I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Genesis 26-28.

There is no reason to believe that the Abimelech who Isaac interacted with was the same as the one whom his father, Abraham, had interacted with.  In fact, there is reason to believe that Abimelech was more of a title than proper name.  One thing we do see is that Isaac had a similar relationship with this Abimelech as Abraham had with the previous one.  First, he tells him and his people that his wife is his sister. Then he gets into repeated disputes over water rights with Abimelech’s servants. Finally, he enters into a treaty with Abimelech.  In both Abraham’s and Isaac’s case these events illustrate the trajectory of their lives.  At the first encounter, Abraham and Isaac were relatively weak compared to Abimelech.  As time went by they became more powerful until Abimelech was frightened that they might raid his lands causing him great problems.  

I have never quite known what to make of the story of Jacob stealing Esau’s blessing from their father Isaac.  We know from yesterday’s passage that Isaac favored Esau and Rebekah favored Jacob, but that does not fully explain Rebekah plotting to have Jacob steal Esau’s blessing.  I think that Rebekah did this more because of Esau’s wives than anything else.  Perhaps she even did it to set up the excuse to send Jacob to her brother to find a wife.  Perhaps the most telling part of all of this is that when Esau learned that Jacob had gone to his Uncle Laban’s to find a wife, he went to his Uncle Ishmael to obtain a third wife.  Esau had married his first two wives without consulting his parents.  When he realized how strongly his father disliked the local women, he went, without consulting either of his parents, to get a third whom he hoped would be more to their liking.