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.

It struck me today as I compared what happened when Isaac said that Rebekah was his sister rather than his wife to when Abram did the same with Sarai that what happened in Egypt differed from what happened in Philistia.  In Egypt, God sent plagues upon the Pharaoh and his household.  In Philistia, God merely appeared to the first Abimelech when he took Sarai to be his wife.  The second Abimelech realized that Rebekah was Isaac’s wife before anyone did anything.  The thing of interest being that the Philistines recognized the sin of taking another man’s wife to bed, while the Egyptians only responded to the consequences.  The second Abimelech saw value in allying with Isaac.  Initially, he thought that Isaac would assimilate into the population and increase his own wealth.  When Abimelech realized that Isaac would not assimilate and had become powerful enough to be competition, he asked Isaac to move on.  Nevertheless, once Isaac had moved far enough to not be competition to his own power, Abimelech made a treaty with Isaac, just as the previous Abimelech had done with Abraham.