Genesis 26:1-11

Now there was a famine in the land, in addition to the former famine that was in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went to Abimelech king of the Philistines at Gerar.

² And the LORD appeared to him and said, “Do not go down to Egypt; dwell in the land of which I shall tell you.

³ Travel in this land, and I will be with you and will bless you, because to you and to your offspring I will give all these lands, and I will establish the oath that I swore to Abraham your father.

⁴ I will multiply your offspring as the stars of the sky and will give to your offspring all these lands. And all the nations of the land will be blessed by your offspring,

⁵ because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.”

⁶ So Isaac relocated to Gerar.

⁷ When the men of the place asked him about his wife, he said, “She is my sister,” because he was afraid to say, “My wife,” thinking, “or else men of this place will kill me because of Rebekah,” because she was nice to look at.

⁸ When he had been there a long time, Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out of a window and saw Isaac caressing Rebekah his wife.

⁹ So Abimelech called Isaac and said, “See, she is your wife. How then could you say, ‘She is my sister’?” Isaac said to him, “Because I thought, ‘Or else I will die because of her.'”

¹⁰ Abimelech said, “What is this you have done to us? One of the people might easily have had sex with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us.”

¹¹ So Abimelech warned all the people, saying, “Whoever harms this man or his wife will surely be put to death.”

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Off limits

Isaac borrowed a page from his father’s playbook when he and Rebekah found themselves in a foreign land. He probably knew that this strategy of his father had resulted in his being deported by the king of Egypt, and getting a previous Abimelech, king of Gerar in a lot of trouble. Or, maybe this was a custom among foreigners seeking to preserve their lives at that time. Either way, it shows again that people under God’s grace do not always act the way they should. It also shows that God works through the events of their lives – even the embarrassing ones – to carry out his own plan. By Abimelech declaring Isaac and Rebekah off limits, he enabled them to survive and prosper in a difficult, foreign environment.

Abimelech’s warning of the death penalty to the people of Gerar who seek to harm Isaac and Rebekah is the same warning that God gave Adam & Eve in Eden about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.[1] Transgressing the set limits is what got us all in this mess to begin with. Failure to obey the king’s warning plunged us all into mortality and eventual death. The tree itself was not the point. Behind the warning was a living king who wanted to protect his subjects from the consequences of their actions. He sees the consequences of our choices when we do not.

LORD, give us the wisdom to see beyond our desires to the consequences of transgressing your limits.

[1] Genesis 2:17.