Knowing The Word in Genesis 26:26-35, Well and Wives

26 When Abimelech went to him from Gerar with Ahuzzath his adviser and Phicol the commander of his army, 27 Isaac said to them, “Why have you come to me, seeing that you hate me and have sent me away from you?” [Are we seeing a new courageous Isaac?] 28 They said, “We see plainly that the Lord has been with you. So we said, let there be a sworn pact between us, between you and us, and let us make a covenant with you, 29 that you will do us no harm, just as we have not touched you and have done to you nothing but good and have sent you away in peace. You are now the blessed of the Lord.” [The representative of a nation pronounces that Abraham’s descendant is blessed by God, affirming the exact words of God’s covenant.] 30 So he made them a feast, and they ate and drank. [This is the modern equivalent of a state dinner in the US for one of our allies.] 31 In the morning they rose early and exchanged oaths. And Isaac sent them on their way [a reversal from Abimelech sending Isaac away], and they departed from him in peace. 32 That same day Isaac's servants came and told him about the well that they had dug and said to him, “We have found water.” 33 He called it Shibah [oath]; therefore the name of the city is Beersheba [given earlier and based upon Abraham’s earlier oath] to this day.

[Isaac spends his life in the shadows of his father and sons. This encounter is his shining moment and triumph. It illustrates that God can and will work through those who by human standards seem mostly unlikely material.]

34 When Esau was forty years old [the same age when Isaac married], he took Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite to be his wife, and Basemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite, 35 and they made life bitter for Isaac and Rebekah. [Abraham did not want Isaac to marry a Canaanite. Now Esau has married two—wrong choice, wrong number! We do not know what these two women did, but they caused deep destress for Isaac and Rebekah. Again, we see Isaac’s passivity and Esau’s lack of judgment if not outright rebellion, setting up the next section.]