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GENESIS 26–27; PSALM 19

Week 2, Day 7

Isaac seems to have inherited something of both his father’s strength and his weakness. He follows the same pattern of deception regarding his wife; yet like Abraham, he enjoys God’s blessing on all he does (26:12-13), and in time God confirms for him the promise that was previously made to his father (26:24). And like his father, Isaac becomes a builder of altars.

Esau continues to be a person who seeks his fulfillments regardless of other commitments, and marries out of the will of his parents. And Jacob continues to be Jacob! This time he has the help of his mother. It is not a pretty story. They combine forces to deceive blind Isaac; and they succeed, so that Jacob receives the blessing that was intended for Esau. In the previous instance, Esau was equally at fault, but this time the sin is all Jacob’s. And Esau, hating Jacob, vows that when his father has died, he will kill his younger brother. It appears that the Cain and Abel story is about to be reenacted.

Yet even from this ugly scenario, some good will come. Rebekah, her own cleverness turning in upon her, knows that she must send her favorite son away. But she uses the crisis to be sure that Jacob marries, as both his father and his mother desire, from other than the Canaanite women. The hour of extremity will become an occasion of opportunity.

PRAYER: Heavenly Father, may I never be so anxious for a desirable end that I use an unworthy means; in Jesus’ name. Amen.

In what ways did Rebekah and Jacob suffer for their act of deception?

Prayer Time

This is a good time to pray for grace and humility, and also for patience with people who seem to me not to be as consistent as they ought to be. I’m thinking of these persons (initials will do), for whom I will pray daily:

How the Drama Develops GENESIS 14–27

If Abram and Sarai (or Abraham and Sarah, as we will later, and more commonly, refer to them) are to be the channel for God’s salvation history, what kind of people are they? Wonderfully courageous and daring, because only such persons would be willing to leave home and kindred—especially late in life—and set out into the unknown. But they are not really consistent. Abraham seems anything but admirable when he compromises his wife because he thinks his life may be in danger, and Sarah clearly loses faith in God’s promise when she suggests they have a child through her servant Hagar. Isaac, in his generation, would demonstrate some of the same inconsistencies.

What is true in miniature in their lives is true also in the grand sweep of faith history. Our biblical drama will not unfold in a shortest-distance-between-two-points, straight line. The story will move several steps forward, then fall back. Sometimes, in fact, it will fall back so far we may feel the cause is almost lost. We will hear such cries of anguish from time to time from the psalmists and the prophets.

And sometimes it seems even God is not on the side of forward movement. Abraham must have wondered as much when he was called to sacrifice his son Isaac—the very carrier of the promise. But in his willingness to do as he thought God wanted, he put his faith in God rather than in the miracle God had given him and Sarah.

The drama continues through the twin sons given to Isaac and Rebekah, and again it follows an unpredictable course. Logic says that the progress should come through the elder son. But he is not a faith carrier; tonight’s dinner means more to him than his birthright. Esau is the ultimate materialist, a person who thinks there’s no use living if his current pressing desires are not met. Jacob, the carrier of the faith-theme, is by no means a consistently admirable or even likable person; but he does have his priorities in order. He knows what values are worth pursuing.

As the plot line unfolds, we are reminded from time to time that life is going along at other levels. For instance, there is the Sodom and Gomorrah story. Here is a rather impressive cultural civilization that must, at the time, have seemed far more significant than Abraham, who was living as a nomad. Yet it is this rustic who struggles to save Sodom and Gomorrah. If he had been successful, nobody in those cities would have known it, of course. We’re told also of the preservation of Hagar and her son Ishmael; they seem at times to be a subplot, and they will reappear in the New Testament in the apostle Paul’s faith discussion (Galatians 4:21-31). And along the way information is interjected about the families of Abraham’s kin (Genesis 22:20-24) and of Abraham’s later children (25:1-6), and it is made clear that these descendants are not part of the faith story.

But the faith story itself touches all of life. So when a wife must be found for Isaac, it is not simply a matter of finding a desirable and worthy person. She must be true to the vision that first impelled Abraham and Sarah, and she must be willing to enter upon the same pilgrimage that has controlled their lives (Genesis 24). The faith plot may seem at times almost to slip from view or be lost in the maze of the secular, but it is always present; and when the issue is crucial, it becomes the dominant factor.

Seeing Life Through Scripture

Faith is not simple, not even for good people, not even for saints. The lives of Abraham and Sarah and Isaac and Rebekah ought to instruct us at that point. We may sometimes be troubled by their inconsistencies (especially if we are momentarily dull to our own), but we might also be encouraged by them. If they made it, and were even crucial to God’s plan, surely there is hope for us!

This is not to justify our sins or our lapses in righteousness but to recognize that goodness doesn’t come easily. There are no sudden saints.

The Bible shows that it is not a propaganda document that tells only the favorable elements in the story, nor is it a sales pitch that suggests that anybody can be a saint. Yes, anybody can; but it won’t be easy. Nor will those who make it be able to boast about the way they achieved. God uses inconsistent people because they are the only kind available, and sometimes the failures of God’s servants become the loom upon which the purposes of God are woven.

So when the drama comes to its close, whether in the ultimate story or in the lives of individual participants, we will prove not only that we are saved by grace but also that the greatest souls have become saints by grace too.

The Sum of It All

“God said to Abraham, ‘As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations’” (Genesis 17:9).