Genesis 26:6-11 - She is my sister

26:6,7

Isaac settled in Gerar. So in this respect he obeyed God, but this did stop him from sinning. We are all a mixture of obedience and disobedience, belief and unbelief. We should be aware of this, and we should learn from our many failures and seek to become better than we are, but we need to face up to the reality of what we are. And an act of obedience does not make us immune to sin. Like his father, Isaac told the “men of the place” that Rebekah was his sister. 

26:8-11

After a long time Abimelech saw Isaac “laughing” with Rebekah (ESV). NIV has “caressing”, and RSV “fondling”. The term “laughing” does indicate some sort of intimate behaviour, and v9 makes it clear that whatever Isaac was doing , Rebekah was actually his wife. Abimelech must have thought “deja vu”. Abimelech feared that one of his men may have slept with Rebekah, and so brought the judgement of God upon them. Abimelech obviously had some fear of God, for he ordered all his men to make sure they were not to harm Isaac or Rebekah, with death being the penalty for failing to follow this order.

John 6:35,36 - I am the bread of life

6:35

“I am the bread of life”. This is the first of seven “I am” or ego eimi statements, the others being:

• I am the light of the world (8:12)

• I am the gate (10:7,9)

• I am the good shepherd (10:11,14)

• I am the resurrection and the life (11:25)

• I am the way, the truth and the life  (14:6)

• I am the true vine (15:1,5)

The point is that the people should be focusing on Jesus. Instead of doubting Him, or arguing about Him, they should be putting all their effort into knowing Him and believing in Him, as should we. Jesus is the one who truly sustains us. If we go to Jesus we will never hunger or thirst. God provided miraculously for the Israelites in the desert. Where there was no food or water, God provided food and water. Life can be a desert, it can be difficult, but Christ is the one who will meet all our needs.

6:36

In 5:36-38 Jesus had charged the people of Jerusalem with unbelief, now He does the same here for the people in Galilee. Unbelief is part of the human condition, it is part and parcel of our rebellion against God. They had seen Jesus, they had seen Him do great things, but they did not believe Him. Believing in Jesus entails believing all that He says about Himself. We cannot pick and choose what bits we believe.

Genesis 26:1-5 - Do not go down to Egypt

26:1,2

This is the third incident of its type. There are some who suggest it is a regurgitation of the same story, but such suggestions really are rather silly. The same mistakes do get repeated, it is part of the human condition! There are also significant differences between the three occurrences. The most noticeable difference in this one is that it involves Isaac!

There was a famine in the land and God appeared to Isaac and explicitly told him not to go down to Egypt. Instead he was to dwell in the land that God told him to dwell in.

26:3-5

“Sojourn in this land , and I will be with you and will bless you ..” There is a well known saying that goes along the lines of the safest place to be is to be in the will of God, and that is true here. God’s promises to Abraham would be fulfilled. We can often think that events or circumstances threaten us and threaten the possibility of God’s promises being fulfilled in our lives. This is not true. God’s promises are more certain than any circumstances we may face. Reference is then made to Abraham’s obedience to God’s voice. We should note that God has forgotten Abraham’s failings. 

John 6:32-34 - The true bread of life

6:32

“It was not Moses who gave you bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven”. There are a couple of points to note from this. First, while the Israelites did indeed receive manna from heaven in the time of Moses, it was not Moses who actually gave it to them, it was God. Moses was the steward of the gift. A proper respect for Moses is called for, not attributing things to him which go beyond his ministry. Likewise, people can start thinking the message comes from a gifted preacher or evangelist. The preacher is important and is to be respected, the preacher is a steward of the word of God. The life comes from God. Earlier we read that Jesus has life in Himself and is able to give that life (John 5:21,26).  The second point is that the manna was a shadow of the true bread from heaven. As Hebrews is at pains to point out, the Old Testament is shadow of the true kingdom. The Old Testament is very important, but it is not it. We find its true value when we see it as pointing forward to Jesus.

