The Sons of Isaac (24 page)

Isaac was saddened but he understood. He reminded himself that though Abimelech and his people had once known of the true God, El, He had long been forgotten for the more popular gods and goddesses. Now it had come down to a more practical matter; they wanted gods they could understand and manipulate, even if at times it cost them their dearest treasures.

In anger and frustration, Abimelech not only drove them from the city but sent his men to guard the site of Abraham’s wells they had stopped up. Isaac’s men must not be allowed to dig there again.

The king was just beginning to feel a sense of power and elation when his shepherds came to tell him that instead of being discouraged and giving up, Isaac’s men were out in the valley digging a new well. “They are stronger than all of us,” his men reported. “They say they have a right to dig, but we know that whoever digs a well can also claim the land.”

*  *  *

Isaac had indeed conferred with his men and they had decided to dig a new well. “It may be easier to dig a new well than to clear the rubbish out of the wells that have been filled in,” he said.

“Won’t they come and destroy any new well?” Esau asked as they rode out together to see the progress being made on the digging.

“They may, but we will always leave some of our men to guard it. Only when we have the wells to supply us with the water we need will we be freed from the fear of famine.”

Isaac’s family and servants had moved back into their tents beside the brook Besor. The brook had now gone from a sizable stream to a slow, sluggish trickle of water. The springs that fed it had dried up and the irrigation ditches that Isaac’s men had dug in the past were dry and parched.

“My father often told us that in Ur they could not depend on the rain,” Isaac said. “They had to dig ditches and channel water if they wanted to grow anything. There is water in the earth and it is water that enables the seeds to sprout.”

On this day in the early fall, they were again riding out to inspect the progress on the new well. As they came near the place where the men were digging, they could hear the rhythmic chanting that encouraged the diggers. They could see the tripod with the rope of strong twined camel’s hair and hemp that reached down into the hole where two of the men were digging. The chanting and singing urged the diggers along as they sent up baskets of earth. The digging was so arduous that periodically the men in the pit would be hauled up and two others sent down in their place.

The ground was blistered and dry and their progress was slow. “Each day the shepherds of Abimelech come riding to see what progress we have made,” the men reported. “‘Just as we filled the wells of your father with sand,’ they always chant, ‘so we will fill this when you are finished.’”

“And do they try to stop the digging?” Isaac asked.

“No, they just laugh and joke and ride around letting their mules kick up the sand. Some of them even throw stones down in the well at the diggers before they ride off.”

Isaac was disturbed, but he hoped that when they saw they could not stop his men from digging, they would give up and leave them alone.

This was not to happen. They would not be so easily discouraged. However, it was a full two weeks later that they felt the full force of Abimelech’s anger.

The diggers had finally handed up the last basket of sand and were actually standing in water up to their ankles, before they were hauled up amidst great rejoicing. “It will take time, but now we can again dig the channels for water and plant the seed,” they shouted.

Their joy was short-lived, for when Abimelech heard Isaac’s men had actually dared to dig a new well and had found a plentiful supply of water, he became terribly angry. He immediately ordered his men to close the well. “It’s unnatural,” he said. “It is Baal that waters the land. We are not to rob him of his work. We must entreat Anat to persuade Baal to send rain, not dig in the earth.”

When word reached Isaac that at the new well there had been fighting between his men and Abimelech’s, he was greatly troubled.

“They claim the water,” one of his servants reported. “They say the land is theirs and the water is theirs. Every day they come and we fight them off.”

“I understand their concern,” Isaac said. “They know that any man who digs a well can also claim the land. We must not fight them. Instead we will move to a new site farther away from them and dig another well.”

“But it is so difficult. We already have the ditches dug and some of the seeds planted,” they complained.

“We’ll call the well Esek, or contention, because there has been strife over it, but we will move on and dig another well.”

Once again, at Isaac’s insistence, they began to dig another well. For a time Abimelech’s herdsmen only came by to harass and torment the well diggers. They did not claim the well until it was dug and the men were celebrating. Then with a force of armed spearmen, they descended upon them, drove them off, and claimed the well as their own. They had no need for the irrigation ditches and so trampled them down.

“We will call this well Sitnah, or hatred,” Isaac said, “for it is evident they hate us.”

Isaac now began to look for a place that would not be disturbed or claimed by Abimelech. He wanted no more trouble. The next day they broke camp and traveled to a small oasis outside the area Abimelech’s men usually patrolled. It was a small oasis with palm trees that was no longer visited by caravans and so was empty of any inhabitants. “Here we will dig again,” Isaac said, “and this time we will have peace.”

It happened as Isaac had predicted. They found plenty of water and Abimelech’s men no longer bothered them. “We will call this place Rehoboth,” Isaac said, “for the Lord Himself has made room for us.”

In spite of the fact that the oasis was beautiful and peaceful, Isaac was restless. He remembered hearing that in his father’s time there had been strife with the older Abimelech over a well his father had dug. His father had settled it by not only giving a gift of sheep and oxen to Abimelech but by setting aside seven ewe lambs for the king. “These will remind you of the covenant between us,” Abraham had said. “This well and this land will be mine.” Abimelech had agreed and the well had been named the well of the oath, or Beersheba.

Isaac wondered what had happened to the well. Surely Abimelech would feel obligated to honor an agreement made in such a formal way. It was only a short time later when a caravan from the north chanced to stop by their oasis, that he heard news of the well. The caravan had just come from Beersheba and the men were complaining that the well there had been filled with stones and rubble.

“Who owns the well?” Isaac asked, just to see what they might answer.

“They say there was an agreement with the people in the area, including the king of Gerar, that the well would belong to Abraham and to his descendants.”

Isaac listened with growing excitement. He could remember seeing his father build an altar and plant a grove of trees near a well he had dug in that very place. He even vaguely remembered the formal ceremony naming the well and establishing his ownership.

