Biblestudy: Isaac

Our Most Undervalued and Underappreciated Patriarch
#BS-650
John W. Ritenbaugh (1932-2023)
Given 07-Feb-04; 77 minutes

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Do you know who it is apart from Jesus Christ, who has the most written about him in the Bible? That honor belongs to Abraham. This gives us some insight into the importance of the lessons that this man experienced with God and foundational things that are helpful for us.

But what about second place? Perhaps you might think Jacob, maybe David. How about Moses? Job has a great deal written about one experience in his life and we know that in an overall sense that his conduct was admirable. But second place belongs to Joseph.

These men were all, everyone that I named there, great personalities. But who is it of all of the foundational personalities to God's purpose, like the patriarchs of both physical and spiritual Israel, who has the least written about him? That distinction belongs to Isaac.

Now, despite that, he too was a great man. A little known thought about Isaac's greatness in God's eyes might be understood from the generally easily-dismissed facts that he lived longer even than the great Abraham. At a time when in Bible's history people's lifetimes were being shortened considerably, Isaac died at 180, Abraham at 175, Jacob at 147, Moses at 120, Joseph at 110, and David at 70. At age 70, David was a very tired and worn out old man.

Long life, seeing many days as it might be stated in the Bible, is generally understood by commentators as being an indication of God's pleasure with that person. This fact is not an overriding issue, it is just an interesting sidelight, but yet at the same time, it is something that is worth taking note of, because Isaac's lifespan reversed a very clear trend of declining age that even continued to decline down to the age as it is today, about 70 or 75 years. And this gives us an indication that somewhere along the line, Isaac did some things that were right.

But Isaac did not found a nation. He commanded no great armies. In fact, he participated, as far as I know, in no war warfare at all. He was not a great statesman and legislature. He was never used as a conveyance of any of the books of the Bible, like Moses. He wrote no part of the Bible. He was not a king, he was not a priest. In fact, his occupation seems to be primarily that of a shepherd, albeit a very wealthy one.

Now, in the story flow of Genesis, he seems to be overshadowed by his father Abraham, by his son Jacob, and by his grandson Joseph. You know what? He sinned, but he had no noteworthy sins either. There is something obviously noteworthy about his life though, if one cares to think about him for a little while and what is clearly written about him.

Do you know that he is one of the few really great personalities in the Bible who only had one wife? Now that may begin to give us a little bit of a clue about the greatness of this man, In a major way, this man was the type of Christ. Abraham undoubtedly portrays the Father and Isaac the Son in a family sense, which is what the Kingdom of God is all about. And I think that that gives us a pretty clear idea of the ranking that this man has with God.

Jacob portrays the tragically flawed but overcoming Christian zigzagging through life. Joseph is Christ as the righteous one who is the bringer of prosperity. Moses is the type of Christ as lawgiver and David as the conquering king. Is there anything more specific that Isaac might represent?

Now, God gives us clues about the Bible's personalities through their names. We are going to review as we begin this, some of the events that surround Isaac's naming. I want you to turn to Genesis 17, verses 15 through 19.

Genesis 17:15-19 Then God said to Abraham, "As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. And I will bless her and also give you a son by her; then I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of people shall be from her." Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said in his heart, "Shall a child be born to a man who is one hundred years old? And shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?" And Abraham said to God, "Oh, that Ishmael might live before You!" Then God said, No, Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac; I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his descendants after him."

Genesis 18:9-15 Then they said to him, "Where is Sarah your wife?" So he said, "Here, in the tent." And He said, "I will certainly return to you according to the time of life, and behold, Sarah your wife shall have a son." (Sarah was listening in the tent door which was behind him.) Now Abraham and Sarah were old, and well advanced in age; and Sarah had passed the age of childbearing. Therefore Sarah laughed within herself, saying, "After I have grown old, shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?" And the Lord said to Abraham, "Why did Sarah laugh, saying, 'Shall I surely bear a child, since I am old?' Is anything too hard for the Lord? At the appointed time I will return to you, according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son." But Sarah denied it, saying, "I did not laugh," for she was afraid. And He said, "No, but you did laugh!"

