Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #22 of Genesis, chapter 26, and we are reading Genesis 26:25-33:

And he builded an altar there, and called upon the name of JEHOVAH, and pitched his tent there: and there Isaac's servants digged a well. Then Abimelech went to him from Gerar, and Ahuzzath one of his friends, and Phichol the chief captain of his army. And Isaac said unto them, Wherefore come ye to me, seeing ye hate me, and have sent me away from you? And they said, We saw certainly that JEHOVAH was with thee: and we said, Let there be now an oath betwixt us, even betwixt us and thee, and let us make a covenant with thee; That thou wilt do us no hurt, as we have not touched thee, and as we have done unto thee nothing but good, and have sent thee away in peace: thou art now the blessed of JEHOVAH. And he made them a feast, and they did eat and drink. And they rose up betimes in the morning, and sware one to another: and Isaac sent them away, and they departed from him in peace. And it came to pass the same day, that Isaac's servants came, and told him concerning the well which they had digged, and said unto him, We have found water. And he called it Shebah: therefore the name of the city is Beersheba unto this day.

We are continuing in our study to look at this unusual account.  It is unusual because some of the names of the characters, like Abimelech and Phichol, were the same names as some of the characters that lived a hundred years earlier.  It was almost a reenactment or a recreating of a situation that happened with Abraham and Abimelech a hundred years before. 

We have talked about that, and we have seen that Abimelech is a type and picture of Satan, and he came with one of his friends, Ahuzzath.  And the name “Ahuzzath” is a word that means “possession” or “lay hold of.” And he also came with Phichol, the chief captain of his army, and his name means “mouth of all.”  So Abimelech came to Isaac with these two men, and Isaac had built an altar and called upon the name of JEHOVAH.  He had pitched his tent at this location, and there was no strife at this particular spot.  And there Isaac’s servant digged a well. 

We know from seeing this language in other accounts in the book of Genesis that the building of an altar has to do with the Lord Jesus Christ.  He is the “altar.”  For example, it says in Revelation 6 that the souls of them in heaven are seen under the altar, and the altar was the place where the sacrificial animal would be laid and slain, and the blood would pour out and flow down upon the altar.  To be under the altar is a picture of that blood flowing down and covering us, and that is a picture of the atonement that all those God has saved have received.  In other words,  Isaac and his servants’ actions are indicating that God is there.  It indicates the presence of God and where the people of God are located.

Then here came the visitors, Abimelech and his friend and Phichol, the chief captain of his army. So there were three Philistines, and the number “three” points to the purpose of God, and they came to where a well has been dug.  No water had been found as yet.  Isaac’s servants had digged the well, but it was after they held the feast that a covenant was made between Abimelech and Isaac that the servants find the water.  At the end of verse 30, it says, “We have found water.”

What are we to make of this?  I am not completely sure, and I struggled with much of this chapter.  It is one of the most difficult, and it may be the most difficult chapter I have every gone through in the Bible, trying to work verse by verse.  I will just mention a couple of things, but I do not feel too confident because it is just so difficult, and that is a humbling thing.  It helps me to keep in mind that God is the Author of the Bible.  It is His Word, and the things of God are “too high” for me, and for man in general, to understand, unless God grants us favor and mercy and grace to understand.  Unless He opens our eyes and causes wisdom and understanding to come down to us from above, then we are not going to understand.  At least, that is how it is with me, and although I have prayed and studied, I just do not feel confident in my understanding.

It says in Genesis 26:27:

And Isaac said unto them, Wherefore come ye to me, seeing ye hate me, and have sent me away from you?

This is exactly what happened, if we turn back to Genesis 26:14-17:

For he had possession of flocks, and possession of herds, and great store of servants: and the Philistines envied him. For all the wells which his father's servants had digged in the days of Abraham his father, the Philistines had stopped them, and filled them with earth. And Abimelech said unto Isaac, Go from us; for thou art much mightier than we. And Isaac departed thence, and pitched his tent in the valley of Gerar, and dwelt there.

So Abimelech himself had commanded, and it was imperative: “Go from us.  Depart from us.”  And Isaac was reminding him of this.  It is strange, is it not, if you are told to go away from someone, and you do so, and you set up a new camp with tents and the altar, and your servants are digging a well, and you are at a distance from the one that had wanted you to go away, and the next thing you know, here he comes?  Three riders are approaching, and you see that one of them is the man that wanted you to depart.

