The Sons of Isaac(67)

In spite of the fact that the oasis was beautiful and peaceful, Isaac was restless. He remembered hearing that in his father’s time there had been strife with the older Abimelech over a well his father had dug. His father had settled it by not only giving a gift of sheep and oxen to Abimelech but by setting aside seven ewe lambs for the king. “These will remind you of the covenant between us,” Abraham had said. “This well and this land will be mine.” Abimelech had agreed and the well had been named the well of the oath, or Beersheba.

Isaac wondered what had happened to the well. Surely Abimelech would feel obligated to honor an agreement made in such a formal way. It was only a short time later when a caravan from the north chanced to stop by their oasis, that he heard news of the well. The caravan had just come from Beersheba and the men were complaining that the well there had been filled with stones and rubble.

“Who owns the well?” Isaac asked, just to see what they might answer.

“They say there was an agreement with the people in the area, including the king of Gerar, that the well would belong to Abraham and to his descendants.”

Isaac listened with growing excitement. He could remember seeing his father build an altar and plant a grove of trees near a well he had dug in that very place. He even vaguely remembered the formal ceremony naming the well and establishing his ownership.

By the next morning, just as the caravan started on its way, he had decided to go and see the well that must now, by all rights, still belong to him and his family.

It took a week of preparation before he and his two sons and a group of his men were able to start out along the well-traveled caravan trail going north.

Isaac had looked on this not as just a casual venture but more as a spiritual journey. He hoped that by returning to this place where his father had not only dug a well but had built an altar and worshiped, he would find peace from the anger and frustration of these last years. He had not understood why it was necessary to waste so much time fighting over the wells. It had been Elohim who had told him not to go down to Egypt. Then why hadn’t He made things a little easier?

He had not been angry at Abimelech. The king was just exercising what he believed were his rights. However, he had been disappointed that his God had not made a better showing for Himself. It should have been so easy for Him to help his men defend the wells they had dug with such effort.

As he rode along the worn trail, he was reminded of all that had happened to him. Much of what had happened had also happened to his father when he had spent time in the city of Gerar. He should have known better than to deceive the king by saying that Rebekah was his sister, but the digging of the wells had been different. It had seemed a natural, intelligent solution to the famine. It was something he felt he could manage, and it hadn’t even occurred to him to ask his God for help. He had done it all in his own strength.

He was happy to be going back to the scene of his father’s victory. It was here Abraham had settled his dispute with Abimelech and had built an altar and worshiped and thanked his God, who had revealed Himself as El Shaddai, the almighty God.

Now Isaac not only intended to claim the well again but reestablish his relationship with the God of his father and to seek His help. He was not disappointed. That night as he slept the Lord appeared to him, saying, “I am the God of Abraham thy father. Don’t be afraid for I am with you and will bless you and multiply your seed for My servant Abraham’s sake.”

The next morning he called his two sons and the servants and told them they were to build an altar. They would sacrifice the sheep they had brought with them as a thank offering. “We will have no more trouble. Our God, the God my father knew as El Shaddai, the Almighty, is coming to our aid.”

When this had been done, and the last sounds of their chanting had died on the crisp morning air, he ordered his men to start digging another well. “This time we will succeed. No one will come against us,” he assured them.

This was something Esau and Jacob would never forget. They had been skeptical because they had suffered so much disappointment in the digging of the wells. They talked with each other and wondered how he could be so sure they would succeed this time. What difference could the building of an altar and giving thanks make in their situation?

* * *

Esau and Jacob were not to wait long. News came by a runner that Abimelech himself with Ahuzzath, one of his friends, and Phicol, the chief captain of his army, were coming up from Gerar to see their father. They speculated as to what his purpose might be. Was it because he had heard that Isaac was not only digging another well but was removing the stones and debris from the well his father had dug? To their surprise it was on quite another matter that they came.