Commentaria in Genesim
Chapter Twenty-six. Synopsis of the Chapter
Isaac is here newly established as heir of the promises of faith, namely of Chanaan, and also of trials and advancements. First, therefore, God appears and blesses Isaac and enriches him; whence, secondly, in verse 14, the Geraritans envy him and stop up his wells. Thirdly, in verse 24, God again at Bersabee repeats to Isaac the promises made to his father, and there Isaac makes a covenant with the Geraritans. Fourthly, in verse 34, Esau takes Hethite wives.
1. And a famine came in the land after that barrenness which had happened in the days of Abraham, and Isaac went to Abimelech king of the Palestines, to Gerara. 2. And the Lord appeared to him, and said: Go not down into Egypt, but stay in the land that I shall tell thee. 3. And sojourn in it, and I will be with thee, and will bless thee: for to thee and to thy seed I will give all these countries, to fulfil the oath which I swore to Abraham thy father. 4. And I will multiply thy seed like the stars of heaven: and I will give to thy posterity all these countries: and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, 5. Because Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my precepts and commandments, and observed my ceremonies and laws. 6. So Isaac abode in Gerara. 7. And when the men of that place asked him about his wife, he answered: She is my sister: for he was afraid to confess that she was his wife, thinking lest perhaps they would kill him because of her beauty. 8. And when very many days were passed, and he stayed there, Abimelech king of the Palestines, looking out through a window, saw him jesting with Rebecca his wife. 9. And sending for him, he said: It is evident she is thy wife. Why didst thou feign her to be thy sister? He answered: I was afraid lest I should die for her sake. 10. And Abimelech said: Why hast thou imposed upon us? Some man of the people might have lain with thy wife, and thou hadst brought upon us a great sin. And he commanded all the people, saying: 11. He that shall touch this man’s wife, shall surely be put to death. 12. And Isaac sowed in that land, and he found that same year a hundredfold: and the Lord blessed him. 13. And the man was enriched, and he went on prospering and increasing, till he became exceeding great: 14. And he had possessions of sheep and of herds, and a very great family. For this the Palestines envying him, 15. Stopped up at that time all the wells that the servants of his father Abraham had digged, filling them up with earth: 16. Insomuch that Abimelech himself said to Isaac: Depart from us, for thou art become much mightier than we. 17. And he departed, that he might come to the torrent of Gerara, and dwell there: 18. And he digged again other wells, which the servants of his father Abraham had digged, and which, after his death, the Philistines had of old stopped: and he called them by the same names that his father before had called them. 19. And they dug in the torrent, and found living water. 20. But there also the herdsmen of Gerara strove against the herdsmen of Isaac, saying: It is our water. Wherefore he called the name of the well, from that which had happened, Calumny. 21. And they digged another: and for that they quarrelled also, and he called it Enmities. 22. Going forward from thence he digged another well, for which they contended not: and therefore he called the name thereof Room, saying: Now hath the Lord given us room, and made us increase upon the earth. 23. And he went up from that place to Bersabee, 24. Where the Lord appeared to him that same night, saying: I am the God of Abraham thy father: fear not, for I am with thee: I will bless thee, and multiply thy seed for my servant Abraham’s sake. 25. So he built an altar there: and calling upon the name of the Lord, he pitched his tent, and commanded his servants to dig a well. 26. To which place when Abimelech and Ochozath his friend, and Phicol general of his army, came from Gerara, 27. Isaac spoke to them: Why are you come to me, a man whom you hated, and have put away from you? 28. And they answered: We saw that the Lord is with thee, and therefore we said: Let there be an oath between us, and let us make a covenant, 29. That thou do us no harm, as we also have touched nothing of thine, nor have done any thing to hurt thee, but with peace have sent thee away increased with the blessing of the Lord. 30. So he made them a feast, and after eating and drinking, 31. They arose in the morning, and swore one to another: and Isaac sent them away in peace to their own place. 32. And behold, that same day the servants of Isaac came, telling him of a well which they had digged, and saying: We have found water. 33. Whereupon he called it Abundance: and the name was given to the city, Bersabee, unto this day. 34. And Esau being forty years old, married wives, Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hethite, and Basemath the daughter of Elon, of the same place: 35. And they both had offended the mind of Isaac and Rebecca.
1. ABIMELECH. Not the one of Abraham’s time, of whom chapter 21, as St. Augustine, Josephus and St. Chrysostom hold, but another, perhaps his son; for that one lived a hundred years before this one: for he reigned before Isaac was born, who was now almost a hundred years old, as is gathered from verse 34:
you would have given occasion of a great sin. For “sin” the Hebrew has ascam, which signifies, first, sin committed through ignorance, whence the Septuagint render it “ignorance”; secondly, the punishment and desolation inflicted for such a sin: it can be taken here in either sense.
11. HE SHALL SURELY BE PUT TO DEATH. Note here the ancient and first law and penalty of death against adulterers; which does not seem to have been laid down here for the first time, but to have been enacted before in general, and here only applied and threatened so Abulensis, Pererius and others. Abimelech seems therefore to have been the common name of the kings of Palestine, as Pharao, was the name of the kings of Egypt, and afterwards Ptolemy, and Cæsar of the Roman emperors. So Procopius, Diodorus and Jerome, book 9 on Ezechiel. Hence, according to Procopius and Diodorus, Abimelech in Hebrew signifies father king, as if you should say, Father of his country. For a king ought to be a father to his subjects, whence the Romans also called their emperors fathers of their country. Against the violators of Rebecca. The same penalty of death God afterwards inflicted on adulterers by the law of Moses. For adultery is a grave crime, which God avenges by punishing not only princes but also subjects. So for the adultery of Paris with Helen, Troy and the Trojan kingdom perished. So for Tarquin’s adultery with Lucretia, the kings were driven out of Rome for ever. So David, sinning with Bethsabee, was most gravely punished, as is plain from 2 Kings 12:10; more on which in chapter 37, verse 2. 5. MY VOICE, my command to immolate his son. God stirs up Isaac by mentioning the obedience of his father, that, seeing him so rewarded, he may strive to imitate him, indeed to surpass him, and so obtain a greater reward from God. So St. Chrysostom.
12. HE SOWED in a field not his own but hired from the Geraritans: for neither Abraham, nor Isaac, nor Jacob possessed fields or houses in Chanaan, but sojourned in it continually. We shall see here that Isaac and the saints are not idle, although they knew they were to be so blessed and that God had promised it; but they labour the more earnestly, lest they tempt God. So Isaac sows, and God blesses the sower.