The immediate reaction of both the potential father and mother was to laugh. However, there is a difference between what motivated them to laugh. Notice in 18:12, that Sarah laughed within herself, whereas Abraham's laugh was in no way hidden. But the wording in the Hebrew gives the impression of exuberance, whereas Sarah's was hidden.

We are going to go back into the New Testament to Romans chapter 4, verses 17 through 21. Now the subject here is Abraham and faith.

Romans 4:17-21 (as it is written, "I have made you a father of many nations") in the presence of Him whom he believed—even God, who quickens the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did; who, contrary to hope, in hope believed, so that he became the father of many nations, according to what was spoken, "So shall your descendants be." And not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body, already dead (since he was about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah's womb. He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform.

Now, we can put this together, then, with Genesis the 17th chapter. And when Abraham laughed, we can see from the confirmation that is given in the book of Romans that there was no doubt in Abraham's mind that what God had said He was not only able to do, but that He would absolutely do it. Now, we need to think about this because so often there is doubt in our minds connected with what God has promised regarding His purpose. Our weak faith says, "I know that God says this but. . ." and then follows the justification. There was not even a sliver of that in Abraham when he laughed.

Now, what Abraham said regarding Ishmael in verse 18, "Oh, that Ishmael might live before You." is actually a sorrowful lament for Ishmael, because Abraham knew even though Ishmael was at this time only 12 years old, that Ishmael was not conducting himself in a godly manner and that the future for him, if he continued on the way that he go was going, was not good. And so Abraham looked at this and because of his love for Ishmael, he wished sympathetically that Ishmael might turn.

God's reply was interesting because it gives the indication that Ismael was not going to turn and that God knew that because God said in verse 20,

Genesis 17:20 "As for Ishmael, I have heard you. Behold, I have blessed him [it was as good as done], and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly. He shall beget twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation."

And so that comforted Abraham, but it also made him look forward with more hopeful anticipation to Isaac. So what Abraham said here actually reveals his love for Ishmael.

Again, by way of contrast, because of what Sarah did, she denied it and she did it within herself. The two of those together show us that hers was not, at that time, a laugh of faith, but rather it was a laugh of incredulity, a lack of faith; that her first reaction was to disbelief. Otherwise she would not have denied that she had laughed. But God looks on the heart and just a little bit of fabric of a tent was not going to hide from Him what she had done. So her reaction was an inward cynicism and unbelief, thinking that she could thus hide this—her lack of faith—from God. And so really, she thought that God's statement was ridiculous.

However, we are going to go back into the New Testament again to Hebrews 11.

Hebrews 11:11 By faith Sarah herself also received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past the age, because she judged Him faithful who had promised.

What this verse does is confirm that Sarah recovered from her initial disbelief, you know, her first reaction, and repented and showed her faith. And so then the promise of God was shared by both husband and wife and it was not fulfilled solely on the strength of Abraham's faith, but actually both of them believed. This is a good example or lesson for all married couples who share conversion. It is very good when both believe together what God says.

That is the background. I just thought of this when I was reading chapter 17, that immediately after Abraham's reaction, God told him what his name was going to be even before Sarah's reaction—that he shall be called Isaac. And Isaac means either "laughing" in the sense of something that is continuous, or "he laughed," in a sense of something that was in the past. Now, I think both of these definitions apply. The "he laughed" looking back on Abraham's initial reaction and "laughing" might give us an insight as to the attitude, the disposition that Isaac himself went through life with. He was one happy fellow, somebody that you would think everybody would love to be around. A man who was up, positive in the face of all of life's difficulties.

Normally laughing is associated with good times, with happiness, and pleasant, peaceful, and uplifting feelings of satisfaction and well being. Have you ever noticed that in the advertising that you see in television and in the newspapers that the advertisers almost invariably portray the actors as laughing? And that is because the manufacturer wants you to feel a sense of well being about his product. And if you feel good about it, the chances are much greater that you are going to buy it, that his product brings good times.

Let us not forget that symbolically Abraham is God the Father and Isaac is the type of Christ. So even as Joseph and Moses and David are types of Christ in one specific and narrow sense, so also is Isaac. And the Bible gives us enough insight into his life to let us know a great deal about Isaac's wisdom and his general disposition. I will tell you, this man was really something.

