Valley Experience Series # 3
Opening Illustration: Once Isaac and his servants remembered the wells, they had to look for them. The wells just didn’t pop up. Effort was made to remember exactly where they were, and to find them. There is a story of a family unpacking at their new home. After finishing unpacking they realized that their dog was missing. Concerned that she couldn’t find her way back home in such unfamiliar surroundings, they all loaded in the car to search for her. They drove around and around with no luck. Not far from their house there was a man sitting on a porch. They stopped and asked if he had seen their dog. He said, “Yes, she has been following your car for the last 10 minutes.”
Sometimes in looking for God’s blessing we overlook the obvious.
Have you ever gone back to find something you left years ago? Things have a way of changing. Weeds grow, trees grow, and things change. I went and visited where I lived as a boy 30 years ago. Things change. Isaac had to remember. And then he had to search and explore to find the wells. We often think that God’s blessing should just pop up. Some do! More often than not though God asks us to look for them. God has strategically placed His blessings where we could find them if we are listening to Him. God wants us to remember that He loves us and wants to bless our lives. This should motivate us to seek His blessings.
Introduction: In verse 2 God had promised to guide Isaac to the place where he should dwell. Little did Isaac realize just how God was to lead him back to the place of His promise and presence. To a large degree it was by means of adversity and opposition. On the surface, opposition seemed like the last thing which Isaac experienced. Staying on in Gerar after Abimelech had confronted him, Isaac harvested a bumper crop: Now Isaac sowed in that land, and reaped in the same year a hundredfold. And the LORD blessed him, and the man became rich, and continued to grow richer until he became very wealthy; for he had possessions of flocks and herds and a great household, so that the Philistines envied him (Genesis 26:12-14). In spite of Isaac’s deception, God poured out His blessings upon him. For reasons we shall discuss later, Abimelech failed to recognize Isaac’s prosperity as the blessing of God. All he knew was that Isaac was a powerful figure - one whom he did not want to contend with. Abimelech knew also that the Philistines were growing uneasy about Isaac’s presence in the land. Isaac was rather threatening personally not only because of his prosperity and power but also because of his father Abraham: Now all the wells which his father’s servants had dug in the days of Abraham his father, the Philistines stopped up by filling them with earth (Genesis 26:15). Digging a well was considered tantamount to a claim of ownership of the land on which it was located. It enabled a man to dwell there and to sustain herds. Rather than recognize this claim, the Philistines sought to wipe it out by filling up the wells dug by Abraham. Their desire to overthrow all claims on their land was so intense that they would rather fill in a well, an asset of great value in such an arid land, than to allow this claim to remain unchallenged. The sentiments of the Philistines were concisely expressed in Abimelech’s terse suggestion that Isaac depart from Gerar (verse 16). Rather than fight for possession of this property, Isaac retreated. The meek would inherit this land, but in God’s good time. It would seem that Isaac had developed a strategy by which he determined where he was to sojourn. Essentially, Isaac refused to stay where there was conflict and hostility. Being a man with many animals to tend, he must be at a place where water was available in abundance. He not only re-opened the wells once dug by his father, but he dug other wells also. If a well was dug that produced water and use of this well was not disputed, Isaac was inclined to stay at that place. While Isaac may not have realized it for some time, it was the disputes over the ownership of the wells he dug or reopened that served to guide him in the direction of the land of promise. To Isaac these wells were a necessity for survival, but to the Philistines these were a claim to the land. Opposition was thus humanly explainable, but it was a divinely ordained means of guidance as well. In the valley of Gerar Isaac dug a well that produced “living water,” that is, water that originated from a spring - running water, not simply water that was contained. The Philistine herdsmen disputed with the herdsmen of Isaac over it, so Isaac moved on. Another well was dug, and there was yet another dispute (verse 21). Finally a well was dug that brought about no opposition. I would imagine that this was due somewhat to the distance Isaac had traveled from the Philistines. This well was named “Rehoboth,” signifying the hope Isaac had that this was the place God had designated for him to stay.
