Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #25 of Genesis, chapter 26, and we are going to read Genesis 26:32-33:

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 have seen how Abimelech came with the two men and desired a covenant, and Isaac made a covenant with them, and it said, “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.”  Once they depart, then Isaac servants came to him regarding a well they had dug earlier in verse 25: “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.”  At that time, they digged a well, but did not find water.  Then there was the encounter with Abimelech, Phichol and Ahuzzath, and then they held their feast.  And after they left, the water was found.  At that point, they called the place where the water was found Shebah.  Therefore, the name of the city is Beersheba unto this day.  This would be fine, except that this had already happened, and it is very similar to what had taken place about a hundred years earlier with Abraham and his meeting with Abimelech.  Let us go back to Genesis 21 where there was a discussion in Genesis 21:25-32:

And Abraham reproved Abimelech because of a well of water, which Abimelech's servants had violently taken away. And Abimelech said, I wot not who hath done this thing: neither didst thou tell me, neither yet heard I of it, but to day. And Abraham took sheep and oxen, and gave them unto Abimelech; and both of them made a covenant. And Abraham set seven ewe lambs of the flock by themselves. And Abimelech said unto Abraham, What mean these seven ewe lambs which thou hast set by themselves? And he said, For these seven ewe lambs shalt thou take of my hand, that they may be a witness unto me, that I have digged this well. Wherefore he called that place Beersheba; because there they sware both of them. Thus they made a covenant at Beersheba: then Abimelech rose up, and Phichol the chief captain of his host, and they returned into the land of the Philistines.

What is going on?  We have already seen many similarities between what had happened about a hundred years earlier between Abraham and Abimelech and what is happening now between Isaac and Abimelech.  And it is more than probable that this Abimelech was a descendant, and Abimelech was probably a “title” that was given a ruler of the Philistines.  But why is God taking us through this account with so many similarities?  Isaac is calling Rebekah his sister, just as Abraham had called Sarah his sister.  Then Abimelech found out that it was not really a sister but a wife.   The Abimelech of Genesis 21 discovered that of Abraham and Sarah, and so, too, the Abimelech of Genesis 26 discovered that of Isaac and Rebekah.  Then, in both cases, they made a covenant. 

There are many similarities, but there are some differences, and with the differences we can learn of the particular “time and season” that is in view.  In Genesis 21, in the case of the well that had been violently taken away, Abraham purchased, as it were, the well and the use of it.  He first gave sheep and oxen, and also there were the seven ewe lambs that Abraham said to take of his hand.  So he was buying it, which allowed him to possess the well and to own the water.  He purchased it from Abimelech.  He purchased the land and he purchased the well, and this ties in with the Lord Jesus Christ’s atonement.  For example, the Bible tells us: “Ye are bought with a price,” so God has bought His people, and the well of water that was dug in Abraham’s time (after Sarah had been taken captive and released by Abimelech) pictures the Latter Rain.  That was the second time she was taken captive.  The first time, she was taken by Pharaoh, and she was also delivered and set free, and that typified the “early rain” of the church age.  But the second time, it pictured the Latter Rain during the second part of the Great Tribulation when God would save the great multitude.  The third time, with Isaac and Rebekah, there was no captivity and no deliverance.  We talked about that.  It is pointing to Judgment Day (our present time) when there are no longer any of God’s elect held captive and bound in the darkness of Satan’s kingdom.  Therefore, Rebekah was not taken, and Rebekah was not delivered from captivity.

Also, the well that would bring forth water wherein God would save a great multitude had to be purchased.  It had to be atoned for, but in Genesis 26, we do not read that Isaac is giving livestock to Abimelech.  He was not purchasing the well in any way, or the rights to the water.  In other words, there was no “atonement,” because, again, none whose sins were atoned for at the foundation of the world still needed to have that atonement applied in the Day of Judgment, because all whose sins were atoned for had already received the application of the Gospel, and they had already been born again, so that is not in view.

But there is a covenant, and we talked about how Isaac sent Abimelech away in peace.  He made a feast or a banquet, which does identify with Judgment Day, and wherein Abimelech, a figure of Satan, did eat and drink, and then he went on his way in peace because there was no more battle over souls.  So the swearing had to do with the type of Gospel and the fact that God had completed the evangelization of the earth.  And, therefore, the Great Commission has been accomplished.  It is settled and done.