Now, let us consider something about him by comparing him first with Abraham. How many Abrahams come along in any generation's lifespan? We will say 70 years. How many Abrahams are born, come on the scene, and do the kind of things that Abraham did? There was only one in 7,000 years. How would you like to be compared with him? How would you like to live in a house with a man as great as Abraham? You know, after a while, the apostles' appreciation of Christ got to be so great that Peter said, "Depart from me, get out of here. I can't stand to be around Him constantly." His righteousness, in one sense, was overpowering and made a person feel guilty if you were interacting with Him all the time. He was almost offensive because it made people feel so self-conscious to be in an atmosphere of someone so good. That is why they killed Him. They could not stand it.

Abraham comes nowhere near Christ, but he was still nonetheless one whale of a man. One Abraham in 7,000 years.

When we look at the whole scope of Abraham's stature and how the Bible presents him we see that the scope of his operations were worldwide. Now by worldwide, I do not mean all the way to China, Japan, and back again. But at the time that he lived, the world basically was between the Tigris Euphrates Valley up to and including Egypt. That is where all the action in the world was going on. And Abraham's life spanned that entire area about which the Bible is concerned. And so his impact on all of those areas was huge.

So his life spanned geographically from the Tigers Euphrates Valley to Egypt. And it seemingly encompassed everything in between because he was one of those larger than life personalities who seems to be able to do everything that needs to be done, whether it was shepherding sheep, fighting a war, negotiating with kings, dealing with his family, or interacting directly with God Himself, even to the point of bickering with Him over who would be saved or how many would be saved! That is pretty bold. He was cautious in the way he said things, but nonetheless, he knew he was dickering with God and yet he had the boldness to do it.

By way of contrast, everything about Isaac seems small. Do you know the Bible records that only one time did he ever leave the area of his birth? And that was that one time that he went down into Egypt and committed the same sin that his father Abraham had.

Now, let us think about something that is historical, and at the same time, we will call it biblically historical as well. How often do you read of the son of great men living up to their father, to that great man's stature? Let me ask you some questions based on the Bible here.

If you had to evaluate them, how would you rate Isaac as compared to his sons, Jacob and Esau? Esau, you know right off the bat was a scoundrel and Jacob was too, but at least he repented. And so, just assuming at this point that Isaac was a great man, neither one of them lived up to their father. It is awfully hard to do that.

How about Ephraim and Manasseh? Were they as great as their father Joseph? No way, Jose! In fact, I do not think you ever hear of them after Genesis 48 except as the names of nations. Let me ask you, can you name to yourself Moses' sons? There was one great man, that Moses. But what about his sons? Do you know that one of his sons was so great—in a bad way—the Jews tried to hide it in the Bible that he was mentioned. Instead of calling him Moses' son, they said Manasseh. Because, you know, Hebrew is written without vows and so they just stuck in that name rather than Moses so that they would not defame Moses by saying this guy was Moses' son. Not so good.

We will concede that Samuel was a pretty great man. What about his sons? Did they live up to their father Samuel? No way. Even though they were priests, they were nothing more than common criminals. The history goes on. Was David a great man? What about his sons? They tried to kill one another; in fact, succeeded in several cases. One of them rebelled against their father David—Absalom—and even Solomon in all of his glory was not one-tenth the man that David was. All of that wisdom and he could not measure up to his shepherd father.

You are beginning to see what I am getting at. What kind of a challenge would this be to Isaac, growing up to one of the greatest men who has ever lived! Growing up in that family where you were dealing with somebody who seemingly could do everything right and seemed to have wisdom that just never ended. And you knew he was righteous too.

I will tell you, that would present a challenge. Do you know what most people would do in that kind of a situation? They would do everything in their power to live up to their father and get into absolutely horrendous trouble because their vanity would drive them to do evil things in order to have the notoriety and the appreciation of the public. You know that is what happens very often. How often do you read of the children of some great personality in this world who do those same things? I will tell you, God gave Isaac one huge job to do, and that was to live with his father without resenting him, without being jealous of him, and to come out on the other side of this his own man who was great in his own way.

And Isaac was! He was great in his own way. He was not great in the way Abraham was. Isaac's greatness was more muted because some of the credit has to be given to Abraham because Abraham followed through with what God commanded him to do.

