(Genesis 25:11 - 26:33)
After Abraham's death, Jehovah bestowed his blessings upon his son Isaac, who made his home by the well of Lahairoi.
This is the genealogy of Ishmael:
The sons of Ishmael, Abraham's son by the Egyptian servant Hagar, are, in order of their birth, Nebajoth, the eldest, Kedar, Abdeel, Mibsam, Mishma, Dumah, Massa, Hadar, Tema, Jetur, Naphish, and Kedemah. These are the twelve sons of Ishmael, each a prince of his own tribe and the founders of towns and fortresses named after them.
Ishmael lived to be 137, at which time his health failed and he died, joining his ancestors. His descendants lived in the lands between Havilah and Shur, from the eastern border of Egypt to Assyria, near the lands of his family.
This is the genealogy of Isaac, the son of Abraham:
Abraham was the father of Isaac. When Isaac was 40 years old he married Rebecca, the daughter of Bethuel, an Aramean living in Mesopotamia, and the sister of Laban the Aramean.
Because Rebecca was barren, Isaac made entreaties for her to Jehovah, who answered his prayer and allowed Rebecca to conceive. Her pregnancy, though, was troublesome and painful, and Rebecca wondered why this was happening to her. She sought an answer from Jehovah, who responded, "Two nations are struggling in your womb. Two peoples are being separated inside you. One will dominate the other and the older will be subservient to the younger."
When it was Rebecca's time to give birth, it was discovered that she was carrying twins. The first child to be born came out with red hair all over his body like animal hide; they called him Esau [similar to the word meaning hairy]. When his brother was delivered, he held on to Esau's heel and thus thus called Jacob [similar to the word for heel]. Isaac was 60 years old when his sons were born.
When the boys grew up, Esau became a skillful hunter and outdoorsman, while Jacob was quiet and a homebody. Isaac loved Esau, because he brought home the game Isaac liked to eat. Rebecca, however, loved Jacob.
Once when Jacob was boiling a pot of red lentil stew, Esau came in from the field faint with hunger. "Let me have some that red stuff, I'm starving! (For that reason he was given the nickname Edom. [meaning red])
Jacob replied “First sell me your birthright.”
Esau reasoned "If I starve to death, what good is my birthright?"
"Well, then, swear to sell it to me," Jacob insisted. Esau swore and thus sold his birthright. Esau feasted on bread and the red lentil stew; he ate and drank and went on his way with little thought to the birthright he had bartered away.
Just as there was in the days of Abraham, there was famine in the land. Isaac went to see Abimelech, King of the Philistines at Gerar. A that time Jehovah appeared to Isaac and told him, "Don't go into the land of Egypt. Remain in the land that I have chosen for you. I will be with you and bless you. I will bestow this land upon you and your progeny, to fulfill the promise I made to your father Abraham. I will multiply your descendants so they will be as numerous as the stars in the sky. I will give your posterity all these countries, and through them all the earth will be blessed --all because Abraham heeded my advice and followed my orders, kept my laws and observed my ceremonies.
Thus Isaac continued to reside in Gerar. The men of the land asked about his wife and he told them "She is my sister." He was afraid to admit that she was his wife, thinking that because of Rebecca's beauty they would kill him. After he had lived there for some time, Abimelech, King of the Philistines, happened to look out the window and witnessed Isaac making love to Rebecca. He sent for Isaac and told him, "It is obvious that Rebecca is your wife. Why did you pretend that she was your sister?"
And he answered, "Because I thought I might be killed because of her."
Abimelech rebuked him, "Why did you deceive us? Some man could have committed adultery with your wife and brought shame on our country." Abimelech put out an order to his people that anybody who molested Rebecca would certainly be put to death.
Isaac planted a crop and, blessed by Jehovah, the harvest yielded a hundred fold profit in the first year. He continued to prosper and to increase his holdings until he became very wealthy, having many herds and flocks and a large number of servants. But because of his success, the Philistines were jealous of him. (They stopped up the wells that had been dug by Abraham’s men and filled them with earth.) Finally King Abimelech was forced to tell Isaac, "You must leave this country, for you have become more powerful than we are."
Isaac thus left and made his camp in a wadi near Gerar and settled there. Long before, in the days of Abraham, many wells had been dug there, but after Abraham's death, the Philistines had covered them over and filled them with earth. Isaac resunk those wells and continued to use his father’s names for them.
While Isaac's men were digging in the wadi, they discovered a spring. The herdsmen of Gerar contested the ownership of the spring with Isaac's men and contended, "The water belongs to us!” Thus the well was named Esek [or Quarrel]. When they dug another well, there was conflict over that as well. It was thus called Sitnah [or Enmity]. Moving away, Isaac and his men dug a third well, the claim to which was not contested. It was called Rehoboth [or Latitude]. Isaac declared "Jehovah has found a place where there's room for us. Here we will prosper!”
