Abraham and Isaac’s Families

Genesis 25:1-26:35¹

June 25, 2006

Today’s message is from Genesis chapters 25 and 26, all of both chapters. Again, we won’t read the text at the beginning, but I will read at least parts of it as we go along. Remember that it’s the word of God, breathed by the Holy Spirit and is able to make you wise for salvation. (1 Tim. 3:15) The apostle Paul also says (in Romans 15:4), “For whatever was written before was written for our instruction, so that through our endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we may have hope.” (And remember, in the Bible, hope is not something wishy-washy. It means full assurance!)

So, as always, I encourage you to read your Bibles every day. Don’t neglect the word of God. It is food that sustains your life.

[Prayer]

The two chapters in today’s passage, Genesis chapters 25 and 26, are about Abraham’s descendants and his son Isaac’s family. At this point, Abraham’s wife Sarah has died and Abraham has buried her in the cave of Machpelah which he purchased from Ephron the Hittite. He buried her in the land of Canaan. I talked about it last week.

Last week I also talked about Abraham’s commissioning his servant, the elder of his household, to get a wife for his son Isaac from among his relatives. Abraham made his servant swear an oath to not get Isaac a wife from among the Canaanites, but to go to the land where his family had stayed when he came to Canaan. The servant brought back Rebekah and Isaac took her as his wife. The first six verses of chapter 25, the beginning of today’s passage, tell us about the rest of Abraham’s life until he died.

Some time after Sarah died, Abraham remarried. He took another wife, a woman named Keturah. Abraham had six sons with Keturah, Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shuah. Most of them you never hear of again. But the descendants of Midian are all through the Old Testament. The land of Midian was the land where Moses fled 400 years later when Pharaoh was after him to kill him. While he was there, he married Zipporah, the daughter of Jethro, priest of Midian.

Later the Israelites fought against the Midianites more than once. It was the Midianites and their allies that Gideon defeated with 300 men years later. (Do you remember when I talked about putting out the fleeces last week? It was the Midianites that Gideon wanted assurance from God that they would be able to defeat.)

Verses 5 and 6 in today’s passage say, “Abraham gave everything he owned to Isaac. And Abraham gave gifts to the sons of his concubines. But while he was still alive he sent them eastward, away from his son Isaac, to the land of the East.”

Isaac inherited everything Abraham owned. Remember that it was through Isaac that God’s promises would be fulfilled. It was through Isaac that Abraham’s descendants would be traced. And it was through Isaac that all nations on earth would be blessed. Abraham had other descendants, but he sent them away from Isaac before he died. He gave them each gifts, but didn’t let them remain near his son Isaac. Abraham gave everything he owned to Isaac.

Verse 7 says that the length of Abraham’s life was 175 years. He was old and contented. When he died his sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah, the cave he had purchased to bury his wife Sarah. He was buried with Sarah. His son, Isaac and Isaac’s wife Rebekah, his grandson Jacob and his wife Leah and probably even his great grandson Joseph were all buried there. Verse 11 says that after Abraham’s death, God blessed his son Isaac.

Verses 12 through 17 are given the title, in the HCSB, Ishmael’s Family Records. They describe the family of Abraham’s son Ishmael, the son he had with Sarah’s servant Hagar, who, at Sarah’s urging, he had also taken as a wife. He did this before Sarah had become pregnant with Isaac. She had hoped, if you remember, that through Hagar, she could have children—that any children born to Hagar would be counted as hers. But after Isaac was born, Abraham had to send Hagar and Ishmael away, because it was through Isaac that his offspring would be traced.

Ishmael had twelve sons and they established twelve clans. When the Lord told Abraham to send Ishmael and Hagar away, he also told him this: “Your offspring will be traced through Isaac, but I will also make a nation of the slave’s (Hagar’s) son because he is your offspring.” Ishmael lived 137. He died at the age of 137. Verse 17 says that he lived in opposition to all his brothers. The present-day Arabs claim descent from Ishmael and they certainly seem to be living in opposition to their brothers the Israelis to this day.

Now let’s look at verses 19 through 26. Here’s what they say:

The Birth of Jacob and Esau

^{19These are the family records of Isaac son of Abraham. Abraham fathered Isaac. ²⁰Isaac was 40 years old when he took as his wife Rebekah daughter of Bethuel the Aramean from Paddan-aram, and sister of Laban the Aramean. ²¹Isaac prayed to the Lord on behalf of his wife because she was barren. The Lord heard his prayer, and his wife Rebekah conceived. ²²But the children inside her struggled with each other, and she said, “Why is this happening to me?” So she went to inquire of the Lord. ²³And the Lord said to her:

Two nations are in your womb;
two people will come from you and be separated.
One people will be stronger than the other,
and the older will serve the younger.