And now there is a second great commission, and the second time God would send forth the Gospel into the world in a different manner.  Of course, He did send forth the Holy Spirit two times in a like manner to accomplish salvation, but now it is going forth into the world in a different manner, where the purpose is to provide spiritual nourishment to those that have already become saved.  It will accomplish the purpose to obey Christ’s command to feed His sheep. 

So we can see these things when we examine the differences between these three similar instances.  We are only in chapter 26 of Genesis, and three times God has gone over this, which just so happens to fit our understanding of the outpouring of the early rain going forth in the churches; the Latter Rain and the Gospel going forth outside of the churches; and now the information that the Bible is bringing forth in this Day of Judgment regarding that salvation is complete and we are to go forth to feed the sheep, teaching them the truths of the revelation of the righteous judgment of God.  We are to let those elect, that great multitude that were saved by the message of the approaching Day of Judgment (May 21, 2011), know that it was carried out.  It did come to pass, and the Word of God is true and faithful altogether, and to let them know what happened. 

And that is exactly what we have been learning, as major doctrines have opened up since May 21, 2011.  Each one is giving us more information concerning God’s judgment program, and we are to share this with all out there who have ears to hear.  Since we do not know who they are, we have to share it with everyone, so God will make sure that those that became saved will hear it.

Now why did Isaac call it Sheba? “And he called it Shebah: therefore the name of the city is Beersheba unto this day.”  We find this several times in the Bible.  It is expressing a Biblical principle that has eternal significance.  You see, there is a need to reconfirm or reestablish that there is a well of water, and it is the “well of the oath,” which is what “Beersheba” means.  It is as though God is reestablishing the Gospel ground for Judgment Day.  He is saying that this is the same well, the same source, which is the Word of God, the Bible, and the truth will come forth.  Therefore, there is a confirmation, although it is in a different way than the previous well which, again, was bought with the animals given for its purchase.  But this has to do with a different aspect of God’s plan wherein He is not going forth to seek and to save the lost sheep of the house of Israel because they have already been sought out and delivered.  So He is sending forth His Word and preparing it in order to feed the sheep that have already been found.

OK, I think this is about the best I can do with this passage.  Again, it has been difficult, but I think that at the end, I have a better understanding of this last passage than I did earlier.  Sometimes, we just have to acknowledge and throw up our hands and say, “O, Lord, I do not know.  Help.”  And I am thankful that God did help with some clearer understanding of what is going on here, spiritually.

Let us move on to Genesis 26:34-35 and the end of this chapter, where it says in Genesis 26:34-35:

And Esau was forty years old when he took to wife Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Bashemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite: Which were a grief of mind unto Isaac and to Rebekah.

This seems to be just a casual reference with not much significance.  Esau was 40, and he took these two women to wife who were Hittites, and it was a grief of mind to Isaac and Rebekah.  It gives us a glimpse at this family, and the sorrow that results when children that are raised in a godly household where the Word of God is found go astray, and they do not do what God would have them to do and what their parents would desire for them, which is to marry into a godly line.  But Esau is going outside of that line.  He is doing something that we saw earlier on back in Genesis 6.  It was one of the reasons that God brought the flood, as we read in Genesis 6:1-2:

And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them,  That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. And JEHOVAH said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.

 We do not read about some awful, terrible and hideous type of sin, although it is.  But as far as we understand it, it is not like terrorism, murder, and so forth, and God is not citing those things as reasons for His intent to bring judgment in 120 years.  He said that the daughters of men were fair, and the sons of God took wives of them.  And, yet, that is awful, hideous sin, and throughout the Bible, we see God reacting strongly to this sin, whether it be the Midianitish women that caused Israel to sin in the wilderness sojourn; or whether it was the women of the surrounding nations in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah when the Jews came out of Babylon and returned to their land.  We find that God is very jealous of the fact that His people marry within the godly line.  Of course, the Bible gives the command in 2Corinthians 6:14:

Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?

