Genesis 26:1–11 (ESV)
Now there was a famine in the land, besides the former famine that was in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went to Gerar to Abimelech king of the Philistines. And the Lord appeared to him and said, “Do not go down to Egypt; dwell in the land of which I shall tell you. Sojourn in this land, and I will be with you and will bless you, for to you and to your offspring I will give all these lands, and I will establish the oath that I swore to Abraham your father. I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and will give to your offspring all these lands. And in your offspring all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.”
So Isaac settled in Gerar. When the men of the place asked him about his wife, he said, “She is my sister,” for he feared to say, “My wife,” thinking, “lest the men of the place should kill me because of Rebekah,” because she was attractive in appearance. When he had been there a long time, Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out of a window and saw Isaac laughing with Rebekah his wife. So Abimelech called Isaac and said, “Behold, she is your wife. How then could you say, ‘She is my sister’?” Isaac said to him, “Because I thought, ‘Lest I die because of her.’” Abimelech said, “What is this you have done to us? One of the people might easily have lain with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us.” So Abimelech warned all the people, saying, “Whoever touches this man or his wife shall surely be put to death.”
Another Famine, Another Test
So another famine arrives and drives Isaac to seek refuge. And so God meets him with a word. He says, And so Isaac hears the same promise that his father heard. Descendants, land, and a blessing for all the nations.
Now again, these blessings are not a reward for Isaac's obedience. They flow from God's faithfulness to his promises. And so Isaac responds by settling in Gerar. And yet, in Gerar, Isaac faces the same fear that his father faced. He and Rebekah are foreigners, and they're fearful of the people.
The Sins of the Father
And so Isaac repeats Abraham's earlier lie, and he tells these foreigners in Gerar that Rebekah is his sister, because he's scared for his life. And his motive is exactly the same as his father Abraham's. They will kill me because she is beautiful. And so this fear leads him to deceive the people around him.
And again, the situation reveals how even the heirs of the promise, in this case Isaac, struggle with the same sins as their parents. Patterns of sin can persist in families. That is a true spiritual reality which the Bible makes very clear. These patterns of sin go through generation to generation unless and until God intervenes.
God's Unlikely Instrument
But in this case, God does intervene. And he does so through an unlikely rebuke, Abimelech, who was the Philistine king. And so one day, the king looks out of his window and he sees Isaac and Rebekah behaving as a husband and wife. And so he confronts Isaac and said, How could you say that she is my sister? He points out the danger someone might have taken Rebekah and therefore brought guilt upon the whole community.
Even this pagan king shows more concern for righteousness than this patriarch of the faith, than this promise bearer, Isaac. He even issues a protective decree to everyone in his domain. Anyone who touches Isaac or his wife will die. So here God uses an outsider to correct his servant and to protect his promise. God faithfully overrides Isaac's deception and uses it to make him prosper and actually to provide safety for him.
Later, it's this prosperity of Isaac that's going to make him unwelcome. So the focus is on failure of courage and failure of integrity in this passage.
Our Fallen Condition Exposed
And so this passage exposes our fallen condition as people too. Like Isaac, we can be prone to fear, just like Isaac was prone to fear, just like his father. Our fear can stem from a fear of losing our job, or a fear of our reputation being destroyed, a fear of our comfort being taken away. And this fear often tempts us to lie, to compromise, to rely on our own schemes and human wisdom.
But again we see the presence of God frees us from this fear. The Lord told Isaac, I will be with you. It seems as if Isaac forgot this, and so he deceived the people around him. When we forget that God is present with us, in us even, in his Holy Spirit, we can become anxious and fearful. And there's a call in this passage, I think, to remember that we are protected by God's very presence living in our hearts.
The Impact of Our Witness
But we also see the importance of our witness, how we live to those around us. So Isaac's deception endangered other people. If one of them had taken Isaac's wife as their wife, well, that would have brought ruin on the community. So we should remember that our choices never only affect us. When we lack integrity, we bring dishonor onto Jesus's name.
The world out there continually criticizes the church for being hypocritical. And it's true. Often we are. But we are called to be more than that, better than that, as we follow Jesus.
Jesus: The Faithful Isaac
Because you see, Jesus never lied to save himself. Rather, he entrusted himself into his Father's will. And he suffered unjustly as part of him submitting to the Father. He is, in a sense, the faithful version of Isaac who overcame fear with faith because he remained obedient even to death, death on the cross.
And yet it's exactly this obedience and this entrusting of himself to God, God the Father's will, through which Jesus buys us and sets us free from our sin.
Living in Light of God's Faithfulness
And so that leaves us in a place where we can trust in God's faithfulness in his promises. He is with us whether we are in famine or in plenty. He is with us when fears arise and he calls us to remember that he is faithful and has faithfully given us even his son. He has not withheld even his son from us to keep us safe.
The second thing, just really practically, that this passage calls us to is that we are to reject deception. We need to speak the truth even when it costs us. Our lives should reflect a character of truth and the same sort of character that God has as the ultimate source of all truth.
Breaking Generational Patterns
And this passage shows us that our choices matter particularly to our children. Our sins are repeated often in our children. And so there are these generational patterns of sin, which can and should be broken. But by the Holy Spirit living within us, when we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we can recognize that these generational sins are no longer necessary. We belong not to our parents, but to Christ. And so we look to him to free us to live with integrity and with courage.
So let's pray.
Lord, we thank you for the story of Isaac and Rebecca and the fact that he made the same mistakes that his father did. Thank you for giving us examples in the Bible that are so much like us, that don't pretend to be perfect. And so we have these images of what it means to be your people and how you overrule even their bad decisions to bring about good. Thank you that you can do that even in our lives. And so we pray that you will reveal to us through your spirit what you are calling us into, that we may break the patterns of generational sin in our lives and that we can recognize that we are no longer slaves to sin, but we belong to Christ. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.