^{24When her time came to give birth, there were indeed twins in her womb. ²⁵The first one came out reddish, covered with hair like a fur coat, and they named him Esau. ²⁶After this, his brother came out grasping Esau’s heel with his hand. So he was named Jacob. Isaac was 60 years old when they were born. (Genesis 25:19-26)

Verses 19 and 20 review the life of Isaac—that Abraham was his father and that he married Rebekah when he was 40 years old. Verse 21 tells us that that Isaac and Rebekah had no children. Rebekah was barren. How much this is like the situation with Abraham and Sarah. Isaac, the son of the promise, who was not conceived in the normal way as was Ishmael, but as the result of a promise from God, and through whom Abraham’s offspring, who would be as numerous as the sand on the seashore and the stars in the sky, would be traced, also had a wife who was barren. So Isaac prayed—and the Lord heard his prayer and Rebekah conceived—in fact she conceived not just one, but two children. She became pregnant with twins.

But even before they were born, the two brothers were fighting. Rebekah asked the Lord what was going on: “Why is this happening to me.” She prayed! She recognized who it was who had enabled her to become pregnant and who it was who has all the answers. She asked the Lord and he told her. (I ask the Lord a lot of times and most of the time he doesn’t tell me, but sometimes he does. But I don’t ask him nearly often enough.) Rebekah asked the Lord and he answered her. He told her, not that there were to babies in her womb, but that there were two nations—and one would be stronger than the other and the older would serve the younger.

When Rebekah gave birth, the first baby to come out was red and covered with hair. They named him Esau. The second baby came out holding the heel of the first. They named him Jacob. Jacob means ‘he grasps the heel’. Figuratively it means deceiver or usurper. (Remember that.) Isaac was 60 years old when Rebekah gave birth to Esau and Jacob.

Now let’s look at verses 27 through 34. Here’s what they say:

Esau Sells His Birthright
^{27When the boys grew up, Esau became an expert hunter, an outdoorsman, but Jacob was a quiet man who stayed at home. ²⁸Isaac loved Esau because he had a taste for wild game, but Rebekah loved Jacob.
^{29Once when Jacob was cooking a stew, Esau came in from the field, exhausted. ³⁰He said to Jacob, “Let me eat some of that red stuff, because I’m exhausted.” That is why he was also named Edom.
^{31Jacob replied, “First sell me your birthright.”
^{32 “Look,” said Esau, “I’m about to die, so what good is a birthright to me?”
^{33Jacob said, “Swear to me first.” So he swore to Jacob and sold his birthright to him. ³⁴Then Jacob gave bread and lentil stew to Esau; he ate, drank, got up, and went away. So Esau despised his birthright. (Genesis 25:27-34)

Esau and Jacob were about as far apart in personality as they could be. Esau loved the field, but Jacob was quiet and liked to stay at home. Also, Isaac loved Esau, but Rebekah loved Jacob, not a good situation for there to be peace in the family.

Now, remember that I said that Jacob figuratively means deceiver or usurper. Here’s the first example of how that name fit Jacob. There’ll be more later in Genesis. Jacob took advantage of Esau and got him to trade his birthright for some stew—something that was gone in just a few minutes. Can you imagine that? Do you suppose he felt guilty about doing it? How would you feel? Would you feel guilty? Jacob did wrong—and he wouldn’t even have needed to. The Lord had already determined that the older would serve the younger—that Esau would serve Jacob.

Jacob was sneaky. But we can also learn something else about their personalities. Jacob thought the right of the firstborn was important and was willing to take advantage of his brother to obtain it. Did you know that Jesus is called ‘the firstborn over all creation’? Colossians 1:16 says, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.” Being the firstborn is very important, not only materially, but spiritually. Jacob apparently knew that, but Esau could care less.

You know, when you look at Esau as he appears later in Genesis he seems to have the better personality. In chapter 27, when we will see that Jacob cheated Esau out of Isaac’s blessing, Esau was so angry that he was considering killing Isaac. So Rebekah sent Jacob to her brother Laban to hide out for a while while Esau cooled down. Here’s some of Isaac’s blessing, so you’ll be able to see why Esau is angry. This is how Isaac blessed Jacob instead of Esau: “May God give to you—from the dew of the sky and from the richness of the land—an abundance of grain and new wine. May peoples serve you and nations bow down to you. Be master over your brothers; may your mother’s sons bow down to you. Those who curse you will be cursed, and those who bless you will be blessed.” (Gen. 27:28, 29) According to this blessing, Jacob would be rich and would be master over Esau and Esau would serve him. Twenty years after he went to be with Rebekah’s brother Laban, Isaac would finally return and would be terrified to find out that Esau was coming to meet him with 400 men. But Esau had forgotten completely about the whole incident and greeted Isaac and hugged him.

