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It's About The Blessing

Sun, 09/01/2011

Genesis Chapters 26 to 27

GENESIS 26

Isaac and Abimelek

Commentary

Genesis 26
There was a famine in the land and Isaac was instructed by the Lord not to go to Egypt but to live in the chosen land. The time had come for God to begin to bring to pass all the covenants that He had promised to Isaac’s father, Abraham.
In Genesis 12, there was also severe famine in the land in the time of Isaac’s father but the instruction to him was different. He had to go down to Egypt and dwell there.
Isaac moving to Egypt will alter the pre determined plan and his destiny.
Our location is crucial to the manifestation of God’s promises in our lives. The land of growth and prosperity is pre determined, hence the importance of being sure that we are in the right location.
In verses 3-5, Isaac is instructed and reminded of the covenant God swore to his father before he was conceived. This tells us that the plans and purposes for our lives have been pre determined by God (Psalm 139:16).
Isaac stayed in Gerar and he lied about his wife Rebekah just the same way his father had done about his wife Sarah in Genesis 12:10-20. Both lied that their wives were their sisters. Their women must have been extremely beautiful but not worth dying for! Both men lied to avoid death. However Sarah was actually Abraham’s half sister, and Isaac too had married the daughter of his first cousin, so technically they were sisters to these men and what they said was not far from the truth.
Isaac was at the beginning of his years of prosperity as sworn to his father and he prospered (verses 11-14).
With the prosperity came trouble and problems including envy, and sabotage. The Philistines had filled the well that had been dug by Isaac’s father. This should have caused frustration to Isaac but he was not put off. Instead he moved on. He and his men began to dig other wells. Instead of this getting better, it got worse. There were arguments and contentions but Isaac stayed the course (verses 19-21), he had ‘stickability’. He had the plan, the promise firmly fixed on his mind and he was not going to let anything get in the way.
More digging got to the ‘goal’ and the digging now produced water. He had reached the place of fruitfulness (verse 22).
We cannot afford to give up in the midst of trouble; we have to have our eyes fixed on the promise. The arguments and contentions are sent to distract us from the plan and what is important is the development of ‘staying power’ through the digging of further wells till we reach water.
God appeared to Isaac again to reassure him that He was very much in control (verse 24) and this was confirmed by the affirmation of Abimelech during his visit and his subsequent desire to make a covenant (verses 27- 28).

Genesis 27
Here we pick up the story of Isaac planning to bless his son, Esau as he is now well advanced in age.
The blessing was for his first son but things did not go as planned. We read earlier that Rebekah's favourite son was Jacob (Gen 25; 28) so once she got wind of the plan to bless Esau; she schemed for Jacob to receive this blessing over him (Gen 27: 6-17).
The consequence of selling his birthright had began to affect Esau (Gen 25:34) in addition to what the Lord had told Rebekah while the boys were in the womb (Gen 25:23-24).
Jacob connived with his mother and presented himself to his father as Esau. His father definitely had doubts but his eyes failed him. He mentioned the early return of ‘Esau’, the different voice, which he recognised as that of Jacob, also asking him again after blessing him ‘Are you really my son Esau?’ (Verse 24) but the pre determined plan of God had to be fulfilled. Jacob lied and got the blessing of the first-born.
Esau later returned for his blessing but alas it was too late and the blessing could not be reversed. Jacob the supplanter had been able to deceive his father and cheat his brother as revealed to their mother before they were born.
Esau later received the lesser blessing to confirm the word received by Rebekah (verse 39-40)
This reminds us that it is only Gods plan that stands (Psalm 33:11)