Isaac left the place where he had dug the well called Rehoboth and went up to Beer-sheba. Beer-sheba was an old camping-place of Abraham, associated with Abraham's covenant with Abimelech concerning the well there, whose name meaning well of the oath commemorated their agreement. The verse stands in an account that begins with famine carrying Isaac into the land of the Philistines, continues with his abundant blessing there, his differences with the Philistines, his willingness to yield more than justice and God's blessing in consequence, and closes with Esau's marriages. It falls within God's providential dealings and care for Abraham's family as the chosen family through whom the Seed, the promised Seed, would come.
Before going up, Isaac refused to strive or contend for his rights over wells that were his by inheritance, by redigging, and by their rejection, yielding all they claimed and instead committing his cause to God. That same night at Beer-sheba the Lord appeared to Isaac as the God of Abraham his father, told him to fear not for God was with him, and promised to bless him and multiply his seed for Abraham's sake, thus renewing the covenant and the promise made to Abraham. At Beer-sheba Isaac built an altar, called upon the name of the Lord, pitched his tent there, and his servants dug a well.
God rewarded and encouraged Isaac's self-sacrifice and yielding by making room for him and making him fruitful in the land, working for him, and giving him peace with his enemies who had persecuted him. He had accepted inconvenience and apparent loss rather than contend with those persecuting him. Only by that continual yielding and by his faithful, practical life and prosperity in Philistia did Abimelech and his men and neighbors and rulers gain opportunity to see certainly that the Lord was with Isaac and to confess him as now the blessed of the Lord, an experience that serves as an example of how living out God's truth can draw others to inquire about it.
The move displays the disposition of the son of the freewoman born by promise in contrast to the striving disposition of the son of the bondwoman born after the flesh, setting the choice between the two covenants. The chapter to which the verse belongs, compared with chapter 12, shows that the commands Abraham is said to have kept cannot be reduced to leaving his people, walking through the land, and offering Isaac, and that such an interpretation reverses cause and effect.
Isaac left the place where he had dug the well called Rehoboth and went up to Beer-sheba. Beer-sheba was an old camping-place of Abraham, associated with Abraham's covenant with Abimelech concerning the well there, whose name meaning well of the oath commemorated their agreement. The verse stands in an account that begins with famine carrying Isaac into the land of the Philistines, continues with his abundant blessing there, his differences with the Philistines, his willingness to yield more than justice and God's blessing in consequence, and closes with Esau's marriages. It falls within God's providential dealings and care for Abraham's family as the chosen family through whom the Seed, the promised Seed, would come.
Before going up, Isaac refused to strive or contend for his rights over wells that were his by inheritance, by redigging, and by their rejection, yielding all they claimed and instead committing his cause to God. That same night at Beer-sheba the Lord appeared to Isaac as the God of Abraham his father, told him to fear not for God was with him, and promised to bless him and multiply his seed for Abraham's sake, thus renewing the covenant and the promise made to Abraham. At Beer-sheba Isaac built an altar, called upon the name of the Lord, pitched his tent there, and his servants dug a well.
God rewarded and encouraged Isaac's self-sacrifice and yielding by making room for him and making him fruitful in the land, working for him, and giving him peace with his enemies who had persecuted him. He had accepted inconvenience and apparent loss rather than contend with those persecuting him. Only by that continual yielding and by his faithful, practical life and prosperity in Philistia did Abimelech and his men and neighbors and rulers gain opportunity to see certainly that the Lord was with Isaac and to confess him as now the blessed of the Lord, an experience that serves as an example of how living out God's truth can draw others to inquire about it.
The move displays the disposition of the son of the freewoman born by promise in contrast to the striving disposition of the son of the bondwoman born after the flesh, setting the choice between the two covenants. The chapter to which the verse belongs, compared with chapter 12, shows that the commands Abraham is said to have kept cannot be reduced to leaving his people, walking through the land, and offering Isaac, and that such an interpretation reverses cause and effect.