We have to understand that verses 23-25 are the key to the interpretation of chapter 26. Here a very strange thing happens. Up to this time Isaac’s decision as to where he should stay was based upon the finding of abundant water and the absence of hostilities. But now, having dug a well that was uncontested, we would have expected Isaac to dwell there. Instead we are told that he moved on to Beersheba, with no reason stated for this move: “Then he went up from there to Beersheba” (verse 23). I believe that a significant change has occurred in Isaac’s thinking. Circumstances had previously shaped most of his decisions, but now something deeper and nobler seems to be giving direction in his life. Beersheba was the first place that Abraham had gone with Isaac after they came down from the “sacrifice” on Mount Moriah (Genesis 22:19). Isaac knew that God had promised to give him the land promised to his father Abraham (26:3-5). I believe he had finally come to see that through all the opposition over the wells he had dug, God had been guiding him back to the land of promise, back to those places where Abraham had walked in fellowship with God. Personally, I believe that Isaac went up to Beersheba because he sensed on a spiritual level that this was where God wanted him to be. If God had previously been “driving” Isaac through opposition, now Isaac was willing to be led.
The digging of wells was a virtual claim to the possession of the land, and it was this in particular that the Philistines resented.
Wells we will encounter in the Valley before we are blessed:-
Preface (vs. 17 – 18)
v. 17 At once, peaceably and quietly, though to his loss and disadvantage, without taking himself either to argument or arms, in favor of himself; he departed immediately, as soon as he perceived his abode was disagreeable to the king and his people; which gives us a very agree, able idea of the calm and peaceable disposition of Isaac:
v. 18 He kept up his husbandry, and continued industrious to find wells of water, and to fit them for his use, Genesis 26:18, etc. Though he had grown very rich, yet he was as solicitous as ever about the state of his flocks, and still looked well to his herds; when men grow great, they must take heed of thinking themselves too big and too high for their business. Though he was driven from the conveniences he had had, and could not follow his husbandry with the same ease and advantage as before, yet he set himself to make the best of the country he had come into, which it is every man’s prudence to do. Observe, he opened the wells that his father had dug (Genesis 26:18), and out of respect to his father called the wells by their original names (v. 18).
Application: In our searches after truth, that fountain of living water, it is good to make use of the discoveries of former ages, which have been clouded by the corruptions of later times. Enquire for the old way, the wells which our fathers had dug, which the adversaries of truth have stopped up: Ask thy elders, and they shall teach thee.
1. [Esek] – Well of STRIFE & CONTENTION (also called the well of living water) vs. 19 -20: {Hebrew = Argument}
v.19 In the Valley they dug a well of flowing / living / springing water (v. 19) (Job 35:10; Psalm 77: 1 - 6; Acts 16: 25) - "living water": which continually flows, as Aben Ezra rightly interprets it: hence this phrase is used of the perpetual and ever living graces of the Spirit of God, John 4:10. A well of living waters is the oriental phrase for a spring, and this is its meaning both in the Old and New Testaments.
v. 20 There was contention with others over the digging of the wells (v. 20 - 21) (Nehemiah 4: 1 - 18; Ephesians 6: 10 - 13; 2 Timothy 3: 12). In digging his wells he met with much opposition, Genesis 26: 20, Genesis 26: 21. Those that open the fountains of truth must expect contradiction. The first two wells which they dug were called Esek and Sitnah, contention and hatred. See here, [a] What is the nature of worldly things; they are make-bates and occasions of strife. [b] What is often the lot even of the most quiet and peaceable men in this world; those that avoid striving yet cannot avoid being striven with, Psalm 120: 7. In this sense, Jeremiah was a man of contention (Jeremiah 15:10), and Christ himself, though he is the prince of peace. [c] What a mercy it is to have plenty of water, to have it without striving for it. The more common this mercy is the more reason we have to be thankful for it. [d] At length he removed to a quiet settlement, cleaving to his peaceable principle, rather to fly than fight, and unwilling to dwell with those that hated peace, Psalm 120: 6.
The parallel between Isaac’s life and that of his father is again evident in this account of the disputes over the wells and Isaac’s response. Due to their prosperity Abraham and Isaac needed much room for their flocks and a source of water. Prosperity brought contention between Lot’s herdsmen and those of Abraham (Genesis 13: 5ff.) just as it did between Isaac’s herdsmen and the herdsmen of Gerar. Isaac, like his father, chose to keep the peace by giving preference to the other party.
Application: And by these scriptures we find that an unfailing spring was an emblem of the graces and influences of the Spirit of God. Though we must use the light of former ages, it does not therefore follow that we must rest in it, and make no advances. We must still be building upon their foundation, running to and fro, that knowledge may be increased, Daniel 12: 4.
