Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #4 of Genesis, chapter 26, and we are going to read Genesis 26:5:

Because that Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.

When we closed our last study, I mentioned a passage in Genesis 22 that ties in with this, and I want to go back there, and this was after the Lord had tested Abraham by commanding him to take his only son, the promised son Isaac, and offer him for a sacrifice.  And Abraham did so. As I pointed out, all kinds of theologians are enamored with Abraham because of this.  (You would have to read them, but I do not recommend you do it because it is not edifying or spiritually fruitful, because they are wrong in that view.)  I have read a lot of their writings, and you cannot miss the fact that they are taken with Abraham.  Of course they are, because many theologians throughout the church age – and especially now at the time of the end – are natural-minded.  They have never been born of the Spirit and, as a result, they are not spiritual.  So when they come to the Bible, they are naturally drawn to “works” doctrines and “works” gospels, whether it is subtle, like the Reformed theologians that mouth the word “election” and then they underhandedly teach Arminianism or the free will gospel.  “Yes, we are saved by election.  It is all God’s doing, but you have to believe.”  You have to do that work, although they deny it is a work.  There is just an overwhelming number of theologians that are caught up themselves in works and, therefore, they see that in the Bible.  And, here, the work of Abraham is in full view and, apparently, it tends to justify their “little bit” of work in believing in Christ or accepting the Lord.

After all, the Bible says, “Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar?” (James 2:21)   Of course, the answer is something that they are unaware of, because Abraham was justified by works – the works of Christ – when he offered up his son.  And he was also justified by the work of Christ when he did the dishes, saddled his ass, lay down to sleep, and every other work he did in his life after Christ applied His “works” to Abraham.  In other words, God could make this statement of any elect child of God.  “Was not So-and-So not justified by works after the Lord had applied the blood of Christ to that individual?”  At any point after that in their life, when they were doing any kind of action, this would be a true statement, if God did make that statement. 

If we were to say, “Was not Mary Smith justified by works when she cooked dinner?” we would immediately think, “No – cooking dinner has nothing to do with justifying a person.”  Or, “Was not Sam Smith justified by works when he took out the trash?”  Of course not, that kind of work has nothing to do with justification.  When we put it this way, the answer becomes obvious.   But when God made that statement, He selected an event in Abraham’s life that was dramatic and incredible, and then He asked, “Was not Abraham justified when he sacrificed his only son Isaac?”  Then everyone is drawn to the work that Abraham performed.  And that is the “sleight of hand” that God used often in writing the Bible.  It is how He hides truth, especially from the natural-minded, but He hides it from everyone, but He gives His elect people the tools and ability to search it out to find the hidden truth.  But the natural-minded lack the main tool, and that is having been born of the Spirit, so they lack the guide (the Holy Spirit) that would direct them into all truth.  And because of that, they cannot find the truth, and they are easily misled and go off in the wrong way when God does these things.

Well, in Genesis 22, God has done this very thing.  He had commanded Abraham to offer Isaac, but then He stopped him from following through.  But for the Lord’s purposes, it was as though he had carried out that task because it was a picture of God the Father offering His only Son as the one and only acceptable sacrifice for sins, which was performed at the foundation of the world, and then demonstrated in time at the cross in 33 A. D.

So we have to understand that to realize that Abraham was in the place of God and Isaac was in the place of Christ in that figure of Abraham offering Isaac.  This is why we read in Genesis 22:15-18:

And the angel of JEHOVAH called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time, And said, By myself have I sworn, saith JEHOVAH, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son: That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice.

Of course, it is not possible that God saved the great multitude or everyone whose name is written in the Lamb’s Book of Life because Abraham, historically, obeyed God when he went to offer Isaac.  There is no relationship between the two, but there is a relationship between God the Father offering His Son the Lord Jesus Christ.  And, again, when we read the Bible, the deeper spiritual meaning is always the more important meaning.  We can read a verse that is impossible to obey on the surface or on the physical realm in this world.  I have used the example of the command to “circumcise your heart,” which proves that the deeper level of meaning was always the main focus and purpose of the verse.  And that helps us to understand the whole Bible.

So when we read of Abraham…and I will read, again, Genesis 26:4-5:

And I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars of heaven, and will give unto thy seed all these countries; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; Because that Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.