We are going to be in Genesis 18 again and in verse 18, because here is what God commanded him to do. He said,

Genesis 18:18-19 ". . . since Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? For I have known him, in order that he may command his children and his household after him, and that they keep the way of the Lord, to do righteousness and justice, that the Lord may bring to Abraham what He has spoken to him."

One translation puts that beginning of verse 19 saying, "I have singled him out [that is, God has singled Abraham out], that he may instruct his children and his posterity to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is just and right." Now, Isaac learned his lessons well. Isaac did what Abraham said.

Genesis 26:1-5 There was famine in the land, besides the first famine that was in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went to Abimelech king of the Philistines, in Gerar. Then the Lord appeared to him and said: "Do not go down to Egypt; live in the land which I shall tell you. Dwell in this land, and I will be with you and will bless you; for to you and your descendants I will give all these lands, and I will perform the oath which I swore to Abraham your father. And I will make your descendants multiply as the stars of heaven; I will give to your descendants all these lands; and in your seed 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."

The first thing I want you to get from this is that God gave Isaac an instruction that He wanted Isaac to do. Now, what God instructed Isaac to do went against the grain of nature and at the same time, it went against the grain of what it was natural for Isaac to want to do. The setting is a famine. The other time there was a famine is when Abraham went to Egypt. That is what it is referring to when it says there in verse 1 that "there was a famine in the land, besides the first famine." See, this is another famine, a whole generation later, and when that first famine took place, that is what motivated Abraham to go down into Egypt.

Now because a famine was going on, and I am sure without it having to be written, that it was noised around the area, it was news, that if you go down to Egypt it is nice and green down there, they are getting rain, and you can farm or shepherd right around the River Nile and everything is going to be okay. So the weather, that is, the famine, and Isaac's desire for self-preservation, not only for himself, but for all of those people who are counting on him to support them, was to go down to Egypt. God said, "No, you're going to stay right here right in the midst of the famine."

So, what was God doing? He was putting Isaac to a pretty severe test, to say the least, because he had already journeyed from his own home area to the land of the Philistines in Gerar. The land of the Philippines was over near the Mediterranean Sea. His own area was around Beersheba and Bethel in the middle of the country. And so he had journeyed over to the westward, to the Mediterranean Sea to the area of Gerar and the Philistines. And by this time, Egypt was only a hop, skip, and a jump away a little bit to the south. He was almost there before God said "no."

Now if he was already on the way, then the famine had been in the land long enough that it is very likely that their supplies were running pretty low, not only the supplies to feed the sheep, but probably also the supplies to feed the people as well.

What did Isaac do? Well, he did what God said. He went against what everybody else was doing and what his own nature was telling him to do. He stayed in Gerar, he submitted. Now it is right here that we come face to face with Isaac's strength. Isaac's outstanding characteristic is his trustful and faithful submission to God.

It is very interesting to see the ways that this is expressed. Let us go to Genesis 31. Now, the context here is whenever Jacob was fleeing from Laban. You know, he had worked for Laban for 20 years and so he gathered his family together and all of his sheep and cattle and whatever else, and he was fleeing for, he felt, his life. Well, Laban caught up to him. And so Jacob decides that, "Hey, I've got to make peace with this guy." It does not show it too well in the King James. But these two men had a, I will say, rancorous discussion. It was not peaceful at all. They were angry at each other. And so they made a covenant. Do you know why they made that covenant? Because they did not trust each other. And this was not a peaceful settlement. It was a settlement but it was not a peaceful settlement at all.

What I want you to see here is what Jacob said to Laban when they were making this agreement. He says,

Genesis 31:42 Unless the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac, had been with me, surely now you would have sent me away empty-handed. God has seen my affliction and the labor of my hands, and rebuked you last night."

Drop down to verse 53. So they make the pillar and Jacob is speaking again, the pillar is going to be the evidence of this "settlement" between the two of them.

Genesis 31:53 "The God of Abraham, the God of Nahor [Abraham's father], the God of their father judge between us." And Jacob swore by the Fear of his father Isaac.

That is what he swore by: the Fear of his father Isaac.