So it was natural for Isaac to say, “Wherefore come ye to me, seeing ye hate me, and have sent me away from you?”  I am not sure if we talked about this in a Genesis study, but in one of our studies at EBible we looked at the connection between “separation” and “hatred.”  For example, let us go to Luke 6:20-23:

And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said, Blessed be ye poor: for yours is the kingdom of God.  Blessed are ye that hunger now: for ye shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep now: for ye shall laugh. Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man's sake. Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy: for, behold, your reward is great in heaven: for in the like manner did their fathers unto the prophets.

Here we have an example of a prophet, Isaac, being sent away: “Go from me!  Go from us!”  And he did go.  You know, we do not argue or fight or strive when people do not want us in their presence.  Really, they do not want to associate with the child of God.  The world does not want us with them because of our identification with the Word of God.  It is really animosity and hatred against God and His Word that we are joined with, by the grace of God, when he took us out of the world and bestowed His grace upon us by saving us.  And, of course, we would never want to go back to the world and say, “Oh, please accept me again.  Bring me in.  You have turned away from me and separated from me, but now I want to come back.” 

Anyone who does go back to the world or back to the corporate church (that now is completely destroyed and is utterly apostate) or back to former doctrines, they have given “the back” to God.  So it is one or the other.  You cannot have both – you cannot have the world and God, and you cannot have God and the world.  If we go with God, we will experience tribulation, persecution and affliction.  If we go with the world, we will have the anger and wrath of God against us. 

And since God’s anger and wrath is spiritual (at this time), if someone goes with the world, that is evidence that he is not “spiritual” and he is dead in spirit, and that may seem less “real” or less stressful to that individual; he can be really troubled with the world’s opposition to him because he “feels” that.  He is really a natural man, and his identification is with this world, ultimately, so that is deeply concerning and troubling to him.  And if there is enough pressure applied for the Word’s sake, he will revert back, and he will return, like Naomi’s daughter-in-law, Orpah, went back to Moab.  It was Ruth who clung to Naomi and to the God of Israel, and she would not go back.  Ruth is a picture of God’s elect.

We really have no option because God has the Word of eternal life, and He is the one that is holding us.  We could not go back, even if we wanted to, except in a temporary way through sin.  But we cannot turn back.  God will not allow it.  He is the one directing our course and making sure we put one step in front of the other in the spiritual path we follow as we continue to trust the things that the Lord has opened up to our understanding in His Word.

So Isaac is correct in saying, “Why are you coming to me, seeing you hate me?”  That is a true statement.  By pushing him away and telling him to go from them, it was a form of hatred and separation.  And, again, Abimelech is a figure of Satan, and these other men would have been part of the kingdom of darkness, the kingdom of this world.  That is the actual spiritual struggle that goes on between the flesh and the spirit and the unsaved and the saved.  We see it all the time.

Then it goes on to say in Genesis 26:28-29:

And they said, We saw certainly that JEHOVAH was with thee: and we said, Let there be now an oath betwixt us, even betwixt us and thee, and let us make a covenant with thee; That thou wilt do us no hurt…

The Hebrew word translated as “hurt” is #7457, and it is the typical word for “evil.”  It goes on to say in Genesis 26:29:

… as we have not touched thee…

We have talked about this a few times in our discussion of Abimelech.  It seems like every time Abimelech comes up, this word “touched” is in the context, whether it be back in Genesis 21 or earlier in this chapter, and that is because God is making sure we see the tie-in.  And the verse that makes this tie-in or association between Abimelech and Satan regarding this word “touch” is found in 1John 5:18:

We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not; but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not.

That is what we have seen whether it be with Abraham and Sarah and their dealings with Abimelech, or with Isaac and Rebekah and their dealings with Abimelech.  It is the same thing a hundred years later as it was a hundred years before – Abimelech cannot and does not touch Isaac and his wife Rebekah, or earlier in the situation of Abraham and Sarah.  Even though Abimelech had taken Sarah into his harem, yet he did not touch her.  That is what he argued with God when he had that dream, and Abimelech responded that he had not come near her and it was in the innocency of his hands that he had done this.  And God said, “I know you have not touched her because I would not allow you to touch her.”  And that is expressing the wonderful protection God gives His people while we live in this world and while we are in a land where there are dangers and where the Evil One has ruled the earth.  God has still protected His people from any actual hurt or harm at the hand of Satan, which would be the loss of our soul.  Satan has never in all the history of the world been able to take away the salvation of one of God’s elect, as God has applied that salvation to us and we have been covered by the blood of Christ, receiving the gift of eternal life.  No matter how hard Satan has tried, and he has tried many times in severe ways, but he has never once been able to “touch” one of God’s elect in our soul or to do some injury to the soul that would break the relationship between that born-again soul and God above.  He cannot touch it.  And that is why this idea is continually expressed.  And, also, 1John 5:18 confirms to us that this man (Abimelech) is a type and figure of Satan, even though we wonder about this passage: Could we say that here comes Satan?  Is that the idea?  We understand the picture of Satan sending Isaac away and hating him.  Yes – that certainly reminds us of Satan.  But Satan coming to an elect and wanting to swear an oath and develop a covenant with Isaac to do him no hurt because he had not touched him?  Again, reading from Genesis 26:29: “…as we have done unto thee nothing but good, and have sent thee away in peace: thou art now the blessed of JEHOVAH.”

