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Next we are told, "And Abimelech said unto Isaac, Go from us; for thou art much mightier than we" (26:16). Was not this God speaking to Isaac, speaking at a distance (through Abimelech) and not yet directly!

"And Isaac departed thence, and pitched his tent in the valley of Gerar, and dwelt there. 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" (26: 17, 18). In digging again these wells of Abraham which had been stopped up by the Philistines, Isaac appears to typify Christ who, at the beginning of the New Testament, dispensation re-opened the Well of Living Water which had, virtually, been blocked up by the traditions and ceremonialism of the Pharisees.

"And Isaac's servants digged in the valley, and found there a well of springing water. And the herdsmen of Gerar did strive with Isaac's herdmen, saying, The water is ours....And they digged another well and strove for that also.....And he removed from thence and digged another well" (26:19-22). Again we would ask, Was not this "strife" God's way of leading his child back to Himself again! But note also the lovely moral trait seen here in Isaac, namely, his nonresistance of evil. Instead of standing up for his "rights," instead of contending for the wells which he had dug, he quietly "removed" to another place. In this he beautifully points out the path which the Christian should follow: "For this is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully. For what glory is it, if, when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently? but if, when ye do well, ye suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God" (1 Pet. 2: 19, 20). We need hardly remind the reader that the attitude displayed by Isaac, as above, was that of the Saviour who "when He was reviled, reviled not again."

"And he went up from thence to Beersheba" (26:23). Mark here the topographical reference which symbolized Isaac's moral ascent and return to the place of communion, for "Beersheba" means the Well of the Oath. In full accord with this behold the blessed sequel-"And the Lord 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" (26:24). On the very night of Isaac's return to Beersheba the Lord "appeared unto" him!

"And he builded an altar there, and called upon the name of the Lord, and pitched his tent there: and there Isaac digged a well" (26:25). Mark how the "altar" is mentioned before the "tent"-there was no mention of any altar in Gerar! How striking, too, that next we read, "Then Abimelech went to him from Gerar, and Ahurzzath one of his friends, and Phichol the chief captain of his army" (26:26). Personal blessings from the Lord was not the only result of his return to Beersheba. Abimelech seeks him out, not now to distress him (we no longer read of any "striving" for this last well), but to ask a favor. And they said, "We certainly saw that the Lord 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" (26:28). Now that our patriarch has entered again the path of God's will, those who formerly were his enemies seek him and bear witness to the presence of God with him. An illustration is this that "when a man's ways please the Lord, He maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him" (Pro. 16:7).

"And he (Isaac) made them a feast, and they did eat and drink. 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" (26:30, 31). Above we called attention to how meekly Isaac suffered wrong when the Philistines strove for his wells, but here we may mark his failure to manifest another grace which ought always to accompany meekness. There is a meekness which is according to nature, but usually this degenerates into weakness. The meekness which is of the Spirit will not set aside the requirements of righteousness, but will maintain the claims of God. And here Isaac failed. To forgive is Christian, but with that there must be faithfulness in its season. "If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him" (Luke 17:3). Abimelech had clearly wronged him, but instead of dealing with Abimelech's conscience, Isaac made him a "feast." This was amiable, no doubt, but it was not upholding the claims of righteousness. Contrast the conduct of Abraham under similar circum

stances "And Abraham reproved Abimelech because of a well of water, which Abimelech's servants had violently taken away" (Gen. 21: 25)!

"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: which were a grief of mind unto Isaac and to Rebekah" (26: 34 and 35). This is sad, and points a solemn warning to us. Marriage is a momentous undertaking, and for one of the Lord's people to unite with a worlding is to court disaster as well as to dishonor Christ. Jehovah's instructions to Israel were very pointed under no circumstances must they marry a Canaanite (Deut. 7:3). In the times covered by the book of Genesis, though apparently no divine law had been given respecting it, yet the mind of God was clearly understood. This is evident from the care which Abraham took to secure Isaac a wife from among his own people (Gen. 24), thus did he prevent Isaac from marrying a daughter of Canaan. But Isaac was careless about this matter. He failed to watch over his children so as to anticipate mischief. Esau married a daughter of the Hittites. God could not say of Isaac as he had of his father, "For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord" (Gen. 18: 19). However, that Isaac had within him a righteous soul to be "vexed" is clear from the words, "which were a grief of mind unto Isaac and to Rebekah" (26:35).