The meaning of this is on the spiritual level because God the Father developed a salvation program and gave His only Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to carry it out, and He sent His Son to demonstrate it in time or in history.  That is why it is related to Abraham’s action, which is an historical parable, of what he did in offering up Isaac.

I think we understand that, so let us move on and get into some information that is much more difficult to understand.  I will read Genesis 26:6-12:

And Isaac dwelt in Gerar: And the men of the place asked him of his wife; and he said, She is my sister: for he feared to say, She is my wife; lest, said he, the men of the place should kill me for Rebekah; because she was fair to look upon. And it came to pass, when he had been there a long time, that Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out at a window, and saw, and, behold, Isaac was sporting with Rebekah his wife. And Abimelech called Isaac, and said, Behold, of a surety she is thy wife: and how saidst thou, She is my sister? And Isaac said unto him, Because I said, Lest I die for her. And Abimelech said, What is this thou hast done unto us? one of the people might lightly have lien with thy wife, and thou shouldest have brought guiltiness upon us. And Abimelech charged all his people, saying, He that toucheth this man or his wife shall surely be put to death. Then Isaac sowed in that land, and received in the same year an hundredfold: and JEHOVAH blessed him.

You might be thinking you have heard this before or that we have studied this before, and maybe we got in the wrong chapter because we are doing a study we have already done.  No – we have not studied Genesis 26 before, but we have definitely heard this same type of incident.  Actually, we have heard this twice before now, and this is the third time we have come across a man of God who said of his wife, “She is my sister.”  The previous two times it was Abraham who said this of Sarah.  So this is the first time that Isaac said this of his wife Rebekah, but it is very similar in that a man of God, a prophet, is saying that his wife is his sister.  I do not believe that he denied his wife, as some theologians have commented.  No – he is not saying that.  If we look at verse 7, it says, “And the men of the place asked him of his wife; and he said, She is my sister: for he feared to say, She is my wife.”  But notice that he did not say, “She is not my wife – she is my sister.”  He did not say that, so he did not deny that Rebekah was his wife.  Instead, he emphasized another relationship, although there is a problem here because this is what Abraham said of Sarah, who was actually his half-sister, so when Abraham said this of Sarah, it was true.  But when it comes to Rebekah, she was a cousin, not a sister or half-sister, so there seems to be some falsehood in Isaac’s response that was not the case with Abraham.  If we go back to Genesis 12, it is the first time that this kind of situation came up, in Genesis 12:14-20:

And it came to pass, that, when Abram was come into Egypt, the Egyptians beheld the woman that she was very fair. The princes also of Pharaoh saw her, and commended her before Pharaoh: and the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house. And he entreated Abram well for her sake: and he had sheep, and oxen, and he asses, and menservants, and maidservants, and she asses, and camels. And JEHOVAH plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai Abram's wife. And Pharaoh called Abram, and said, What is this that thou hast done unto me? why didst thou not tell me that she was thy wife? Why saidst thou, She is my sister? so I might have taken her to me to wife: now therefore behold thy wife, take her, and go thy way. And Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him: and they sent him away, and his wife, and all that he had.

We covered that when we went through Genesis 12, and we saw how it prefigured the exodus and how it also pointed, spiritually, to God delivering His elect out of the house of bondage.  Pharaoh was a type of Satan and he had taken Sarah forcibly, and then there was deliverance after JEHOVAH plagued Pharaoh’s house.  Again, we can see the prefiguring of the Lord sending plagues upon Egypt, which resulted in Pharaoh releasing Israel, the “bride of God.” 

The second time was in Genesis 20 when Abraham had traveled to Gerar, and we can certainly hear similarities with what we are reading in Genesis 26.  Let us go to Genesis 20:1-7:

And Abraham journeyed from thence toward the south country, and dwelled between Kadesh and Shur, and sojourned in Gerar. And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, She is my sister: and Abimelech king of Gerar sent, and took Sarah. But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night, and said to him, Behold, thou art but a dead man, for the woman which thou hast taken; for she is a man’s wife. But Abimelech had not come near her: and he said, Lord, wilt thou slay also a righteous nation? Said he not unto me, She is my sister? And she, even she herself said, He is my brother: in the integrity of my heart and innocency of my hands have I done this. And God said unto him in a dream, Yea, I know that thou didst this in the integrity of thy heart; for I also withheld thee from sinning against me: therefore suffered I thee not to touch her. Now therefore restore the man his wife; for he is a prophet, and he shall pray for thee, and thou shalt live: and if thou restore her not, know thou that thou shalt surely die, thou, and all that are thine.