6:33,34

“For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” Jesus is the true bread of life. The true bread is personal, it is not an inanimate gift like manna. Indeed with the manna the people should not have focused on the manna for itself, but for the one who sent the manna. “Comes down from heaven”, God was going to send someone from His dwelling place to earth, and that person is Jesus Christ. Finally, Christ came to give life to the world.

On its own it would seem that the people have grasped at least something of what Jesus said, and they claim to want this bread of life. In reality they haven’t grasped much at all, as the succeeding discourse and events will demonstrate.

Genesis 25:24-34 - Sell me your birthright

25:24-28

Rebekah gave birth to twins. The first one came out, he was red in colour, and covered in hair. He was called Esau which has a slight resemblance to “hairy”. Next out came Jacob, and he was grasping the heel of Esau. This had the connotation of being a deceiver, and Jacob’s future life would demonstrate this feature. Isaac was sixty years old at the time of their birth, so he and Rebekah had been married for twenty years.

There would be continual conflict between Jacob and Esau, this was further promoted by their different characters. Esau was a hunter while Jacob was a quite man. Isaac loved Esau, and Rebekah loved Jacob.

25:29-34

This incident was highly significant, and demonstrated Esau’s flippancy, not valuing what was truly valuable, and Jacob’s eye for the main chance. Jacob was cooking stew. Esau came in from the field, famished, so he wanted some of Jacob’s stew. Jacob saw a chance, and offered to give Esau some stew if Esau gave him his birthright. Esau was only interested in the here and now, so quite happily gave it away, not appreciating its value. Jacob made Esau make a solemn vow, so that the sale was definite. So Jacob gave him some stew. 25:34 sums up the situation, “Thus Esau despised his birthright.”

John 6:28-31 - The work of God is this: to believe in the one he sent

6:28,29

In our rebellion against God we effectively said we can manage without you God, and we can decide for ourselves what is right and wrong. Just look at the world around us and see how true this is. This rebellion is deep rooted. So faced with this challenge from Jesus the reaction of the people is that whatever the challenge, they can meet that challenge by their own efforts. We are all prone to this, we are also prone to putting this burden on others. So the people ask “What must we do?” Jesus replies that they must believe in the One whom God has sent. I.e. they must believe in Jesus Himself. Now believing in Jesus is not a passive thing, but it does entail not relying on our own strength or righteousness, but on His strength and righteousness.

6:30,31

The Jewish leaders and it seems the people were forever asking for a sign. Many times it seems to us “you’ve just had one, what  more do you want?”. In one sense they were perfectly right to be asking for a sign, they should not just believe anyone who claims to be from God. In their thinking are the words of Moses in Deut 18:15-19, is Jesus the One that Moses was speaking about? Moses did many signs, in particular the manna from heaven is the one in their minds here. Moses gave them “bread from heaven”. So what was Jesus going to do to match or exceed this? For the bread they had had at the feeding of the five thousand was just normal bread. The manna was something special, though we should remember that the Israelites did not take to long before they started grumbling about it!

Genesis 25:19-23 - Why is this happening to me?

25:19-21

We now move on to the story of Esau and Jacob, and Jacob in particular will dominate the rest of Genesis. Isaac was forty years old when he married Rebekah. So ages are still longer than the norm now, but are slowly reducing to what we are more used to. Like Sarah, Rebekah was initially unable to have children. Infact, a significant number of key figures in the Bible had problems bearing children. One of the key lessons is that it is God who “opens the womb”. This does not mean that biology doesn’t matter, but that ultimately the birth of children is in God’s hands. Isaac must have known the story of his own birth, so he prayed to the Lord, and the “Lord granted his prayer”. So Rebekah conceived.

25:22,23

We know that there was a struggle between Jacob and Esau. This struggle began in the womb, and continued after their death with the nations of Israel and Edom. Rebekah sensed the struggle going inside her womb,, and inquired of the Lord as to its meaning. The Lord explained things to her. He explains that two nations are within her womb. Most crucially “the older shall serve the younger”. This is an example of the sovereign choice of God, and it went against the normal social mores of the time.