And notice what happened next.  It says in Genesis 26:30-31:

And he made them a feast, and they did eat and drink. And they rose up betimes in the morning, and sware one to another: and Isaac sent them away, and they departed from him in peace.

You can see why I have been struggling and why I have had so much trouble with this passage.  We see in the Bible that Abimelech is a type and figure of Satan and Isaac, obviously, is a type and figure of Christ.  And, yet, this Abimelech is coming to Isaac and he wants a covenant of peace, and Isaac made him a feast.  They ate and drank, and they did swear, one to another.  And, this time, Isaac sends them away, and they depart from him in peace.  How in the world are we to understand this? 

You know, nobody said the Bible was easy.  God did not write the Bible to be easily understood.  It is the most complex writing in all the world.  It is the most difficult writing in all the world.  If left to our own ability and intelligence and understanding, when we come to the Bible, there is not a single person that would properly understand it.  That is why I said it is “humbling,” because it reminds us that God is the Author.  It is His Word, and who can know the things of a man , except the spirit of man that is in him?  And who can know the mind of God, except God Himself, the Spirit of God?  Only the Spirit of God can reveal the mind of God.  Only God can relay to us and cause us to know anything from the Bible that is true and faithful, spiritually.  When we look at all the information that God has revealed to us, it should make each one of us thankful and grateful to Him for kindly and graciously opening His Word to our understanding to the level that He has done so.  So that is one thing we can take away from a passage like this that is so hard to understand: that God is in control, and it is His Word.

I will just mention what could, possibly, be in view here.  As we saw before, we saw the similarity between Isaac saying Rebekah was his sister, and she was not taken; and about a hundred years earlier, Abraham saying that Sarah was his sister, and Sarah was taken and then delivered.  And we spent a good amount of time talking about how that was the second time that Sarah had been taken and delivered.  The first time was with Pharaoh, a type of Satan, and the second time with Abimelech, a type of Satan.  These incidents were pointing to the deliverance of God’s elect and major outpourings of the Holy Spirit.  And, yet, when it came to Isaac and Rebekah (who were also pictures of Christ and the elect), Rebekah was not taken into Abimelech’s household or into captivity and, therefore, there was no deliverance.  We discussed how, spiritually, that could be pointing to the fact that we are currently in Judgment Day and there are no further “captives,” the elect, that are being held within the kingdom of darkness and must be delivered out and into the kingdom of light, the kingdom of God’s dear Son.  All that were to be saved have become saved.  Everyone whose names were written in the Lamb’s Book of Life had been found by the date of May 21, 2011.  We discussed that.

But there is another aspect to that, meaning the spiritual battle that has been raging throughout the history of the world.  The Lord Jesus Christ had been coming, conquering and to conquer, riding a white horse and ransacking or spoiling the kingdom of Satan by delivering the elect that had been bound in chains in captivity to sin and to Satan.  And Christ, through His Word, delivered them.  As I mentioned before, Satan was in constant opposition, fighting against it, and not wanting to deliver the prisoners.

Let us go to Isaiah 14, if we have time.  We may have to continue this in the next study, but in Isaiah 14, we read of Satan, who is typified here as the king of Babylon.  It says of his judgment, in Isaiah 14:16-17:

They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms; That made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof; that opened not the house of his prisoners?

He refused.  That was the point of battle, to open up the house, or as God commanded Pharaoh in Egypt: “Let my people go.”  Pharaoh refused, so the battle was on.  “Let my people go.”   Pharaoh would not and, therefore, God sent plagues, again, and again, and again.  The battle was over the release of the captives.  But what happens once all the captives are released?  There is no more battle, in that sense.

And that is what we will have to look at in our next Bible study.