The life of Isaac was a faithful reflex of the life of his father.
Abraham had to leave his birthplace; so also Isaac. Abraham was exposed
to the risk of losing his wife; so also Isaac. The Philistines were
envious of Abraham; so also of Isaac. Abraham long remained childless;
so also Isaac. Abraham begot one pious son and one wicked son; so also
Isaac. And, finally, as in the time of Abraham, so also in the time of
Isaac, a famine came upon the land.[52]
At first Isaac intended to follow the example of his father and remove
to Egypt, but God appeared unto him, and spake: "Thou art a perfect
sacrifice, without a blemish, and as a burnt offering is made unfit if
it is taken outside of the sanctuary, so thou wouldst be profaned if
thou shouldst happen outside of the Holy Land. Remain in the land, and
endeavor to cultivate it. In this land dwells the Shekinah, and in days
to come I will give unto thy children the realms possessed by mighty
rulers, first a part thereof, and the whole in the Messianic time."[53]
Isaac obeyed the command of God, and he settled in Gerar. When he
noticed that the inhabitants of the place began to have designs upon
his wife, he followed the example of Abraham, and pretended she was his
sister.[54] The report of Rebekah's beauty reached the king himself,
but he was mindful of the great danger to which he had once exposed
himself on a similar occasion, and he left Isaac and his wife
unmolested.[55] After they had been in Gerar for three months,
Abimelech noticed that the manner of Isaac, who lived in the outer
court of the royal palace, was that of a husband toward Rebekah.[56] He
called him to account, saying, "It might have happened to the king
himself to take the woman thou didst call thy sister."[57] Indeed,
Isaac lay under the suspicion of having illicit intercourse with
Rebekah, for at first the people of the place would not believe that
she was his wife. When Isaac persisted in his statement,[58] Abimelech
sent his grandees for them, ordered them to be arrayed in royal
vestments, and had it proclaimed before them, as they rode through the
city: "These two are man and wife. He that toucheth this man or his
wife shall surely be put to death."
Thereafter the king invited Isaac to settle in his domains, and he
assigned fields and vineyards to him for cultivation, the best the land
afforded.[59] But Isaac was not self-interested. The tithe of all he
possessed he gave to the poor of Gerar. Thus he was the first to
introduce the law of tithing for the poor, as his father Abraham had
been the first to separate the priests' portion from his fortune.[60]
Isaac was rewarded by abundant harvests; the land yielded a hundred
times more than was expected, though the soil was barren and the year
unfruitful. He grew so rich that people wished to have "the dung from
Isaac's she-mules rather than Abimelech's gold and silver."[61] But his
wealth called forth the envy of the Philistines, for it is
characteristic of the wicked that they begrudge their fellow-men the
good, and rejoice when they see evil descend upon them, and envy brings
hatred in its wake, and so the Philistines first envied Isaac, and then
hated him. In their enmity toward him, they stopped the wells which
Abraham had had his servants dig. Thus they broke their covenant with
Abraham and were faithless, and they have only themselves to blame if
they were exterminated later on by the Israelites.
Isaac departed from Gerar, and began to dig again the wells of water
which they had digged in the days of Abraham his father, and which the
Philistines had stopped. His reverence for his father was so great that
he even restored the names by which Abraham had called the wells. To
reward him for his filial respect, the Lord left the name of Isaac
unchanged, while his father and his son had to submit to new names.[62]
After four attempts to secure water, Isaac was successful; he found the
well of water that followed the Patriarchs. Abraham had obtained it
after three diggings. Hence the name of the well, Beer-sheba, "the well
of seven diggings," the same well that will supply water to Jerusalem
and its environs in the Messianic time.[63]
Isaac's success with his wells but served to increase the envy of the
Philistines, for he had come upon water in a most unlikely spot and,
besides, in a year of drouth. But "the Lord fulfils the desire of them
that fear Him." As Isaac executed the will of his Creator, so God
accomplished his desire.[64] And Abimelech, the king of Gerar, speedily
came to see that God was on the side of Isaac, for, to chastise him for
having instigated Isaac's removal from Gerar, his house was ravaged by
robbers in the night, and he himself was stricken with leprosy.[65] The
wells of the Philistines ran dry as soon as Isaac left Gerar, and also
the trees failed to yield their fruit. None could be in doubt but that
these things were the castigation for their unkindness.
