GENESIS 26
BERESIS 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.
2 And Yahweh appeared unto him, and said, Go not down into Egypt; dwell in the land which I shall tell thee of:
3 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 countries, and I will perform the oath which I sware unto Abraham thy father;
4 And I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars of heaven, and will give unto thy seed all these countries; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed;
All Nations
When Christ is enthroned in Jerusalem Israel will be the first nation to enter (Abrahamically) into covenant relationship with God. Other nations will follow as is implied in Zec. ii. 11, but Israel—honoured, favoured, and beloved for the Father's sake—will be the chief.
During the Millennium, the nations will be as the brethren of Christ now are—heirs awaiting judgment. The Deity's purpose concerning them is contained in the covenant made with Abraham—"In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed."
This covenant in its ultimate realisation involves the immortalisation of all in the human family who will have manifested the character of Abraham, and it also involves their joint inheritance of the earth as an everlasting possession. This is hope, and it is the hope of the future. It was the hope of Abraham and of all the intervening generations.
It is the hope which enables man to endure (whilst pursuing the path divinely marked out) the scoffs, jeers, and persecutions of the wicked, and to forego the pleasures of a transitory present. It is the hope that has brightened the dreary pilgrimage of all the truly good. It is the hope that will make in the day to come, God's people of all times one united family.
Bro AT Jannaway
The Christadelphian, July 1887
5 Because that Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.
To see the law in its right place, we must look at the circumstances going before. We must not imagine that the world was without law from God in the times before the law of Moses. There is the clearest evidence that law, commandment and statute were in force, and that men were righteous or wicked according to their attitude towards these during that time. Thus of Abraham God said to Isaac, he "kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes and my laws" (Gen. 26:5), which was centuries before the giving of the law...
When we come to the case of Abraham, we do not come to the introduction of a new principle, but to the beginning of a new form of the same principle. The call to separate himself from his ancestral kindred and to leave his native country and depart to another country that God would show him, and the promise that God would make of him a great nation and should ultimately bless the whole family of man in him, required a faith special to himself; but did not begin the operation of the law of faith.
Paul traces this law right back to Eden, introducing Abel as its first exemplification (Heb. 11:4), Abraham standing only fourth on his list of illustrations. He was the root from which faith and obedience expanded into a national form, embodying the system of the law of Moses. But the law was operative towards the race generally before his time. The reason of a new start in him appears to have been that the procedure employed when mankind were few in number, and comparatively tractable, was no longer suitable when they were developing in extensive populations on all hands, and sinking slowly into a state like that which prevailed before the flood.
The altering circumstances required the creation of a national kernel or basis of divine operations in order that God's ultimate purpose to bring the human race into reconciliation with Himself might be accomplished. This gradual transition from a general to a national administration of divine law--this narrowing of already active divine operations with the descendants of Noah to relations with a particular family organized into a nation--enables us to understand the apparently anomalous circumstance that there were "commandments, and statutes, and laws" before the laws of Moses (Gen. 26:5), and that there were "priests that came near to the Lord" before the consecration of Aaron or the separation of the tribe of Levi (Exod. 19:22).
Divine law and priesthood were in fact as old as Eden. They came into operation immediately after Adam's expulsion on account of disobedience; but in a form suited to the extremely limited circumstances of human life when Adam's family circle for centuries formed the only population of the earth.
A public and official priest was not required when every obedient man offered his own sacrifice. Every obedient man was his own priest, as appears in the case of Abel, Noah, Melchizedek, and Abraham. In the same way, Levi, the son of Jacob, before Jacob had become a nation, appears to have acted as priest, and to have received divine recognition in the matter, by reason of the special aptitudes referred to in Malachi 2:5-6. His sons would be likely to take after him in the matter, and appear to have acted for the other members of the family and afterwards for the tribes before the formal separation of the Levitical tribe in the wilderness.
Law of Moses Ch 26
6 And Isaac dwelt in Gerar:
7 And the men of the place asked him of his wife; and he said, She is my sister: for he feared to say, She is my wife; lest, said he, the men of the place should kill me for Rebekah; because she was fair to look upon.
Same occurrence as Abram/ Abraham who concealed his wife's identity twice for the same reason.
8 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.
9 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.
10 And Abimelech said, What is this thou hast done unto us? one of the people might lightly have lien with thy wife, and thou shouldest have brought guiltiness upon us.
11 And Abimelech charged all his people, saying, He that toucheth this man or his wife shall surely be put to death.
12 Then Isaac sowed in that land, and received in the same year an hundredfold: and Yahweh blessed him.
13 And the man waxed great, and went forward, and grew until he became very great:
14 For he had possession of flocks, and possession of herds, and great store of servants: and the Philistines envied him.
15 For 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.
16 And Abimelech said unto Isaac, Go from us; for thou art much mightier than we.
17 And Isaac departed thence, and pitched his tent in the valley of Gerar, and dwelt there.
18 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.
19 And Isaac's servants digged in the valley, and found there a well of springing water.
20 And the herdmen of Gerar did strive with Isaac's herdmen, saying, The water is ours: and he called the name of the well Esek; because they strove with him.
21 And they digged another well, and strove for that also: and he called the name of it Sitnah.
22 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 Yahweh hath made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land.
23 And he went up from thence to Beersheba.
24 And Yahweh 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 Abraham's sake.
25 And he builded an altar there, and called upon the name of Yahweh, and pitched his tent there: and there Isaac's servants digged a well.
26 Then Abimelech went to him from Gerar, and Ahuzzath one of his friends, and Phichol the chief captain of his army.
27 And Isaac said unto them, Wherefore come ye to me, seeing ye hate me, and have sent me away from you?
28 And they said, We saw certainly that Yahweh was with thee: and we said, Let there be now 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 Yahweh.
30 And he made them a feast, and they did eat and drink.
31 And they rose up betimes in the morning, and sware one to another: and Isaac sent them away, and they departed from him in peace.
32 And it came to pass the same day, that Isaac's servants came, and told him concerning the well which they had digged, and said unto him, We have found water.
33 And he called it Shebah: therefore the name of the city is Beersheba unto this day.
34 And Esau was forty years old when he took to wife Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Bashemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite:
35 Which were a grief of mind unto Isaac and to Rebekah.
Why were they a grief of mind ? Because, partaking of the character of the surrounding population, they would be women without discretion, having no inclination for wisdom — no interest in God, in His purposes or His will—no taste for anything beyond the passing pleasures and enjoyments of the hour.
Their idolatrous proclivities would be a comparatively passive element in the obnoxiousness which Isaac and Rebecca experienced in their daily contact; for idolatry, as a sincere though mistaken exercise of the worshipping faculty, is respectable compared with the insipidity and foolery of a vacant mind. They would probably be handsome women enough. You do not find a natural man of the Esau type fancying any other sort. There would have been no harm in the beauty if the beauty had been linked with divine wisdom (and there is no other true wisdom). Such a combination is rare.
The wives of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, were, however, instances of it, as we incidentally glean from the narrative.—(Gen. xii. 11; xxvi. 7 ; xxix. 17.) It is much more common to find beauty alone, or what is worse, in combination with a foolish mind. A fair countenance in such a case is a trap—a deception. Solomon's comparison of beauty in such a case is " a jewel of gold in a swine's snout." Nevertheless it is all powerful with the natural man. The glitter of the jewel fascinates him : he has no eyes to discern the nature of the animal that wears it.
Even the sons of God are in danger. It was a potent cause of the corruption that ended in the flood.
" The sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair, and they took them wives of all they chose " (or fancied).
Ways of Providence Ch 6