to Isaac after the guests had left and told him that they had made a surprised discovery, a blessing beyond imagination, we have found water. This word translated found is the same word translated reaped in verse 12. The Hebrew word remember carries the idea of a surprised discovery—something way beyond normal. They were saying we have found or discovered a surprising quantity of water, either another underground reservoir or an underground spring. Isaac named the well Shibah which means the oath. Beersheba means the well of the oath. The place where Isaac had God’s oath reconfirmed and the place where an oath of peace was made with his enemies.
CONCLUSION:
Last Sunday we saw Isaac not trusting God, not believing that the Lord would be with him, and in fear he put his trust in his own flesh to get the good that he wanted by falling back into an old family sin that in the end failed miserably, he lost the trust of the Philistines, they no longer saw him as a man of integrity or honesty. He ruined his testimony and any chance of telling the Philistines about the one true God. This morning we see that Isaac learned from that mistake and he put his trust in the Lord and God’s goodness, the good that Isaac desired came to him. Isaac gave his fears to God and God as He promised began to bless Isaac abundantly, far more than he ever imagined, and as each conflict came Isaac gave it to the Lord and moved on and the Lord always provided more, wherever they went they found water to sustain them and make them fruitful. Isaac learned that God’s goodness is limitless, it is endless if you trust Him. God was teaching Isaac to trust Him, and at the same time as Jacob watched this transformation in his father’s life God was teaching him that he too could know God’s limitless goodness. God was continually showing Jacob that His love for him was so great and His goodness was so certain that he could trust the Lord without fear of what the world could do, because God’s goodness is always greater than the trouble in this world. Isaac’s true turning point was when he built an altar and called on the name of the Lord and as we continue this study of the life of Jacob we must look for a turning point in his life.
The lesson for us is that God wants us to trust Him with everything, give Him your fears, your frustrations, your stress, your tension, your hurts and your pains and God will shower you with His goodness. This must start first with a relationship with God that comes from agreeing with God that you are a sinner and believing that Jesus came to this earth as God in the flesh and that He died on the cross paying the penalty for your sin and that He rose from the dead guaranteeing your future resurrection and eternal life because of His triumph over death. When you do this you enter into God’s great love for you and His goodness is certain and you can trust Him and fear not. Today you can have peace knowing that God is with you, Isaac changed from fearful to fearless when he learned this. God’s love for you is so great, God’s goodness is so certain that you can trust Him with our fear.
[1]New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update. LaHabra, CA : The Lockman Foundation, 1995
[2]Sunukjian, Donald R., Invitation to the Life of Jacob : Winning Through Losing. Wooster, Ohio : Weaver Book Co., 2014