Now, what is interesting is the use of that word "fear," because in both cases, verses 42 and 53, the word "Fear" is actually put in place of God. In other words, the Fear of Isaac was God, but God had it written in the way (He inspired Jacob, I am sure) He inspired Jacob to use what was Isaac's outstanding characteristic. It was the fear of God. Who was the fear of God? It was Abraham's God, but expressed in Isaac's life by his fear. And so I am sure that in Abraham's family, and Isaac's family, and now in Jacob's family, what they are doing is expressing Isaac's outstanding characteristic. He feared God.

This had wonderful results because this was one wise man. I kid you not. He was wise and he knew what to do. Almost like Abraham, he knew what to do in almost any situation and he would almost invariably do the right thing. And it was because of his fear.

Now, he feared because he believed in God; that was at the foundation of it. But his faith in God was expressed by what? The deepest of respect! This man considered at all times, what did God want? And he did it thoroughly. In every situation, he looks for God's hand in it and knew that even though God was invisible, God was there and that He was guiding things, and even though things might not look good, this was going to work out good and so it is best that I do the right thing. And it guided him faithfully because he took God seriously in every aspect in life. Like I said, he learned what his father Abraham taught him very well.

This had wonderful results in Abraham and Isaac's life. And that is why you read hardly anything about him that is negative. In fact, I really only know that one thing that he did, when he lied to Abimelech about Rebecca.

In Psalm 34, David is the speaker and he says in verse 11,

Psalm 34:11 Come, you children, listen to me; and I will teach you the fear of the Lord.

That tells us that the fear of the Lord is not something that one has instantaneously. It must be learned. We do not have it by nature. Our nature is to fear death. Our nature is to fear other people. Our nature is to fear pain, see. But to gain or to have respect for God is something that has to be learned because first of all, you cannot see Him. All we see is His Word. Now verse 12 goes on.

Psalm 34:12-15 Who is the man who desires life [does not everybody desire life?], and loves many days [does not everybody want to have many days?], that he may see good [does not everybody want to see good?]? [He then says] Keep your tongue from evil, and your lips from speaking deceit. Depart from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it. The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and His ears are open to their cry.

All of these things follow right on the heels of learning the fear of the Lord.

The fear of the Lord is a quality, a virtue that must be learned. It is not something that appears in a person simply because they believe that God exists. And so what accrues from the fear of God, the fear of the Lord, is life, many days, seeing good, and having God hear one's prayers.

Now, we are going to look at another place that the fear of the Lord pops up in Isaiah 8, then we will get back to Isaac again. If we would read this whole thing, we would see that Isaiah is describing something that is pretty scary. But in verse 13 it says,

Isaiah 8:13 The Lord of hosts, Him you shall hallow [here is the solution to the problem, set apart the Lord of hosts Himself]; let Him be your fear, and let Him be your dread.

That is the solution. Setting God apart in our heart is something that we must do, thus reinforcing whatever level of this quality it is in making choices to do or not to do in terms of following through in our faith in God in terms of conduct. Now, Isaac did this so well, the fear of God is what he became noted for, especially within his family. Isaac exemplified the fear of God to a tremendously high degree. And so this is something that is very good for us to attempt to exemplify in our life.

This is good to see as we go along. And one of the things that we can conclude about him is that when the whole picture is put together, this is important, the whole picture of his life, Isaac lived within himself. Now what I mean by this, he did not try to be Abraham Junior. He did not try to be anybody else. He tried with all of his might to be the best person he could be and he therefore did not overreach himself. He did not spin his wheels vainly trying to live up to what he had every opportunity to think others might expect to him because of whom he was, Abraham's kid.

See, he had a very good, and I think that we can say humble, assessment of himself that becomes evident as we look more into his life, though he did not become this way magically. We have already seen that he had a good teacher in Abraham, but Isaac did things on his own.

Now, we are going to go back to Genesis again in Genesis the 24th chapter, beginning in verse 62. Genesis 24 is that chapter that describes Abraham's servant Eliezar going out to find a wife for Isaac. And so it tells us the story of him praying, meeting up with Rebecca, and Rebecca's response, meeting up with Rebecca's family, and then the decision being made for her to go back and be Isaac's wife.

