Commentaria in Genesim
CEREMONIES, both the proper ones of circumcision, and others common to all, which God instituted in the law of nature and by which He willed to be worshipped. For the law of nature, like that of Moses and that of Christ, had its rites, its sacred things and sacraments.
7. SHE IS MY SISTER (kinswoman). See what is said in chapter 12, verse 19.
8. HE SAW HIM JESTING WITH REBECCA. The impure Jews understand this jest as conjugal union. But away with these cynics! Who would believe that Isaac was so shameless and cynical, publicly and in the king’s sight? I say therefore that for “jesting” the Hebrew is metsachek, that is, laughing, or playing with Rebecca, in the manner in which a chaste and grave husband is wont to jest, laugh and play with his honest wife.
12. AND HE FOUND IN THE SAME YEAR (of barrenness) A HUNDREDFOLD. Hence it is plain that this harvest came to Isaac not through the sowing, nor through the fertility of the fields, but by miracle, by God’s benefit; namely that from one measure sown he reaped a hundred measures. So Pliny, book 18, chapter 10, calls the most fertile wheat “hundred-grained.” In Hebrew, literally: he found a hundred measures. So Pagninus, Vatablus and others. The word sheorim, written with sin, signifies measures; the Septuagint and the Arabic, reading seorim with shin, render: he found barley a hundredfold. Thirdly, others render: he found a hundred estimations, that is, a hundred times as much as he had estimated; for the root signifies to think, to estimate. Hence the Chaldee renders: he found a hundred times what he had estimated.
Tropologically, poverty is a most fertile land, in which if you sow, you will receive a hundredfold; for this is what Christ says, Matthew 19:29: “Everyone that hath left house, or brethren, etc., or lands for my name’s sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall possess life everlasting.” Alluding to this, St. Jerome, letter 26 to Pammachius, says: “The promises of Christ are repaid with a hundredfold increase: in such a field Isaac once sowed.” Rightly therefore Blessed Nazianzen sings in his Poems:
Happy he who buys Christ with all his fortunes.
And St. Augustine, last sermon On Various Subjects: “What is more glorious for a man than to sell his own goods and buy Christ?”
God, namely by enriching him. So Vatablus. For the Hebrew vau is often causal; and the Hebrews often take the perfect for the pluperfect, as if to say: not heaven, not earth, not fields gave Isaac these goods, but the blessing of the Lord, which alone makes rich.
Add, however, that God blessed Isaac because he laboured strenuously and tilled the field: for God joins Himself to the labour of husbandmen and blesses it. When among the Romans the early dictators and senators tilled a field of five acres, its produce was abundantly enough to feed the whole family; after they used slaves and tilled the fields through them, the greatest estates did not suffice: the former worked willingly and diligently, the latter coldly and almost under compulsion; hence the earth, disdainful, did not return its favour to such workers. Famous is what they write of C. Furius Cresinus, who, when he gathered from a small plot far richer crops than his neighbours from their very large ones, was in great ill will, as if he lured away other men’s crops by sorcery. Wherefore, when a day was set for him by the curule Sp. Albinus, and he feared condemnation, when the tribes had to go to vote he brought into the forum all his farm equipment, and brought his strong daughter, heavy hoes, weighty ploughshares and well-fed oxen; then he said: “These are my sorceries, Quirites, nor can I show you or bring into the forum my night labours, my watchings and my sweat.” He was therefore acquitted by the votes of all. So it is indeed: the fruit of a field depends not on expense but on cultivation, and therefore they said that the most fertilizing thing in a field is the eye and foot of the master; for the master’s eye fattens the horse, the master’s foot fattens the field.
Morally, note that Isaac, because he remained in Gerara at God’s command, was therefore enriched there by God: so wherever anyone shall remain by the will and command of God, there he shall be blessed and prosper by God. Let religious note this, and not wish to change the stations assigned to them.
says the king to the stranger: Depart from us, for thou art become mightier than we. And truly he was mightier, having heavenly protection in all things, and fortified by the right hand of God. Whither then do you drive the just man? Do you not know that wherever you shall have forced him to go, he will always be among the things that are his Lord’s? Has not experience of things taught you that it is the hand of God that makes the just man illustrious and preserves him? Why then, by driving out the just man, do you declare ingratitude towards the Lord?
And not even the great meekness of the man could tame your envy, but, overcome by envy, you complete it in deed, and again force him to migrate who has hurt you in nothing. Do you not know that even if you drive him into the very wilderness, he will still have a powerful Lord, who knows how to help him and to make him far more illustrious? For nothing is stronger than to enjoy heavenly protection, as nothing is weaker than to be deprived of it.
Heretics, envying Catholics, stop up the wells of Catholic doctrine, namely Holy Scripture and the traditions, the sacraments and sacred things, with their heresies and filth, says Origen.
16. DEPART FROM US. See here how little confidence is to be placed in the favour of kings or people, and how timid and suspicious envy is: for through it Isaac is here driven out. God, however, for other causes willed him to sojourn: first, that his faith and virtue might be proved; secondly, that in other places also God might be glorified by his piety and holy conversation; thirdly, that He might teach that the saints ought to be attached to no place, indeed to no earthly things, but always ready to leave all things for God, if the occasion demand it.
18. HE DIGGED OTHER WELLS. “He digged,” that is, he cleared out and cleansed them. They had been dug before by Abraham, but were filled up with earth thrown in by the envious Geraritans. Isaac preferred to clear out his father’s old wells rather than dig new ones: first, because he was sure that there was a vein of water there; secondly, to lessen the envy of the Geraritans, since he only reclaimed and renewed wells which they had long since conceded to his father; thirdly, that he might thus recall and revere his father’s grateful memory, labours and works; hence Isaac also recalled and renewed the former names given to the wells by his father. So Delrio.
Tropologically, how the demon stops up the well of the soul by the thoughts of temptations, and how it is to be drained and cleared out, see St. Gregory, Moralia, book 31, chapter 13.
Verse 17. To the torrent of Gerara. The word signifies both a torrent and a valley, or the place through which a torrent is wont to flow, whether it flows or has ceased to flow.
in summer it dries up in drought: in it, therefore, Isaac dug a well, and found living water, that is, gushing, spring and perennial water; for in channels and valleys and low places living and spring water is found more easily and quickly than on mountains and high places; for we see in valleys that by digging to the third or fourth foot water springs up and wells are made, whereas on mountains they must be dug to a hundred, indeed two hundred feet (so deep are they).