Isaac traveled from there to Beersheba and that night Jehovah appeared to him and said "I am the god of your father Abraham. Don't be afraid, for I am on your side. I will bless you and, for Abraham's sake, I will multiply your progeny." Isaac built an altar at that place, worshiped, made his camp there and ordered his men to dig a well.
Abimelech visited him, coming from Gerar with Ahuzzah, one of his advisers, and the commander of his army, Phichol. Isaac challenged them, "Why have you come here, seeing that you were so unfriendly before and kicked me out of your country?"
They replied, "We now realize that you are favored by Jehovah and decided that there should be an agreement between us; let us swear an oath that we will do no harm to one another. --- After all, we did you no injury, and sent you away in peace. And now you are prosperous, blessed by Jehovah."
Isaac gave a feast and they ate and drank. When they rose in the morning, they sealed their pact and, afterwards, Abimelech and his party were sent on their way and departed in friendship.
On the same day, Isaac's men reported to him on the progress they were making digging the well. "We have found water!" they told him. The well was named Shebah [Vow] and, to this day, the name of the town remains Beersheba.
Notes
1. The hairiness of Esau, even from his birth, is a matter of some interest. It often occurs that twins will have different, even opposite personalities, as is the case with Esau and Jacob, but it seems strange that they should be so different physically. Suggestions have been made that Esau was a Neanderthal throwback or a Bigfoot or that he suffered from werewolfism. There is also possibility that the hairiness was simply invented as a convenient story-telling device to accentuate the difference between the twins.
2. Esau sells his birthright for a good meal when he is hungry, showing his contempt for his father and for the future fortunes of his family. One would think, however, that, even in those days, a birthrate could not be bartered away so casually and would require witnesses it to make it legal and enforceable. In Jewish tradition, lentils are often eaten by those in mourning, so this barter may have occurred just after Abraham’s death. This would mean that the twins were only 15 years old, a fact that might partly excuse both Esau’s and Jacob’s disreputable behavior, which does seem rather juvenile.
3. Esau is supposedly called “Edom” or “Red” because he ate the red stew, but it seems more likely he was called that because he had so much red hair. (If the text referring to his being born red and hairy means he was born with red hair. This seems the more likely since if the red merely refers to his complexion that would hardly be a matter of note in a new born, whereas red hair certainly would be.)
4. Jehovah makes it clear he is continuing the arrangement he made with Abraham with Isaac, Abraham's heir. Abraham had apparently satisfied his demands as a righteous worshiper. Abraham was obviously obedient, but Jehovah seems to have set the bar fairly low on the morality issue. While Abraham did act honorably, even heroically in several instances, according to the narrative, he also bore false witness and committed fraud (in failing to acknowledge his true relationship to Sarah), accepted unearned gifts under circumstances verging on extortion, was culpable in sending his wife Hagar out into the desert to die of thirst, was more than willing not only to murder his son, but to slit his throat, cut him up, and burn his body, treated his children, save Isaac, abominably, and committed incest and bigamy. It beggars belief that such a man can be exalted as a moral exemplar.
5. We have suspicious parallels between the lives of Abraham and Isaac that certainly undermines the historical credibility of the narrative. Isaac repeats Abraham's mistake of passing his wife off as his sister (although here it is not true -- Rebecca is only his first cousin.) And Rebecca is unable to have children, as was Sarah. In Rebecca's case, Jehovah only waits twenty years until, by some means, he rectifies the situation, although he doesn't seem troubled that she has a horrendously painful pregnancy. Both men have dealings and forged non-aggression pacts with King Abimelech and his general Phichol. (It's hard to believe that these men could have been so long-lived as to be contemporaneous with both Abraham and Isaac.) One gets the feeling that there weren't enough stories recorded about Isaac, so the narrative is padded with recycled versions of episodes from Abraham's life. This is common practice in legendary histories. Even some of Sinbad's adventures are cribbed from tales attributed to Ulysses.
6. One gets the impression, highlighted by Jehovah's curing of Rebecca's barren womb, that all good things are derived from Jehovah's bounty and mercy. Prosperity and success is bestowed upon Jehovah to deserving men, those who have been obedient to him, and are less the result of man's industry, resourcefulness, and intelligence. Bad fortune is a punishment for disobedience or for inflicting harm upon one of Jehovah's favorites. For Abraham and Isaac, they cannot even have an heir without the intervention of Jehovah, who endeavors to cultivate in his followers a state of dependency upon him: success in life is contingent upon devotion to him.
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