Genesis 24:62-67 Now Isaac came from the way of Beer Lahai Roi, for he dwelt in the South. And Isaac went out to meditate in the field in the evening; and he lifted his eyes and looked, and there, the camels were coming. Then Rebekah lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac she dismounted from her camel; for she had said to the servant, "Who is this man walking in the field to meet us?" And the servant said, "It is my master." So she took a veil and covered herself. And the servant told Isaac all the things that he had done. Then Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah's tent; and he took Rebekah and she became his wife, and he loved her. So Isaac was comforted after his mother's death.

The first thing that I want you to notice is what Isaac was doing. It says that he was meditating. Now, that is only about five or six words in the whole Bible. Why do you think that God included that little snippet? It is important to you and me to know what kind of a man Isaac was. That is why it is in there. He was meditating in the evening.

The word that is translated meditate means "to bend down either the mind or the body, or both together." You know, I think that this is intended to show us that Isaac was not spending his time doing nothing.

We already know to this point that he was a pious man, and this is an insight that he was not one to trifle his time away. And what is very likely is that he was praying about the very situation that we are reading about here because he understood, this thing is really going to change my life. And what it is doing, it is telling you that he was consulting with the One who would be able to bring the right thing to pass at the right time.

You young single people, are you willing to trust God to bring you a husband or a wife? Now, we do not live in quite the same kind of culture that Abraham and Isaac did. And what was done here was something that was culturally done. The father and mother of the family would choose completely. I do not know, maybe completely is the wrong word, but they would be the driving force in choosing the mate for their children. There is a lot of wisdom there, but I want you to see that Isaac looked beyond Abraham, he looked beyond the servant. He looked to the One who controls all things and he was undoubtedly turning these things over in his mind, talking to God about it, and wondering what kind of an impact this was going to have on him.

He was 40 then, was he not? He was not a spring chicken. I do not know how old she was. She may have been a little bit younger than him.

So what we are looking at is a revelation of Isaac's fear of God and what it produced in him to do, you see, in a practical way. And he was completely submissive. You can see that right from the context. No argument at all on Isaac's part, no indication of any kind of displeasure.

Now, when we put together what Isaac did here with the whole context in which this appears, that is, the entire chapter, and at the same time, kind of remember what David said in Psalm 34 about "I will teach you the fear of the Lord," and then he starts listing all those things that will be an outgrowth of the fruit of the fear of the Lord, then think about this: Rebecca was the whole package, as we might say today. When he finally saw her, she was the woman of his dreams.

And, again, the very mention of Sarah. You know what the Bible says about Sarah. She was one beautiful woman, and she was not just beautiful, she is symbolically the mother of the faithful, even as Abraham is the father. She is the type of the church. And then she is mentioned here in relation to Rebecca; and Isaac took her to Sarah's tent. Do you not think that is interesting? What is God telling us here? This woman is every bit the match for Sarah. Think about that. That is why it says "he was comforted," see. And he loved her and he stayed married to her. Nobody else was competition for Rebecca in Isaac's mind, when you let God do the choosing. Perfectly matched.

Now, what does it say about Rebecca? You go back; 1) the servant fell in love with her right away. She was gorgeous. But besides that, what was she doing? She was out there shepherding the sheep. And it shows she was hard working. There does not seem to be any men around. She was taking care of all of the sheep. She not only took care of all the sheep, she took care of the servant's camels, drawing all the water. And I imagine a camel can drink an awful lot of water. She drew water not only for the sheep, but also for all of the camels.

He had a little conversation and right away he knew this is one intelligent gal. Generous of spirit, so hospitable, and knowing her own family so well that on her own, without consulting anybody else, she invited the servant and all of his camels to her house. And yet he was also struck by her modesty, which God shows too. That when she saw Isaac, she covered her face.

There is one more thing too. She was decisive. Her brother Laban wanted the servant to hang around because this guy looked rich. And so he was giving all kinds of hints. "Don't go with him, not yet." Rebecca said, "Well," as we would put it today, "Laban, I'm going." She made the decision on her own. So she was a decisive gal too.

Like I said, she was the whole package. And I think that overall they had a wonderful marriage. They differed on the kids somewhat, but there is even a lesson there too that shows some of the character of Isaac. He kind of favored Esau and she favored Jacob.

I want us to understand something. We are going to go back to the New Testament to Matthew 12. Now remember, Rebecca was God's blessing to Isaac, but she was a great one on her own. But he feared God. And this was one of God's rewards to her because the choice of his wife was left up to God and Isaac submitted. Now in Matthew the 12th chapter, verse 14, here we are in Christ's life and this is what we see.

