Digging In His Word

Have you ever read a book or seen a movie where the plot was so crazy you thought that it could never happen in real life?  Today’s text will touch on a story like that.  It centers around the favoritism present in Isaac’s family (Gen 25:27-28) and the sibling rivalry that it caused.  If you recall, Isaac and Rebekah each had different ‘favorites’ among their sons.  Isaac preferred Esau and Rebekah favored Jacob. 

Today’s lesson is going to give you such a sense of déjà vu.  The Bible, in chapter 26, records several events from Isaac’s life, and they are all going to sound somewhat familiar.  They are all scenes we have already seen in Abraham’s life.  As we study, think about the ways in which the events are similar and the ways they are different from when they happened to Abraham.

Have you ever been surprised or astonished when someone you didn’t think had exceptional qualities went out and did something impressive?  As humans, we can be guilty of looking at people and sizing them up pretty quickly, determining what we estimate to be their potential.  We look at certain characteristics about them, and based on our observations, we make our assumptions.  When the person either succeeds or fails differently than we expected, it can sometimes be startling.  But we will see today that God views a man’s potential differently than we do.  He chooses leaders and people to do His work based on different criteria than we might.  When God calls men to do His will, He calls according to His good will.  He knows what they can be.

In today’s lesson, we begin following Isaac.  Abraham has passed away and the fulfillment of God’s covenant promises falls to his son.  We pick up our story today in verses 19-20.  The Bible tells us here that Isaac was forty years old when he married Rebekah and it confirms her Aramean (Syrian) lineage through Abraham’s family (Semites).  She is not a Canaanite.  This was important in the fulfillment of the covenant promise.  God would take the land from the Canaanites and give it to Abraham’s line of descent.

Don’t you just love a great love story?  Today, we are going to have such a treat!  The story of Isaac and Rebekah is one of the Bible’s best love stories.  If you remember from our last lesson, Abraham’s servant sought God’s help in finding the right woman for Isaac to marry and God led him to Rebekah. 

Family matters can often be very pressing issues and sometimes we must make difficult decisions.  And when those decisions affect the future of our children, the responsibility can weigh heavily upon us.  In today’s story, Abraham must find a wife for Isaac.  In those days, it was usual for parents to do this for their children and arranged marriages were very common.  Verse 1 tells us that Abraham was very old at this time.  How old was Isaac (Gen 25:20)?

Have you ever known an older couple that have been together for most of their adult lives and are still so happy together that you can’t even imagine one of them without the other?  And when one of these two people passes away, often, the other one doesn’t even know how to function for a long time afterwards because they have always been with each other.  I believe this is how it was for Abraham and Sarah.  They had been together for so long.  They were 100/90 years old when their son Isaac was born.  And now, we see in verse one of today’s passage, they were 137/127 when Sarah passed away.

We have often heard it said that there should be nothing in our lives more important than God.  It is even in the Ten Commandments.  Think about this for a minute.  Can you honestly say that you put God before everything in your life?  Your health?  Your job?  Your family?  In today’s story, God puts Abraham to the test to see if He comes first with Abraham.

Have you ever rejoiced at someone keeping their promise to you?  There are people in our lives that we just know we can depend on.  But sometimes, through no fault of their own, they may let us down sometimes.  It is not that way with God.  God always keeps His promises, and we see in verses 1-2 of our passage today, God kept His promise to Abraham and Sarah and they had a son.  We see in verse 1 the phrases “as he had said” and “as he had spoken”.  God’s word is to be trusted. 

The book of Genesis now returns us to Sarah and Abraham. In verse one, we see them moving into the Negev region and settling in a place called Gerar.  The people of this place were once nomadic shepherds but were now beginning to become a more settled people and a warlike nation.  Gerar was their capital.  These people later came to be known as the Philistines and were enemies of the Israelites.  The name Philistines also later brought to this region the name Palestine.