Bible Commentaries

Isaac the Peacemaker

Genesis 26:12-25

Isaac gave up his wells rather than quarrel over them. A similar historical instance of peace-loving is given by Knox in his History of the Reformation. George Wishart, the martyr, a Genesis 26:18

There is a deep sense in which every life might say, "All my springs are in Thee". With that vision in our hearts we need not be afraid to speak of springs of good in men's lives. To say that you can hear the ripple of a spring is not to say you never heard the splash of falling rain. You can honour the water in the well without despising the original and continuous bounty of the skies. And Genesis 26:25

Isaac is felt by every Bible reader to be a much less commanding figure than the men who stand on either side of him—his father Abraham and his son Jacob. He had neither the lofty and daring faith of the one, nor the other's passionate instinct of adventure. His qualities were not such as stir the imagination of the world. Passive rather than intense, he spent one of those lives that are largely controlled and arranged by other people. The influence of his friends always tended to be too strong for him; so it was, for example, when the wife he was to marry was selected by his father, and brought home to him by deputy. Hence we are apt to call him tame, torpid, and slow; at all events the too easy victim of over modesty and inertia.

But of course such a character has another side. Isaac, it is true, is unlike Abraham and Jacob; but it is they that are uncommon men, not he. Of the three he exhibits far the closest resemblance to average humanity. You will find a score of Isaacs for every Abraham that emerges. And just for that reason the fact that Isaac was given his place in the great patriarchal succession speaks to us of the truth that God is the God of ordinary people, not less than of those in whom there sleeps the Divine spark of genius or greatness. As some one has said, "God has a place for the quiet man". We may have neither distinguished talents nor a distinguished history, but one thing we can do, we can form a link in the chain by which the Divine blessing goes down from one generation to another... Pick out the three centres here, where the threads cross, and they are these, the altar, the tent, the well. There we see focused sharply, and gathered up, the main constituents or impulses which are always to be found in the life of a man after God's own heart; and without being unduly imaginative or fantastic, we may decide that they stand for religion, home, work.... The man of the tent is the prey of time, and passes; the man of the altar endures for ever. Religion has in it that which is superior to time.... Considered as one of the threads which God's hand is weaving into the strand of life, is not work a pure blessing? Is it not, like Isaac's will, an ever-flowing source of power and refreshment? Does not the will feed both tent and altar.

—H. R. Mackintosh, Life on God's Plan, p1.

Common Place People

Genesis 26:25

Isaac is the representative of the unimportant but overwhelming majority, and his life and history stood to his descendants, and stand to us, for the glorification of the commonplace.

I. The World's Useful Drudges.—When shall we begin to see the poetry, the beauty, the eternal blessedness of common work; the loyalty, the patriotism, the high Christian service there may be in simply conducting an honest business or filling a commercial situation! Every man who conducts his business with clean hands is helping to bring in universal clean-handedness: every man who fills a situation as it ought to be filled is raising the ideal of service and enriching and beautifying his race. Isaac was not an Empire-builder like Abraham, not a great pathetic heroic figure like Jacob, he was a plain man of affairs. He stuck to his work as a sinker of wells, and for three thousand years men, to whom Abraham was a legend and Jacob a hazy tradition, have drunk of the sweet waters of Beersheba, and blessed the memory of the man who digged that well.

II. The Well-digger's Blessing. —And these things, important in themselves, are also parables of higher things. Your business gives you no time for the work you would so dearly like. It is all you can do to keep things straight in your own little world of trade. Never fear; you will supply your neighbour with an honest article at a reasonable price, and finding employment for those who otherwise might starve, you are digging one of father Isaac's wells. When with quaking heart you took that class book and tried to start that little class-meeting you digged a well, and thirsty souls have drunk of it and will bless you evermore. Your little Sunday-school class, your mission-room, is a well, and when this life is over for you, men will think and speak in blessing of the man that digged that well.

—F. R. Smith, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lxx. p118.

References.—XXVI:29.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxviii. No2238. XXVI.—F. W. Robertson, Notes on Genesis , p77. XXVII:1-4.—F. W. Robertson, Sermons (4th Series), p123. XXVII:13.—A. G. Mortimer, The Church's Lessons, vol. ii. p255. B. Cooper, Fifty-two Family Sermens, p247.