“Isaac Repeats His Father’s Lie”

Genesis 26:1-11

 

We have just completed a fairly short introduction to Jacob and his brother Esau. We started with their birth and then the story of Jacob’s conniving to get the birthright. Today we are going to read a little bit more about Isaac and Rebekah. Have you noticed a bit of a blip in the sequence of stories provided by the narrator. We started out with Adam and Eve, went to Noah and his wife, then we heard about Abraham and Sarah. You would think we would follow the genealogy and go to the next generation which would be Isaac and Rebekah and read a whole section about them and then go on to hear about Jacob and his wives. But that’s not how it goes. We read a lot about Abraham and Sarah, then we read a lot about Jacob and then his wives, and there is a little bit about Issac and Rebekah in between. 

So what we find is the narrator has contrasting stories of Abraham and Sarah alongside Jacob and his wives. The generations in between those two, Isaac and Rebekah get one chapter and in that chapter Isaac just replays everything his dad did. Although it’s only one chapter, they manage to deepen the plot and provide more insight into the story and character of Jacob, even though we will be reading about his dad. 

 

Today’s story begins with a famine in the land, and then the narrator explicitly throws in this hyperlink, “besides the previous famine in Abraham’s time.” Okay, this should be a clue for us to put our finger on this page and turn back to where we read about this previous famine in the time of Abraham, you will find it in chapter 12, verse 10.

Here we are reminded that there was a severe famine in the land of Canaan, where Abram was living, so what did Abram do? He decided to go to Egypt to get food. 

And when they came close to Egypt Abram told his wife Sarai, “Hey, you know, you are a beautiful woman, that’s the NASB translation. In Hebrew it reads she was “good to see.” Abram was concerned that when the Egyptians looked at Sarai they would think, “That guy is her husband?” And they would kill him and let her live. So, to save himself, he came up with this bright idea that he would tell everyone that she was his sister and then things would go well for him because of her. That way Abram would live on her account. 

 

Now we are reading that there was a famine besides the first famine in the days of Abram. Abraham’s son,  Isaac went to Gerar where Abimelech was the king of the Philistines. Geographically if you are in Canaan, you go south and towards the coast to get where the Philistines live. You would have traveled about one quarter of the way to Egypt at that point. 

Isaac got this far and the Lord appeared to him and gave him the “I’m going to bless you” speech.  We’ve heard it before, you know it, the:

- I will be with you

- I will bless you

- You and your descendants

- I will give you all these lands

- I will confirm the oath I swore to your father

- I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky

- I will give them all these lands

- Through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed

 

In fact, all of these little phrases you can find in something God said to Abraham. They have just been put into a blender and spit out in a different format. 

In fact, we can go back to the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve and read, “be fruitful and multiply, fill the land.” Then to Noah, he gets off the boat, offers a sacrifice, and God tells him, “I will bless you, be fruitful.” This is what God wants to give all humans. He gives to the chosen one so that through the chosen one He can spread it out to everybody else. 

 

The Lord ends His commentary to Isaac with

 

“because Abraham obeyed me and did everything I required of him, keeping my commands, my decrees and my instructions.”  

 

The Lord is using Torah language here, way before the law was even established. 

This is new, what does this mean? 

And did Abraham actually do these things? 

Not all the time, but there were a couple of times that were significant. 

 

1 - One time he was staring up into the sky and God said, “Hey, see all those stars, you are going to have that many kids.” And Abraham’s response was kind of surprising because up to that point, he had been acting quite snake-like, but we are told, “Abraham trusted in God.”

And God credited that trust as a right relationship or righteousness. 

 

2 - The second time sas when Abraham surrendered Isaac

 

So in essence, Abraham was obeying the Torah even before it was written. Because basically what God wanted from His people was for them to trust Him and listen to His voice. Amen.

 

God’s desire is for His people to tune their conscience to follow His voice. Then they were to do the right thing. Amen.

 

At this point in the narrative, we read that Isaac did listen to God’s voice and stayed in Gerar. 

 

However…..

When the men of the place asked him about his wife, Isaac caves and repeats his father’s lie. He tells them she is his sister. The narrator then gives us a little window into his mind and into his heart because we are told the dialogue in his mind, verse 7,

 

“because he was afraid to say, “She is my wife.” He thought, “The men of this place might kill me on account of Rebekah, because she is beautiful.”

 

This facade managed to work for quite a long time, but then one day, verse 8

 

“Abimelek king of the Philistines looked down from a window and saw Isaac caressing his wife Rebekah.”