Matthew 12:14-21 Then the Pharisees went out and plotted against Him, how they might destroy Him. But when Jesus knew it, He withdrew Himself from there. And a great multitude followed Him, and He healed them all. Yet He warned them not to make Him known, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying: "Behold, My servant whom I have chosen, My Beloved in whom My soul is well pleased! I will put My Spirit upon Him, and He will declare justice to the Gentiles. He will not quarrel nor cry out, nor will anyone hear His voice in the streets. A bruised reed He will not break, and smoking flax He will not quench, till He sends forth justice to victory; and in His name Gentiles will trust."

Now, I want us to understand here how Jesus dealt with those who persecuted Him, because from here we are going to go see how Isaac dealt with those who persecuted him.

First of all, we can pick up here that Jesus was a prudent man. He walked away from His persecutors. Two, it is very clear from verse 16 that He did not seek fame as a worker of miracles. And this confirms His reaction to Satan's temptations there in Matthew 4 and Luke 4, who was tempting Christ to motivate Him to use His powers. Christ showed no vain display of earthly glory. It was not in Him to seek publicity and there is plenty to show that, to Him, notoriety was a hindrance both to the proper presentation of the gospel and how it was received by those who heard Him. In other words, He did not want anybody following Him just because He was a famous man. He did not want the notoriety to overshadow the importance of the truth. The emphasis was not going to be on Jesus the man but Jesus the Messenger of truth.

In verses 17 through 20 it shows His general demeanor. That He was gentle, unassuming, and one might even say retiring in nature. That He was not one to wrangle, shout, and quarrel to get His truths across. Jesus was not a turbulent agitator. He would not stir up people gathered to hear Him in order to get any kind of a following. When it says "a bruised reed and a smoking flax" we are to understand that figuratively because they represent the weak and helpless, meaning that He would treat them with genuine sympathy and tender concern.

I went through this so that we would have a general idea of the way that Isaac lived his life. Now we are going to go back to Genesis 26. We are going to begin in verse 12. Remember he is in Gerar in this chapter, and I broke off this chapter before in verse 5. Now this is seven verses later.

Genesis 26:12-17 Then Isaac sowed in that land [so he decided to stay despite the famine], and reaped in the same year a hundredfold; and the Lord blessed him. The man began to prosper, and continued prospering until he became very prosperous; for he had possessions of flocks and possessions of herds and a great number of servants. So the Philistines envied him [Uh oh, trouble. That is what they did to Jesus, they envied Him.]. Now the Philistines had stopped up all the wells which his father's servants had dug in the days of Abraham his father, and they filled them with earth. And Abimelech said to Isaac, "Go away from us, for you are much mightier than we." Then Isaac departed from there. . .

Did he stay around and fight them? Remember, he became very great. Now, when we understand, let us say, about Abraham's greatness, Abraham was able to put an army together. I want you to think about this. In a way, this is what Isaac inherited. Do you think Isaac could have put together an army? Oh yes, he could have because in his own right, he too was a king just like this Abimelech. But in his humility, he did not take the title at all. So Isaac just picked up and left.

Genesis 26:17-20 . . . and pitched his tent in the valley of Gerar, and dwelt there. And Isaac dug again the wells of water [he did not resist evil, he simply moved on, went somewhere else where nobody else was, and dug another well] which they had dug in the days of Abraham his father, for the Philistines had stopped them up after the death of Abraham. He called their names after the names by which his father had called them. Also Isaac's servants dug in the valley and found a well of running water there. [Do you think God is blessing him for the kind of the way he is living his life? Absolutely! So he not only found a well, he found a well of running water.] But the herdsman of Gerar quarreled with Isaac's herdsman, saying, "The water is ours." So he called the name of the well Esek, because they quarreled with him.

So what did he do after he dug the well? He just picked up and left when they wanted it and dug another one. And they strove for that also! Talk about trouble dogging your heels. But you see, all along here, what is he doing? He is submitting to the will of God. God said, stay there and I will bless you. So he kept moving around the area expecting God to bless him wherever he was as long as he was in the area. Now, do you not think most of us would think, "I'm going to get out of here, man." We would think of a justification to leave. But he did not. He moved but he did not leave and he did not resist the evil.