By the next morning, just as the caravan started on its way, he had decided to go and see the well that must now, by all rights, still belong to him and his family.

It took a week of preparation before he and his two sons and a group of his men were able to start out along the well-traveled caravan trail going north.

Isaac had looked on this not as just a casual venture but more as a spiritual journey. He hoped that by returning to this place where his father had not only dug a well but had built an altar and worshiped, he would find peace from the anger and frustration of these last years. He had not understood why it was necessary to waste so much time fighting over the wells. It had been Elohim who had told him not to go down to Egypt. Then why hadn’t He made things a little easier?

He had not been angry at Abimelech. The king was just exercising what he believed were his rights. However, he had been disappointed that his God had not made a better showing for Himself. It should have been so easy for Him to help his men defend the wells they had dug with such effort.

As he rode along the worn trail, he was reminded of all that had happened to him. Much of what had happened had also happened to his father when he had spent time in the city of Gerar. He should have known better than to deceive the king by saying that Rebekah was his sister, but the digging of the wells had been different. It had seemed a natural, intelligent solution to the famine. It was something he felt he could manage, and it hadn’t even occurred to him to ask his God for help. He had done it all in his own strength.

He was happy to be going back to the scene of his father’s victory. It was here Abraham had settled his dispute with Abimelech and had built an altar and worshiped and thanked his God, who had revealed Himself as El Shaddai, the almighty God.

Now Isaac not only intended to claim the well again but reestablish his relationship with the God of his father and to seek His help. He was not disappointed. That night as he slept the Lord appeared to him, saying, “I am the God of Abraham thy father. Don’t be afraid for I am with you and will bless you and multiply your seed for My servant Abraham’s sake.”

The next morning he called his two sons and the servants and told them they were to build an altar. They would sacrifice the sheep they had brought with them as a thank offering. “We will have no more trouble. Our God, the God my father knew as El Shaddai, the Almighty, is coming to our aid.”

When this had been done, and the last sounds of their chanting had died on the crisp morning air, he ordered his men to start digging another well. “This time we will succeed. No one will come against us,” he assured them.

This was something Esau and Jacob would never forget. They had been skeptical because they had suffered so much disappointment in the digging of the wells. They talked with each other and wondered how he could be so sure they would succeed this time. What difference could the building of an altar and giving thanks make in their situation?

*  *  *

Esau and Jacob were not to wait long. News came by a runner that Abimelech himself with Ahuzzath, one of his friends, and Phicol, the chief captain of his army, were coming up from Gerar to see their father. They speculated as to what his purpose might be. Was it because he had heard that Isaac was not only digging another well but was removing the stones and debris from the well his father had dug? To their surprise it was on quite another matter that they came.

Anatah, the king’s sister, had been bitterly disappointed that after the great sacrifice of her son, there had still been no rain. The days went by and then the weeks, and she had spent them in growing disillusionment. Gradually, she had begun to question her whole belief in the goddess. It was Isaac who was prospering. His God had given him a beautiful wife and two sons, and now it seemed to be his God who blessed him even in the midst of the famine.

On impulse she went to her brother’s apartments and confronted him. “Who is this God that Isaac worships?” she demanded.

Her brother had at first looked startled and then puzzled. “Why are you interested?” he asked.

“It’s evident that his God has blessed him. Even with my great sacrifice to the goddess, we have had no rain. She is either deaf or, worse yet, doesn’t even exist.”

Abimelech frowned and stood up. He tugged at his short beard as he began to walk back and forth across the floor. “Isaac and his father, Abraham,” he said, “believed in Elohim, the creator God. A God not made with hands. There was a time when our people too believed in that God. We called Him El.”

“It is that God, then, who has blessed Isaac.”

“You are right. The God of Abraham has blessed Isaac even in the midst of the famine. However, Isaac did deceive me about his wife. I cannot forgive him for that.”

“But he did it out of fear. You must admit, there have been times when husbands have been killed, even in Gerar, for their wives,” Anatah reminded him. “We must not forget that when he had grain he shared it with us, and he was always generous with his animals.”

Abimelech buried his face in his hands as he pondered what she said. It was all true. Isaac had been his friend. They had shared many good times together and he had to admit that while the goddess had miserably failed them, Isaac’s God had continued to bless him. “It is evident that I must go to Isaac and tell him all of this. We can be friends again.”

Abimelech was a man of action, and so the very next day he gathered his chief captain and some of his friends and started out up the Way of Shur to find Isaac’s camp and make things right with him.

*  *  *

Isaac had expected the worst as he prepared to greet the king and his men at the door of his tent. “Why have you come?” he challenged. “Everyone knows that you hate me and have caused me nothing but trouble.”

The king motioned for his chief adviser to speak. Ahuzzath stepped forward with a bow of reverence and kissed the hem of Isaac’s robe. “We have seen that the Lord is with you,” he said, “and we have come to make a covenant with you. Let there be an oath between us, that you will do us no hurt as we have not touched you but have done good things for you and have only sent you away in peace.”

Isaac was so astonished that he motioned for his servants to wash his guests’ feet and serve them dried fruit while he went aside to take counsel with his men.

“They have spoken falsely,” one old man said. “They have caused us nothing but heartache and trouble.”

“They did not send us away in peace as they say,” Esau said with a bitter tinge to his voice.

“They have seen that El Shaddai is blessing you and they are ready to make peace. This is the time to attack them and make them pay for all the trouble they have caused,” one of the young well diggers said with great feeling.

“They want peace only because they see that you are stronger than they are,” Jacob charged.

“Ah, but they are sincere in wanting peace,” Isaac said. “That is all I need to know. Revenge is expensive while peace is all we have ever wanted.”