We reserve for our next article a detailed examination of Genesis 27. Suffice it now to refer barely to the incident which is well known to our readers. Isaac was one hundred and forty years old and was fearful that death might soon overtake him. He therefore prepares to perform the last religious act of a patriarchal priest and bestow blessing upon his sons. But mark how that instead of seeking guidance from God in prayer his mind is occupied with a feast of venison. Not only so, but he seeks to reverse the expressed will of God and bestow upon Esau what the Lord had reserved for Jacob. But whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap. Isaac acts in the energy of the flesh, and Rebekah and Jacob deal with him on the same low level. And here the history of Isaac terminates! After charging Jacob not to take a wife from the daughters of Canaan (28:1) he disappears from the scene and nothing

further is recorded of him save his death and burial (35: 27-29). As another has said, “instead of wearing out, Isaac rusted out," rusted out as a vessel no longer fit for the master's use.

"Was Isaac, I ask, a vessel marred on the wheel? Was he a vessel laid aside as not fit for the Master's use? or at least not fit for it any longer? His history seems to tell us this. Abraham had not been such an one. All the distinguishing features of 'the stranger here,' all the proper fruits of that energy that quickened him at the outset, were borne in him and by him to the very end. We have looked at this already in the walk of Abraham. Abraham's leaf did not wither. He brought forth fruit in old age. So was it with Moses, with David, and with Paul. They die with their harness on, at the plough or in the battle. Mistakes and more than mistakes they made by the way, or in their cause, or at their work; but they are never laid aside. Moses is counselling the camp near the banks of the Jordan; David is ordering the conditions of the Kingdom, and putting it (in its beauty and strength) into the hand of Solomon; Paul has his armour on, his loins girded. When, as I may say, the time of their departure was at hand, the Master, as we may read in Luke 12, found them ‘so doing,' as servants should be found. But thus was it not with Isaac. Isaac is laid aside. For forty long years we know nothing of him; he had been, as it were, decaying away and wasting. The vessel was rusting till it rusted out.

"There is surely meaning in all this, meaning for our admonition. And yet such is the fruitfulness and instruction of the testimonies of God-there are others in Scripture, of other generations, who have still more solemn lessons and warnings for us. It is humbling to be laid aside as no longer fit for use; but it is sad to be left merely to recover ourselves, and it is terrible to remain to defile ourselves. And illustrations of all this moral variety we get in the testimonies of God. Jacob, in his closing days in Egypt, is not as a vessel laid aside, but he is there recovering himself. I know there are some truly precious things connected with him during those seventeen years that he spent in that land, and we could not spare the lesson which the Spirit reads to us out of the life of Jacob in Egypt. But still, the moral of it is this-a saint, who had been under holy discipline, recovering himself, and yielding

fruit, meet for recovery. And when we think of it a little, that is but a poor thing. But Solomon is a still worse case. He lives to defile himself; sad and terrible to tell it. This was neither Isaac nor Jacob-it was not a saint simply laid aside, nor a saint left to recover himself. Isaac was, in the great moral sense, blameless to the end, and Jacob's last days were his best days; but of Solomon we read, 'It came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods,' and this has made the writing over his name, the tablet to his memory, equivocal, and hard to be deciphered to this day.

"Such lessons do Isaac and Jacob and Solomon, in these ways, read for us, beloved-such are the minute and variour instructions left for our souls in the fruitful and living pages of the oracles of God. They give us to see, in the house of God, vessels fit for use and kept in use even to the end-vessels laid aside, to rust out rather than to wear out -vessels whose best service is to get themselves clean again -and vessels whose dishonor it is, at the end of their service, to contract some fresh defilement. (J. G. Bellett, "The Patriarchs.")

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