Now, what is so good to think about is, he had the power to resist. I do not know whether you know it, but this adds another wonderful characteristic to him. He was meek. It does not mean weak at all. It means walking away when you have the power to destroy the other person and you do not. See, in his fear of God, he just left it to God and he moved on. Now, this kind of a person you would think would not do well in this world because the normal advice would be "punch that guy in the nose." You know, get even, kill him, get rid of them. (I am talking about Abimelech.)

Genesis 26:22-25 And he moved from there and dug another well, and they did not quarrel over it. And he called the name of it Rehoboth, because he said, "For now the Lord has made room for us [notice who he gave the credit to. He gave the credit to God.], and we shall be fruitful in the land." Then he went up from there to Beersheba. And the Lord appeared to him the same night and said, "I am the God of Abraham your father; do not fear, for I am with you. I will bless you. [That was his reward. How would you like that kind of reward, that God Himself would appear to you. Pretty good.] So he built an altar there and called upon the name of the Lord, and pitched his tent there; and there Isaac's servants dug a well.

What is so incredible, I will not read the whole thing there, but before this was over, Isaac invited all of his enemies and had a party for them. Can you imagine that? Laughing. That is the way he went through life. But there was a reason why he laughed. It was his fear of God. His life was in God's hands and he believed it. It was not just an idea—he lived it. Very few people who ever lived on this earth have done what Isaac did to a degree that very few people have ever come close to matching—except for Christ. That is why he is the type of Christ as Son. That is pretty high. Not legislator, not king—Son. You cannot get much closer than that.

You know, even in the case where Rebecca and Jacob deceived him when he was blind, really took advantage of him. Boy, that would be enough to make a guy boiling mad. "My own wife of 50 years (or whatever it was) betrayed me; and my own son!" It does say that when he discovered that it was Jacob who deceived him, it says he trembled exceedingly. Boy, he was boiling. But you know what? That quick (*snap!) he got over it. Do you know why? Because I think that quick, he saw God in it and he remembered what God had said to Rebecca, "that the elder shall serve the younger." Even though he did not agree with the way that it was done, that quick, because he feared God, he saw God in the picture and he was okay. So much okay that when Esau asked for a blessing (it is not worded well there in Genesis), he told Esau, "I can't do it." The only blessing that he actually pronounced is that, "periodically Esau, you're going to be able to break Jacob's yoke on you, but not forever because Jacob will keep getting the upper hand." But he did give him a promise that occasionally he would throw Jacob's yoke from him.

Now, of course, the epitome of his submission was when he gave his life, figuratively, by allowing himself to be the sacrifice just like Christ. In some ways, I think that his action there was greater than Abraham's. The only way that it was not greater than Abraham's is that Abraham really loved Isaac and it tore him up to think about having to do that. But now, think of the submission here on Isaac's part. Josephus says that Isaac was 25 years old. I mean, he was in the prime of his physical strength. I think that it is likely that he was not 25 but 33, the same age as Christ. We have no proof of that. But after all, remember he is the type of Christ in the whole Bible, in terms of his submission to God and the sacrifice of his life.

And he could have outrun—can you imagine that? One hundred fifty year old Abraham trying to chase down 33 year old Isaac? "Come on, dad!" And even if he did not run away, he probably could have picked Abraham up. "Here, you be the sacrifice." He submitted. He just laid his life down. That was submission. And it was not just faith. He feared God. It was not that he was in terror to not do what God said, but rather it was positive. He was so sure that God was involved in his life that it drove him to do whatever God wanted. That is pretty high. He was a great man. I kid you not.

Oh, you know what I think the laughing indicates? Peace. He was at peace within himself. He was not all bound up worrying about things. He was not anxious about life. He was content. Because of his fear of God he knew that he was going to be taken care of.

Now that did not in any way hinder him from working. I want you to understand, when it says there in Genesis 26 that he was a great man and he became very great, what God means was that he was a great man and he became very great on his own. It was not because he was Abraham's son. It was because he was everything that a son could possibly be.

And so on his own, he was a great man, just like his father was great, but he was great in a different way. His greatness was muted; and he met life on whatever terms that it dealt him in peace, knowing that God was with him.

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