It is through Jacob that the Lord will fulfill his promises, not through Esau, just as it was through Isaac that the Lord would fulfill his promises and not through Ishmael. The descendants of Esau were called Edomites. (Edom means red. Esau was red.) The Israelites, the descendants of Jacob, fought with the Edomites, Esau’s descendants through most of the Old Testament. Unlike the Ishmaelites, I don’t think there are any Edomites left today. In Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament, it says (this is God speaking), “I loved Jacob but I hated Esau.” (Malachi 1:2)

Jacob was the one the Lord chose. Jacob needed quite a bit of training and refining, just as we do, but in the end, as we will see later, he was a man of God—a prophet that prophesied about the coming of the Lord Jesus. Esau apparently had no interest in anything spiritual. (If you have any interest in anything spiritual (like your eternal salvation, for example), if you ask God, he will hold onto you and work on you until you are suitable for his kingdom, just as he did with Jacob. He will not let you go!)

Now let’s look at Chapter 26. Here’s what the first 6 verses say:

The Promise Reaffirmed to Isaac
^{1There was another famine in the land in addition to the one that had occurred in Abraham’s time. And Isaac went to Abimelech, king of the Philistines, at Gerar. ²The Lord appeared to him and said, “Do not go down to Egypt. Live in the land that I tell you about; ³stay in this land as a foreigner, and I will be with you and bless you. For I will give all these lands to you and your offspring, and I will confirm the oath that I swore to your father Abraham. ⁴I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of the sky, I will give your offspring all these lands, and all the nations of the earth will be blessed by your offspring, ⁵because Abraham listened to My voice and kept My mandate, My commands, My statutes, and My instructions.”⁶So Isaac settled in Gerar. (Genesis 26:1-6)

There was another famine in the land. Isaac went to Abimelech. (Remember Abimelech? He was the one whom Abraham told that Sarah was his sister so that he would not be killed if they decided to take Sarah away from him to be in Abimelech’s harem. The Lord had to get him out of the trouble he got himself into. Now Isaac is going to live near Abimelech also.)

Anyway, the Lord reaffirmed to Isaac all that he had promised to Abraham, descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky, all the land given to his offspring, and that all nations of the earth to be blessed through his offspring. (Offspring, by the way, is singular—one offspring! You know who that one offspring is, don’t you. It’s Jesus!) All the promises the Lord had made to Abraham, he confirmed to Isaac—and notice what the reason was that the Lord gave. It was not because of anything Isaac had done, but because Abraham had listened to the Lord’s voice and had kept his mandate! And we have God’s promise of eternal life, not because of anything we have done, but because Jesus listened to God’s voice and kept his mandate. Jesus prayed, “Not my will but yours be done.” God’s will was for Jesus to suffer and to die on the cross for our sin! He kept God’s mandate!

Now let’s look at verses 7 through 11. Here’s what they say:

Isaac’s Deception
^{7When the men of the place asked about his wife, he said, “She is my sister,” for he was afraid to say “my wife,” thinking, “The men of the place will kill me on account of Rebekah, for she is a beautiful woman.” ⁸When Isaac had been there for some time, Abimelech king of the Philistines looked down from the window and was surprised to see Isaac caressing his wife Rebekah.
^{9Abimelech sent for Isaac and said, “So she is really your wife! How could you say, ‘She’s my sister’?”
Isaac answered him, “Because I thought I might die on account of her.”
^{10Then Abimelech said, “What is this you’ve done to us? One of the people could easily have slept with your wife, and you would have brought guilt on us.”¹¹So Abimelech warned all the people with these words: “Whoever harms this man or his wife will certainly die.” (Genesis 26:7-11)

Does “like father, like son” seem appropriate. He did the same thing with Rebekah that Abraham had done with Sarah—and Abimelech responded the same way he had with Abraham, he rebuked isaac; but the Lord didn’t have to appear to Abimelech in a dream this time.

Now let’s look at verses 12 through 16. Here’s what they say:

Conflicts over Wells
^{12Isaac sowed seed in that land, and in that year he reaped a hundred times what was sown. The Lord blessed him, ¹³and the man became rich and kept getting richer until he was very wealthy. ¹⁴He had flocks of sheep, herds of cattle, and many slaves, and the Philistines were envious of him. ¹⁵The Philistines stopped up all the wells that his father’s slaves had dug in the days of his father Abraham, filling them with dirt. ¹⁶And Abimelech said to Isaac, “Leave us, for you are much too powerful for us.” (Genesis 26:12-16)

The Lord blessed Isaac materially just as he had Abraham—so much so that the Philistines, Abimelech’s people, became jealous and started to make troubles for Isaac. You know, this is a lot like our spiritual struggle. When God blesses us with every spiritual blessing and we are persecuted, he gives us strength. In the case of Isaac, Abimelech finally realized that he was too powerful for them and told him to leave them.