It is a direct command of God that we are not to be unequally yoked.  An elect child of God, or someone who thinks they are an elect child of God, are to mate with another elect child of God, or one you truly believe is an elect child of God.  And that was God’s command right from the beginning, and He held people accountable all throughout history for failure to keep that command.  So it is significant.  It is not a little thing that Esau married two of the children of Heth.  The Hittites are the children of Heth.  Later on, when Rebekah would send Jacob away, it says in Genesis 27:46:

And Rebekah said to Isaac, I am weary of my life because of the daughters of Heth: if Jacob take a wife of the daughters of Heth, such as these which are of the daughters of the land, what good shall my life do me?

This is what we are reading about Esau taking Hittite women to wife – they are daughters of Heth.  Not only did he marry outside a godly line in a way that would be considered to be “unequally yoked,” (even though Esau himself was not saved), but he married two women, which is an act of adultery.  Right from the beginning when God established the marriage institution, it was between one man and one woman, and what God has joined together, let not man put asunder.  So he had already broken several laws of God, and we can see why it was a grief of mind to Isaac and Rebekah, because when you have children that you love and you know the truth…and Isaac and Rebekah did know the true Gospel, even though their knowledge of it would be much different than our knowledge today, because God had not revealed many things.  But they knew God, and they knew the true Gospel in the things God had revealed to them up to that point, and they knew that their son Esau was going away from that true Gospel.

Now Rebekah would have had further insight.  Remember, when the twins were struggling together in her womb, she asked God why it was so, and God said, “Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people...and the elder shall serve the younger.”  We can break down that language and, no doubt, Rebekah went over it in her mind and she also had some understanding of it, but God was saying that Jacob would be the one that was favored to receive grace, and not Esau.  In other words, Jacob would be saved, and Esau would not.

But they were both children of Isaac and Rebekah, and they loved their children.  They loved them equally, and with great care and concern and love, as much as they could have for their offspring.  And we know that as far as Isaac is concerned, it says in Hebrews 11:20:

By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come.

He was a good father to both his sons because he told them the things of the Bible, the Word of God, and the truth that he knew.  He told them both, equally.  He may have preferred Esau because he was a “man of the field,” and hunted and made good venison.  But, nonetheless, he loved Jacob as well, and he had a spiritual concern for both and, therefore, he told them “concerning things to come.”  And of course, “things to come” would include much of the Bible – that there is a judgment; there is a heaven; there is a time when we will receive the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession.  And we should not think that Isaac believed that to be an earthly land.  They would have been given insight.  They were “spiritual,” because they were born again, and they had new hearts and new spirits like believers today.  They would have had some spiritual understanding, and they would have realized that much of what God was saying would have its fulfilment in the new creation.  I am sure they would have had that much understanding – that this earth must be destroyed, and there would be a new creation.

But, regardless, we know they shared the Word of God with their sons.  They prayed for their sons, and they would have prayed for them from the time they were born.  This is what parents do, who are God’s people and who, themselves, have been saved.  They understand that just because they have children does not mean that their children are saved.  God is the one that decides.  God is the one that changes the heart.  God has to transform the individual, and He does so through His Word, and that leads parents to pray: “O, heavenly Father, I pray that you will bless my son.”  In this case, it was Jacob and Esau.  They would have often prayed for them.  “May you bless your Word to them.”  And this went on for many years, and while they were very young children, you cannot tell what God would do.  Will God have mercy on one, on both of them?  Or, maybe, it would be neither of them.  But fervent prayers are made; that is what a mother and father would have done.  And it is what godly parents have done down through the history of the world.  They would just keep praying and praying.

And, here, Esau is 40 years old, and this was a significant age because “40” is the Bible’s number for “testing.”  And now that he is 40, it is as if the testing has been brought to a point of conclusion, and the conclusion is that he had failed the test by marrying heathen wives.  He has terribly disappointed these parents, and his parents looked and saw that he had done this, something so grievous and something he knew was wrong, and something they had told him was wrong.  It was something that he should not have done, but he did it anyway.  And tremendous sorrow would have overtaken them, and it was a grief of mind.   We should not underestimate that word that is translated as “grief of mind,” as the “mind” in the Bible can point to the soul.  It grieved them in their souls because they were born again, and they had the Spirit of God, and it grieved the Holy Spirit that was within them.  It grieved them in the very core of their (new) being, and I am sure there were many tears shed over Esau.

Lord willing, when we get together in our next study, we are going to look at the timing of this, and why God tells us that Esau was 40 years old.  As far as I can tell, we have no other time reference in the life of Esau anywhere else in the Bible.