Now Abimelech entreated his friends, especially the administrator of
his kingdom, to accompany him to Isaac and help him win back his
friendship.[66] Abimelech and the Philistines spake thus to Isaac: "We
have convinced ourselves that the Shekinah is with thee, and therefore
we desire thee to renew the covenant which thy father made with us,
that thou wilt do us no hurt, as we also did not touch thee." Isaac
consented. It illustrates the character of the Philistines strikingly
that they took credit unto themselves for having done him no hurt. It
shows that they would have been glad to inflict harm upon him, for "the
soul of the wicked desireth evil."
The place in which the covenant was made between Isaac and the
Philistines was called Shib'ah, for two reasons, because an oath was
"sworn" there, and as a memorial of the fact that even the heathen are
bound to observe the "seven" Noachian laws.[67]
For all the wonders executed by God for Isaac, and all the good he
enjoyed throughout his life, he is indebted to the merits of his
father. For his own merits he will be rewarded in future.[68] On the
great day of judgment it will be Isaac who will redeem his descendants
from Gehenna. On that day the Lord will speak to Abraham, "Thy children
have sinned," and Abraham will make reply, "Then let them be wiped out,
that Thy Name be sanctified." The Lord will turn to Jacob, thinking
that he who had suffered so much in bringing his sons to manhood's
estate would display more love for his posterity. But Jacob will give
the same answer as Abraham. Then God will say: "The old have no
understanding, and the young no counsel. I will now go to Isaac.
Isaac," God will address him, "thy children have sinned," and Isaac
will reply: "O Lord of the world, sayest Thou my children, and not
THINE? When they stood at Mount Sinai and declared themselves ready to
execute all Thy bidding before even they heard it, Thou didst call
Israel 'My first-born,' and now they are MY children, and not THINE!
Let us consider. The years of a man are seventy. From these twenty are
to be deducted, for Thou inflictest no punishment upon those under
twenty. Of the fifty years that are left, one-half are to be deducted
for the nights passed in sleep. There remain only twenty-five years,
and these are to be diminished by twelve and a half, the time spent in
praying, eating, and attending to other needs in life, during which men
commit no sins. That leaves only twelve years and a half. If Thou wilt
take these upon Thyself, well and good. If not, do Thou take one-half
thereof, and I will take the other half." The descendants of Isaac will
then say, "Verily, thou art our true father!" But he will point to God,
and admonish them, "Nay, give not your praises to me, but to God
alone," and Israel, with eyes directed heavenward, will say, "Thou, O
Lord, art our Father; our Redeemer from everlasting is Thy name."[69]
It was Isaac, or, as he is sometimes called, Elihu the son of Barachel,
who revealed the wonderful mysteries of nature in his arguments with
Job.[70]
At the end of the years of famine, God appeared unto Isaac, and bade
him return to Canaan. Isaac did as he was commanded, and he settled in
Hebron. At this time he sent his younger son Jacob to the Bet
ha-Midrash of Shem and Eber, to study the law of the Lord. Jacob
remained there thirty-two years. As for Esau, he refused to learn, and
he remained in the house of his father. The chase was his only
occupation, and as he pursued beasts, so he pursued men, seeking to
capture them with cunning and deceit.
On one of his hunting expeditions, Esau came to Mount Seir, where he
became acquainted with Judith, of the family of Ham, and he took her
unto himself as his wife, and brought her to his father at Hebron.
Ten years later, when Shem his teacher died, Jacob returned home, at
the age of fifty. Another six years passed, and Rebekah received the
joyful news that her sister-in-law 'Adinah, the wife of Laban, who,
like all the women of his house, had been childless until then, had
given birth to twin daughters, Leah and Rachel.[71] Rebekah, weary of
her life on account of the woman chosen by her older son, exhorted
Jacob not to marry one of the daughters of Canaan, but a maiden of the
family of Abraham. He assured his mother that the words of Abraham,
bidding him to marry no woman of the Canaanites, were graven upon his
memory, and for this reason he was still unmarried, though he had
attained the age of sixty-two, and Esau had been urging him for
twenty-two years past to follow his example and wed a daughter of the
people of the land in which they lived. He had heard that his uncle
Laban had daughters, and he was resolved to choose one of them as his
wife. Deeply moved by the words of her son, Rebekah thanked him and
gave praise unto God with the words: "Blessed be the Lord God, and may
His Holy Name be blessed for ever and ever, who hath given me Jacob as
a pure son and a holy seed; for he is Thine, and Thine shall his seed
be continually and throughout all the generations for evermore. Bless
him, O Lord, and place in my mouth the blessing of righteousness, that
I may bless him."
And when the spirit of the Lord came over her, she laid her hands upon
the head of Jacob and gave him her maternal blessing. It ended with the
words, "May the Lord of the world love thee, as the heart of thy
affectionate mother rejoices in thee, and may He bless thee."[72]