Then we read in Genesis 20:14:

And Abimelech took sheep, and oxen, and menservants, and womenservants, and gave them unto Abraham, and restored him Sarah his wife.

It says in Genesis 20:17-18:

So Abraham prayed unto God: and God healed Abimelech, and his wife, and his maidservants; and they bare children. For JEHOVAH had fast closed up all the wombs of the house of Abimelech, because of Sarah Abraham's wife.

We can see some similarities with the first account when Pharaoh took Sarah, but this time the Lord came to Abimelech in a dream and convicted him; he had not touched her, and he released her and gave Abraham spoil of sheep, oxen, men servants and women servants, just as Abraham had received of Pharaoh many years earlier.  We saw that Abimelech was a type of Satan, so it is a similar picture, but it is pointing to the Latter Rain period wherein God extended His hand the second time to recover the remnant of His people by delivering His bride, the elect people of God. 

So there were similarities in those accounts, and now we see it again as we find ourselves a third time encountering a similar situation wherein the prophet or man of God, Isaac, said of his wife that she was his sister.  Also, he was in Gerar, the land of the Philistines.  Let me just mention some of the similarities in these accounts that I jotted down.  We see they are in Gerar, the land of the Philistines, so that would be the second point.  The king was also named Abimelech, although it was a different man because it was ninety to a hundred years after what we just read in Genesis 20, but he had the same name, which could indicate it was a title.  Abimelech means “father king” or “father of the king.”  (And this is the third point.)  Then the husband said of his wife, “She is my sister,” so that is consistent.  And, finally, it is discovered that the woman is also his wife, and that also happened here in Genesis 26, and it is consistent with all the previous cases.  Pharaoh learned that Sarah was Abraham’s wife.  The Abimelech of Genesis 20 learned that Sarah was Abraham’s wife when God came to him in a dream, and the Abimelech of Genesis 26 learned that Rebekah was Isaac’s wife.

But there are some major differences between Genesis 26 and the other accounts.  First, the men did not take Rebekah from Isaac, as Pharaoh took Sarah and as Abimelech took Sarah.  From everything we can read here, Isaac and Rebekah stayed together.  She was not taken into Abimelech’s harem.  Of course, that really raises our attention and we wonder, “Why would that be?”  Also, in the previous account God revealed to Abimelech through a dream that she was a man’s wife, and He also said that he was a dead man.  We further saw that God plagued Abimelech’s house by shutting the wombs of all his other wives.  And previously God had plagued Pharaoh, which indicated that the wrath of God or the judgment of God was upon Pharaoh.  These plagues caused these men to learn that the woman was not a sister, but a wife, and prompted them to release Sarah, the wife of Abraham.  But, here in Genesis 26, Rebekah was not taken, and there does not appear to be a judgment upon Abimelech.  He had not taken her, so there was no deliverance of the wife Rebekah because she was not taken, although what is in line with the previous two cases is that it was discovered by Abimelech that Rebekah was not a sister of Isaac, but his wife. 

However, it was discovered in a different way, and not through plagues brought by God.  It was discovered in a curious way in Genesis 26:8:

And it came to pass, when he had been there a long time, that Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out at a window, and saw, and, behold, Isaac was sporting with Rebekah his wife.

This is very unusual.  It does not say that Abimelech looked out a window and saw Isaac embracing or kissing his wife in some sort of intimate situation, but he was “sporting” with her.  Of course, we wonder what the nature of this is because the word “sporting” is a word that can be translated as “playing” or “mocking.”  As a matter of fact, what really makes this very interesting and makes us wonder all the more is because the word “sporting” is related to the word “Isaac.”  Remember that Isaac’s name had to do with his mother laughing.  It is very close to the word “laugh.”  Abraham and Sarah both laughed when they were told they would have a son, and they named their son “Isaac,” which is related to laughing, and playing and mocking.  So Isaac’s name identifies with “sporting” or “laughing,” and he was “sporting” with Rebekah his wife.  Why?  What is going on?  Why these differences, and are we going to be able to understand it?  Well, I am not sure we are going to have all the answers, but, Lord willing, we will look more into this in our next Bible study.