Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #31 in Genesis 35, and we will read Genesis 35:27-29:

And Jacob came unto Isaac his father unto Mamre, unto the city of Arbah, which is Hebron, where Abraham and Isaac sojourned. And the days of Isaac were an hundred and fourscore years. And Isaac gave up the ghost, and died, and was gathered unto his people, being old and full of days: and his sons Esau and Jacob buried him.

That brings us to the end of the chapter.  I mentioned last time that there is a space of several years between the time that Jacob came to his father in Mamre until Isaac actually died at age 180 in the year 1887 B. C.  But again, when Jacob came unto Mamre it was the year 1906, in all likelihood, which would be about 19 years to 1887 B. C. when Isaac would die.  We will not go back into that, but God is making a point to let us know that Isaac died at this time at age 180.  He also tells us, “And Isaac gave up the ghost, and died, and was gathered unto his people, being old and full of days: and his sons Esau and Jacob buried him.”  At the time when Isaac would die at age 180, Jacob and Esau would be 120 years old because they were twins born to Isaac when he was 60 years old.  So that would be a significant age for them, as the number “120” is a number we have seen in the Bible, like the 120 years advance notice that God gave Noah to build the ark before the flood, and it would also be the death age of Moses.  It is a very significant number.

Again, it says in Genesis 35:29:

And Isaac gave up the ghost, and died, and was gathered unto his people…

The word “gathered” is Strong’s #622, and it is a word that is used in association with harvest, if we go to Exodus 23:16:

And the feast of harvest, the firstfruits of thy labours, which thou hast sown in the field: and the feast of ingathering, which is in the end of the year, when thou hast gathered in thy labours out of the field.

Also, we see this word in Leviticus 23:39:

Also in the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when ye have gathered in the fruit of the land, ye shall keep a feast unto JEHOVAH seven days: on the first day shall be a sabbath, and on the eighth day shall be a sabbath.

So there is the gathering of the fruit.  We will not go through all the Scriptures, but it can easily be shown that the Word of God likens the harvest of fruit to the salvation of souls.  God sends the rain, which identifies with His Word, in the proper time and season.  And He sent two rains in the New Testament era.  There was the “early rain” that produced the harvest of the firstfruits during the church age, and then the Latter Rain that produced the final harvest at the end.  The two rains identify with the two outpourings of the Holy Spirit.  We also see this Hebrew word translated as “gathered” used in a verse that does point to the Latter Rain, the second outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and that is found in Isaiah 11:11-12:

And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea. And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.

The word translated as “assemble” is our word “gathered.”  It was the bringing in of the fruits into the kingdom of God.  That is what this word is pointing to, and that is what happened at the end of Isaac’s life.  He was a true elect child of God, and he was “gathered” unto his people.  God collected him, and brought him into the kingdom of heaven. 

Historically, this was the Old Testament side of the cross, although God speaks of the entire Old Testament period as the “early righteous rain,” which eventually produced the “harvest” of the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ.  So there were saints on the Old Testament side of the cross that were brought into the kingdom of God, and God uses this same word “gather.”

As far as the ungodly, or unsaved, the Bible uses this same word “gather” in the sense of them gathering together to come against the saints, or against God.  But this word is not used in regard to their deaths.  When the wicked die, they have come under judgment and perish, and the Bible tells us that they are not “gathered.”  For example, let us go to Jeremiah 8:1-2:

At that time, saith JEHOVAH, they shall bring out the bones of the kings of Judah, and the bones of his princes, and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, out of their graves: And they shall spread them before the sun, and the moon, and all the host of heaven, whom they have loved, and whom they have served, and after whom they have walked, and whom they have sought, and whom they have worshipped: they shall not be gathered, nor be buried; they shall be for dung upon the face of the earth.

This describes the judgment of God.  These men – however prominent – will not be gathered.  The spiritual teaching would apply to the leaders in the churches and congregations that were not true men; they were not truly born again, and neither will they be “gathered.”  They will not be brought by God into the kingdom of heaven.  They will be dead, and they will cease to exist forever.  And that is their end.

We also read in the next chapter, in Jeremiah 9:21:

For death is come up into our windows, and is entered into our palaces, to cut off the children from without, and the young men from the streets. Speak, Thus saith JEHOVAH, Even the carcases of men shall fall as dung upon the open field, and as the handful after the harvestman, and none shall gather them.

These verses primarily apply to the ungodly in the churches and congregations and the judgment that came on the house of God.  But the same language is used of the ungodly in the nations,  as it speaks of the final judgment on the world, in Jeremiah 25:32-33:

Thus saith JEHOVAH of hosts, Behold, evil shall go forth from nation to nation, and a great whirlwind shall be raised up from the coasts of the earth. And the slain of JEHOVAH shall be at that day from one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth: they shall not be lamented, neither gathered, nor buried; they shall be dung upon the ground.

