NOTES for Gen 26:1-35

We do not know very much about Isaac. Today’s chapter is one of the rare accounts of how this man lived. Before us we see a man who received faith from his father and confirmation of the promise from God, who was chosen to continue the family line even before he was conceived. One of his most remarkable traits is the absence of rebellion, resistance, or indignation—at the way he lives, at what he encounters each day, at the people whom he fears and who fear him, at disputes over land and water. All this happens because God’s blessing rests upon him. Yet this blessing is not his own choice but his father’s choice, an immutable fact against which one might rebel or which one might ignore. Isaac, however, is a man who has possessed faith from birth and does not wish to part with what he has. He believes despite the outward inconvenience of being set apart and separated from the people around him. He lives by the faith he has preserved from the beginning.