Knowing The Word in Genesis 26:6-16, Not the Same Sin Again!

6 So Isaac settled in Gerar [obediently]. 7 When the men of the place asked him about his wife, he said, “She is my sister,” for he feared to say, “My wife,” thinking, “lest the men of the place should kill me because of Rebekah,” because she was attractive in appearance. [Isaac repeats the sin of his father fearing men rather than the Lord. This indicates the episode happened before the birth of their sons.] 8 When he had been there a long time [indicating his fear was unfounded], Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out of a window and saw Isaac laughing with Rebekah his wife. [Laughing, a play on Isaac’s name, could also be translated as “playing,” a euphemism for intimacy between spouses only proper in a marriage.] 9 So Abimelech called Isaac and said, “Behold, she is your wife. How then could you say, ‘She is my sister’?” Isaac said to him, “Because I thought, ‘Lest I die because of her.’” 10 Abimelech said, “What is this you have done to us? One of the people might easily have lain with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us.” [Abimelech is a God-fearing man.] 11 So Abimelech warned all the people, saying, “Whoever touches this man or his wife shall surely be put to death.” [Isaac actually gets what he wants even though he was deceptive.]

12 And Isaac sowed in that land and reaped in the same year a hundredfold [the best one could expect]. The Lord blessed him, 13 and the man became rich, and gained more and more until he became very wealthy. 14 He had possessions of flocks and herds and many servants, so that the Philistines envied him. [Isaac is experiencing what happened to his father before him.] 15 (Now the Philistines had stopped and filled with earth all the wells that his father's servants had dug in the days of Abraham his father.) 16 And Abimelech said to Isaac, “Go away from us, for you are much mightier than we.” [Isaac is passive about the wells his father had guaranteed with a treaty. Now he will leave due to his success or rather God’s success and blessing.]