Commentaria in Genesim
20. IT IS OURS, because you dug it in our field and ground. But they object this unjustly, because it was with their will, knowledge, connivance and consent that Isaac had dug this well: therefore he called this well “Calumny,” because in the digging of this well the Geraritans brought this calumny against him. For “calumny” the Hebrew has esec, which written with shin signifies calumny, likewise oppression, fraud and injustice, as the Septuagint render it. Written with sin it signifies contention, strife, as Vatablus and the Chaldee render. See here the meekness of Isaac, who bears calumny, dissembles, goes away, and answers his rivals kindly and gently. See also how God mingles sweet with bitter for Isaac and his friends, and pours out the sweet-bitter. “The just man,” says St. Chrysostom, homily 52, “contends in nothing here, nor struggles, but even yields to the herdsmen. For this is true meekness, not when one who is offended by the more powerful bears it meekly, but when one yields though offended by those even who are thought inferior.”
22. ROOM. In Hebrew rechoboth, that is, breadths, as if to say: this well, wide, free and exempt from the envy of the Geraritans, will give abundant watering to us and our flocks, and therefore let it be called “Room.” St. Chrysostom reads “broad estate.” “For this reason,” he says, “I call it a broad estate, because the Lord hath enlarged and increased us upon the earth. You see the pious mind, how, making no mention of such cruel difficulties as stood in the way, he remembers only the good things, and for them offers thanks to God. For nothing is so pleasing to God as a grateful soul that gives thanks. For although He follows us all daily with innumerable benefits, yet He requires nothing else of us than thanksgiving, that He may be moved by it to give greater gifts,” as here He is moved to show Himself to Isaac and to bless him. Hence He adds: “Fear not, for I am with thee; therefore thou shalt be unconquered, and mightier than those who molest thee, and stronger than those who assail thee, and I will have such care of thee that thou shalt be an object of envy to them.” Hence He also prefaced it: “I am the God of Abraham thy father,” showing how He claimed the patriarch for Himself and made him His own, so that He deigned to call Himself the God of Abraham. And the Lord of the world and its Maker, calling Himself the God of one man, does not confine and abridge His dominion, but shows His great benevolence towards him, so that, He says, I have made him my own, that he is reckoned with me as much as all others. Therefore for thy father’s sake I will multiply thy seed.” So St. Chrysostom.
24. I AM THE GOD OF ABRAHAM THY FATHER. As if to say: all creatures indeed are mine, but yet one man with me is worth more than all the others: see therefore, O Isaac, that thou imitate thy father.
Learn here how good it is to be a friend of God; secondly, that the saints are in perpetual remembrance with God; thirdly, that God blesses children for the sake of holy parents; fourthly, what honour we owe to the saints, whom God so honours.
25. HE PITCHED HIS TENT, to fix his seat and dwelling there.
the well formerly dug there by his father Abraham, namely the well of Bersabee, as follows. Note here the constancy and magnanimity of Isaac, who bears bravely the insults of the envious and yields to them, but in such a way that he does not become more sluggish, but promotes himself and his affairs vigorously elsewhere.
26. OCHOZATH HIS FRIEND. The Chaldee and Vatablus take the Hebrew Ochozath as a common noun; hence they render it, and the company of his friends. But the Septuagint and our version do better in taking Ochozath as a proper name.
FRIEND. The Septuagint: the groomsman of king Abimelech. For they are the greatest friends of anyone who are best men at his wedding; for these are nearest to the bridegroom himself, and lead him to the bridal chamber. Hence St. John the Baptist, John 3:29, is called the friend of the bridegroom, because he was the groomsman of Christ.
Among the Persians this groomsman and intimate friend of the king was second after the king, and was called Surenas, whose office it was to crown the king. He was set over the king’s cohort, which consisted of the most select, most faithful and most friendly to the king, namely nobles and lords who had been nurtured and brought up with the king.
Hence he was as it were the leader and first among the nobles of the court and friends of the king. Such was this Ochozath with king Abimelech.
AND PHICOL THE GENERAL OF HIS ARMY. This Phicol is another from the one who lived in Abraham’s time, chapter 21, verse 22; for this one was a hundred years later than that. As therefore this Abimelech, who made a covenant with Isaac, was different from the one who made a covenant with Abraham, so also Phicol was different. It seems therefore that, as Abimelech was a common name of the kings of Gerara, so Phicol was a common name of the generals, not of the king’s cohort (for Ochozath was its captain), but of the public army, as their common name now is that they are called Masters, or Generals of the army. “Phicol” in Hebrew signifies every face, or rather every mouth, as if the faces, minds, mouths and eyes of all the soldiers were turned toward this commander of the army; and as the face leads the whole body, so he ought to go before and lead the whole army.
Symbolically, Eucherius, book 2, chapter 2, understands by these three friends of Abimelech the three kinds of philosophers, namely the logicians, the ethicists and the physicists; likewise the three Magi, who, led by a star, came to Isaac, that is, Christ.
29. NOR HAVE WE DONE ANYTHING TO HURT THEE. They speak falsely: for with their connivance the herdsmen had taken away Isaac’s wells. So the violent and tyrants proclaim their own justice; but the just, like Isaac, dissemble an injury received, and overwhelm evil deeds with kindnesses; they do not know how to be angry, because they are peacemakers and study peace. Wherefore St. Gregory rightly, sets Isaac up as a mirror of peace and simplicity, when he says: “Does simplicity of manners please? Let Isaac come to mind, whom, in the eyes of Almighty God, the tranquillity of his life adorned.” So David avoided Saul, who persecuted him, by flight; and when he could have hurt him, he would not: and so by David’s kindness Saul’s envy was overcome. So Solomon was peaceful, and therefore deserved to build the temple to the Lord.
St. Ivo, patron of lawyers, renowned for many miracles as well as works of piety, strove to reconcile litigants; and when he could not bring back to friendship and peace a certain man at grievous enmity with his mother, he offered the sacrifice of the Mass to God for him: thereafter, with no one urging them, by divine prompting alone they came so to their senses that he acknowledged himself her son, and she acknowledged him as her son.
It was revealed to the abbot and hermit Paphnutius that a certain man in Heraclea was equal to him in merits of life, and seeking him he found that he had indeed a wife and children, but after the birth of a second child he kept chastity with her, studied justice and piety, and above all strove, if he knew of any who were estranged from one another by hatred, to reconcile them; peacemakers are therefore equal to religious: Palladius is witness, chapter 64.
Hence Abbot Agatho used to boast that he never took sleep unless he had first lulled it by appeasing his own anger against others and the anger of others against him, often repeating: “Seek after peace and pursue it”; and: “The wrathful are hateful to God and to men.” In the Lives of the Fathers.
Abbot John, visiting the anchorite Pesius, asked him what he had gained in forty years in the desert. He answered: “That the sun, which lights all things, never saw me eating, nor angry.” In the same.