Go Away From Us You Have Become Too Powerful

Now we have a story about Issac. It is a story of Issac walking in his father’s footsteps. He ends up in the land of the Philistines and he plays the old my wife is my sister trick but unlike his father he can’t help groping his wife and is found out almost immediately.

After this he is questioned and the king issues an order that no one is to touch Issac or Rebekah. After this Issac starts digging back up his father’s old wells. From the digging of wells he grows powerful and eventually he is sent away from the land for being too powerful.

Then he finds one more well, founds another new land, and is called back to the land of the Philistines by their king. It is an interesting chapter because I once again feel like I am lacking a lot of knowledge and information to see the importance in any of it. The last time this happened I learned soon after that it was a chapter in the Bible that had caused wars ancient and modern to be fought.

Imagine this. There is a legendary well that grants a person the power to rule. Rulers and want to be rulers from all over the world would be looking for this well. I have no idea if this is the case. If any wars have been fought over the wells of Issac or why the wells made him so powerful the king of the land felt threatened enough to send him away.

There is also a point in the chapter where God comes to Issac and once again talks about how his descendants will outnumbered the stars and all that. The entire chapter is Issac doing a bunch of things Abraham already did. Down to the fact that the wells he is digging are ones his father had previously dug.

This is sort of how the world works. We follow in the footsteps of the past generations. Often times we improve on what they did before, but most of the time we are just trying to repeat a formula to get to the next step.

Issac is digging in no fresh ground. He is reestablishing the wells of his father and through them his lands and his glories. Issac is building power for himself but he is doing so by following in the footsteps of his father. We could look for and find meaning in both the ground the wells are dug in and the water that springs forth from them. The more I think about it the more I think this might be a chapter worth thinking about.