 

Abimelek summoned Isaac and questioned him, “Hey dude, Rebekah is not your sister, she’s your wife. Why did you say she was your sister? Basically, why did you lie?

 

Isaac admits his cowardice, admitting he thought he would lose his life on account of Rebekah. 

 

Can’t you see Abimelek shaking his head and raising his arms in disgust? 

He had already gone through this exact scenario with Isaac’s parents, back in  Genesis, chapter 20. 

Now Abraham moved on from there into the region of the Negev and lived between Kadesh and Shur. For a while he stayed in Gerar, and there Abraham said of his wife Sarah, “She is my sister.” Then Abimelek king of Gerar sent for Sarah and took her.

 

The only reason Abimelek doesn’t drop dead is because God appears to him in a dream before anything had happened and tells him not to touch her or he would be dead. Turns out Abimelek hadn’t slept with her, yet, but Abimelek does come back to God defending his righteousness. He also reminds God that it was Abram who had lied to him. 

 

God as much as admits it wasn’t Abimeleks fault that it was God who had kept him from sinning and that the right thing to do was to give Sarai back to Abram. And so he does. 

At this point Abram was playing the snake. As for Abimelek, he may have be doing the king thing by taking beautiful women to be his wives, but it’s not like that was the righteous thing to do either. He was, however, acting out of ignorance that she was another man’s wife and so God grants the point. 

 

Today’s Scripture tells the same narrative with the same king only the snake is now the son of Abraham. Again we have five verses, from 7-11, that are verbatim words and phrases from the garden of Eden story. Did you catch it? 

The thing that’s not supposed to be touched or else it’ll lead to death is something that is good to look at. 

Back in Eden there was the forbidden tree that we are told in Genesis 3, verse 6,

 

“the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye,”

 

But remember, it was off limits. God had given a command, “Do not eat from the tree.” But we have that snake entering the picture and saying to the woman, 

“Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” 

 

And Eve said, “No, no, no, 

“but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

There you have

- The humans

- The forbidden fruit

- The lying deceiver

 

Back to today’s narrative in chapter 26, we have 

 

- Rebekah, the beautiful thing that should not be touched or taken

- Isaac, the deceiver

- Abimelek the deceived one who does what shouldn’t be done, but he does so out of ignorance

 

Mind you, there is a contrast here, Adam and Eve did not act out of ignorance. Theirs was a willful transgression of the divine command. Abimelek, although he was uniformed and presumed innocent, it was something that still lead him to sin, that’s why he says to Isaac, 

 

“...you would have brought guilt upon us.” 

 

Then Abimelek becomes like God, giving a “don’t touch” command, in verse 11, 

“So Abimelek gave orders to all the people: “Anyone who harms this man or his wife shall surely be put to death.”

Again, we have the chosen one of God, acting like a snake. This certainly puts God in the midst of a sticky wicket. Remember, God told Abraham in the middle of His call, 

“I will bless those who bless you,

    and whoever curses you I will curse;”

Think about it, God always keeps His promises, but humans don’t always act the way they should, which means God has to protect a liar and a cheat. `

In this story Abimelek is the upstanding guy. At least he is very positive in comparison to the snake-like chosen one. 

It’s a world where down is up and 

right is wrong and 

wrong is right. 

Unfortunately, this is just the beginning. 

This mixed up story line continues. 

Check in time. 

In case you haven’t noticed, the world continues to be a place where down is up and 

right is wrong and 

wrong is right. 

Those that you expect to be the blessed ones turn out to be snakes, and visa-versa. We can spend hours listening to the news and sharing our opinions but when it comes right down to it the real question should be,
“What about me?” 

How many of us, like Isaac and Abraham,  have said things or done things in order to “save our skin” knowing deep down, it wasn’t the “right” thing to do, but in a world that isn’t “right” 

we know it is what works?

 

If we were to put your life, all the things you done, said, and thought, on screen for everyone to see, not many of us would be selling tickets and popcorn for our friends and family to come see. The truth be told, we are human, just like Abraham, Isaac and Joseph. And for whatever reason, God remains faithful to us humans, regardless of how snake-like we can be. 

That, to me, is what makes God so amazing. 

 

When we take into account how many times God has overlooked our snakiness, and provided for us and loved us, regardless, that’s when we should be counting our blessings. 

Which is the title of the last song we are going to sing. You will find the lyrics in your bulletin or on the screen. One verse that sticks out to me is…

“The more that I look in the details

The more of Your goodness I find”

Let’s sing…

 

Benediction:

 

Basically God wants His people to trust Him and listen to His voice. And when God’s people tune their conscience to following His voice, they will do the right thing.