Now let’s look at verses 17 through 21. Here’s what they say;

^{17So Isaac left there, camped in the valley of Gerar, and lived there. ¹⁸Isaac reopened the water wells that had been dug in the days of his father Abraham and that the Philistines had stopped up after Abraham died. He gave them the same names his father had given them. ¹⁹Moreover, Isaac’s slaves dug in the valley and found a well of spring water there. ²⁰But the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with Isaac’s herdsmen and said, “The water is ours!” So he named the well Quarrel because they quarreled with him. ²¹Then they dug another well and quarreled over that one also, so he named it Hostility. ²²He moved from there and dug another, and they did not quarrel over it. He named it Open Spaces and said, “For now the Lord has made room for us, and we will be fruitful in the land.” (Genesis 26:17-21)

To continue with the analogy to our spiritual lives, Isaac’s slaves dug and found the well of spring water (verse 19). If you look at the footnote in the HCSB, it says that, literally, they found a well of living water. Now, 1,800 years later, Jesus said, “The one who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, will have streams of living water flow from deep within him.” (John 7:39) John says that by living water Jesus meant the Holy Spirit whom those who believed in him would receive. Verses 20 through 22 tell us that the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with Isaac’s herdsmen over each well that Isaac dug, but that Isaac finally moved to a place where he was able to dig a well where they didn’t quarrel. I think there’s an analogy that can be made from the experiences of Isaac back here in Genesis to our present situation. When we have trouble, if we seek God, we will have refreshing through God’s Holy Spirit, his living water!

Now let’s look at verses 23 through 25. Here’s what they say:

Theophany at Beer-sheba
^{23From there he went up to Beer-sheba, ²⁴and the Lord appeared to him that night and said, “I am the God of your father Abraham. Do not be afraid, for I am with you. I will bless you and multiply your offspring because of My servant Abraham.”
^{25So he built an altar there, worshiped the Lord, and pitched his tent there. Isaac’s slaves also dug a well there. (Genesis 26:23-25)

The Lord gave Isaac further encouragement at Beer-sheba, so Isaac built an altar and worshipped the Lord. They dug another well.

Now let’s look at verses 26 through 33:

Covenant with Abimelech
^{26Then Abimelech came to him from Gerar with Ahuzzath his adviser and Phicol the commander of his army. ²⁷Isaac said to them, “Why have you come to me? You hated me and sent me away from you.”
^{28They replied, “We have clearly seen how the Lord has been with you. We think there should be an oath between two parties—between us and you. Let us make a covenant with you: ²⁹You will not harm us, just as we have not harmed you but have only done what was good to you, sending you away in peace. You are now blessed by the Lord.”
^{30So he prepared a banquet for them, and they ate and drank. ³¹They got up early in the morning and swore an oath to each other. Then Isaac sent them on their way, and they left him in peace. ³²On that same day Isaac’s slaves came to tell him about the well they had dug, saying to him, “We have found water!” ³³He called it Oath. Therefore the name of the city is Beer-sheba to this day. (Genesis 26: 26-33)

This is almost a replay of what happened between Abraham and Abimelech. On that same day, after Isaac had sworn the oath to Abimelech, they found more water! Verse 27 says that the name of the city where they found the water was Beer-sheba. It’s the same place where Abraham swore the oath to Abimelech. Beer-sheba means well of the oath.

Now let’s look at the last two verses, verses 34 and 35. These verses are about Esau:

Esau’s Wives
^{34When Esau was 40 years old, he took as his wives Judith daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Basemath daughter of Elon the Hittite. ³⁵They made life bitter for Isaac and Rebekah. (Genesis 26:34, 35)

We see that Esau married two Canaanite women, two women who made life miserable for Isaac and Rebekah. We’ll see later that when Esau realized that Isaac disapproved of the Canaanite women, he tried to fix the problem by adding a third wife, a daughter of Ishmael. That was Esau’s way of thinking.

Well, that’s all for today. Next week I’m planning on talking about Jacob’s stealing the blessing from Esau. Esau didn’t think it was very important to have the rights of the firstborn, but we’ll see that he was very upset about being cheated out of the blessings that would go with it. We’ll see how that went next week. There was a lot of trouble. But isn’t it good that we have Jesus with us always?

[Prayer]

END NOTES
^{1 Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holman Christian Standard Bible ®, Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Holman Christian Standard Bible ®, Holman CSB ® and HCSB ® are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers.}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}