They will not be gathered.  They are not part of the final fruits.  They are not those that God saved out of the world.  Remember, the Husbandman, eternal God, waited for the precious fruit of the earth until He had received both the early rain and the Latter Rain.  And His rain identifies with His doctrines (the Scriptures) that dropped as the dew, and it fell upon the nations of the world outside of the churches and congregations during the second part of the Great Tribulation (beginning in 1994), and God saved the great multitude.  But even with this great multitude, which could have numbered 170 or 180 million people, it still left billions of unsaved that would not be gathered.  Over the course of this time, we can also understand the sending forth of the truth of God’s Word regarding Judgment Day in order to feed the sheep will also serve to “gather” these elect. They will respond to the Word and be brought in, as they are already fruit because the Lord has already saved them.  It is just a matter of them being “gathered” unto God against that last day.  But this is not true for the rest of the billions of people that will not be gathered.  What this means, ultimately, can be seen in Job 27:19:

The rich man shall lie down, but he shall not be gathered: he openeth his eyes, and he is not.

That would relate to many other verses which say the wicked will be no more.  He will cease to exist, finally, on the last day when he is annihilated out of existence.  That is the final judgment of the wicked.  And the wicked are those who never became saved, and they remain in their sins.

Let us look at one last thing.  Again, we read in Genesis 35:29:

And Isaac gave up the ghost, and died, and was gathered unto his people, being old and full of days…

We see the expression “old and full of days” in a few instances concerning very faithful men.  The word “full” that is used here is only found eight times in the Old Testament, and it is used of Abraham in Genesis 25:8:

Then Abraham gave up the ghost, and died in a good old age, an old man, and full of years; and was gathered to his people.

It was used of Isaac in our verse, of course, and it was also used in speaking of David in 1Chronicles 29:8:

And he died in a good old age, full of days, riches, and honour: and Solomon his son reigned in his stead.

We know that David was only 70 years old when he died, while Abraham was 175, and Isaac was 180.  So the phrase “full of days” is not really concerning the age of the individual, as there is a big difference between being 175 and 180 versus 70.

This phrase is also used of Job when he died, in Job 42:16-17:

After this lived Job an hundred and forty years, and saw his sons, and his sons' sons, even four generations. So Job died, being old and full of days.

We do not know exactly how old Job was when he died because it only indicates how long he lived after his many trials, but he lived 140 years after those experiences.  He died “old and full of days.”

So four out of eight times that this phrase is used, it speaks of very faithful men that were true elect child of God.  There is one verse that really seems to sum up what this means in Proverbs, where we see this same word translated as “full.”  It says in Proverbs 19:23:

The fear of JEHOVAH tendeth to life: and he that hath it shall abide satisfied; he shall not be visited with evil.

The word “satisfied” is our word that is translated as “full.”  The fear of JEHOVAH tends to life.  That is, those that have the fear of JEHOVAH have “life,” meaning they have been born again.  And he that has this fear of JEHOVAH that comes with being born again “shall abide satisfied.”  There will be this “fulness” of a life well-lived.  And to summarize the statement concerning these men’s lives in this world, it is worded in such a way that they lived a “full life.”  Have you ever heard people say that?  Again, our verse says, “And Isaac gave up the ghost, and died, and was gathered unto his people, being old and full of days…”  He lived a full life. 

Well, people of the world may say that when somebody they knew “partied hard,” or if that person was very wealthy with a nice big house, or climbed the ladder of success, or was an big executive of some kind.  Or maybe that person had a beautiful spouse and a beautiful family, and they liked to travel the world.  That is how the people of the world views being “full of days,” or living a full life. But the truth is – and God knows the truth because He is Truth, and His Word is true and faithful – that God views it all as “vanity.”  Solomon summed it up when he said, “Vanity of vanities…vanity of vanities; all is vanity.”  All the pursuits of wealth and riches that the world lusts after are ultimately empty, vain, and worthless at the end.  It is all gone.  It is gone for them, like it never happened.  

But not so for God’s elect.  Our lives have purpose and meaning, and we “live to the full.”  Even if we were sinful and wasted our life until almost the end, like the thief on the cross, in the moment of salvation and in his testimony of the Lord, the thief’s life was “made full.”  There is satisfaction.  There is a sense of completeness because we have done what the Lord would have us to do in the world.  And our lives are not over, but they will be just beginning when we enter into the new heaven and new earth, and we can look to that glorious, eternal future that awaits us.