Illustration: Years ago, a large statue of Christ was erected high in the Andes on the border between Argentina and Chile. Called "Christ of the Andes," the statue symbolizes a pledge between the two countries that as long as the statue stands, there will be peace between Chile and Argentina. Shortly after the statue was erected, the Chileans began to protest that they had been slighted - the statue had its back turned to Chile. Just when tempers were at their highest in Chile, a Chilean newspaperman saved the day. In an editorial that not only satisfied the people but made them laugh, he simply said, "The people of Argentina need more watching over than the Chileans.
Sometimes we get into unnecessary contentions and strife when it can be solved just by one person putting out the sparks, which could apparently ablaze and end up in ashes. Are we the ones that spark the fire or put it out? Isaac took a stand to put it out.
2. [Sitnah] – Well of ACCUSATION & HATRED (v. 21): {Hebrew = to oppose}
Sitnah signifies "hatred", it being out of hatred and malice to him that they gave him so much trouble; from this word Satan has his name, and these men were of a diabolical spirit, envious, spiteful, and malicious. He preferred quietness to victory. He dug a well, and for this they strove not, Genesis 26:22. He dug a well, and for that they strove not – there was accusation and hatred, which gave fuel to quarrel. Never did any man more implicitly follow the Divine command, Resist not evil, than Isaac; whenever he found that his work was likely to be a subject of strife and contention, he gave place, and rather chose to suffer wrong than to have his own peace of mind disturbed. Thus he overcame evil with good. When we face false accusation and hatred of people, what do we do? Do we go after these people OR let God have His way in the matter?
Luke 6: 22 ‘Blessed are you when men hate you, and when they exclude you, and revile you, and cast out your name as evil, For the Son of Man’s sake.’
Illustration: When Abraham Lincoln was running for president of the United States, there was a man who ran all around the country talking about Lincoln. He said a lot of unkind things about him. And sometimes he would get to the point that he would even talk about his looks, saying, and “You don’t want a tall, lanky, ignorant man like this as the president of the US”. Lincoln never responded or reacted to it. He just stayed focused and went on to become one of the most far-reaching and daring Presidents of the US.
The herdsmen of Gerar made false accusations against the herdsmen of Isaac. This resulted in a bitter hatred against them. The underlying reason was God’s favor upon Isaac and wherever he went, God blessed him and whatever he touch, God blessed it because of the promise He made to him and his forefathers. Therefore all the others were jealous of his success and blessedness in life. Do we remember what Joseph had to undergo from his brothers because of being blessed? What do we do in such circumstances? What did Isaac do? He moved on. Joseph moved on and became the prince / prime minister of Egypt. Our business is to keep moving on and not be perturbed by what others think or say. Do not let useless things take away our focus and our blessings.
3. [Reho-both] – Well of ENLARGEMENT & FRUITFULNESS (v. 22): {Hebrew = to make room}
A little further from their border, to cut off all pretence, and put a stop to all dispute and controversy for the future: in the place he removed to: it being at such a distance from their border, they could not have the face to claim any right to it: and Rehoboth; which signifies broad and spacious, places, enlargements: for himself, his family, his herds, and flocks, and freed them, from those difficulties under which they labored, and the straits into which they were brought through the contention of the herdsmen of Gerar: his flocks and his herds increase, having good pasturage and watering for them, and so he and his family be in prosperous circumstances. Those that follow peace, sooner or later, shall find peace: those that study to be quiet seldom fail of being so. This well they called Rehoboth - Enlargements, room enough. Because of their persistence God made room for them to be fruitful (v. 22) (Galatians 6: 9; 1 Corinthians 15: 58). God wants to bring about enlargements and fruitfulness in our lives, we may be delaying them by our own actions and reactions to what people do with us. Let us be still in these circumstances knowing our God is sovereign and He can have His way in everything and anything here or in heaven. He wants to bring us to the well of Reho-both, a place where he can bless us abundantly as well as make us fruitful by using us for the extension of His Kingdom.
Application: Those that follow peace, sooner or later, shall find peace; those that study to be quiet seldom fail of being so. How unlike was Isaac to his brother Ishmael, who, right or wrong, would hold what he had, against all the world! Genesis 16: 12. And which of these would we be found the followers of? This well they called Rehoboth, enlargements, room enough: in the two former wells we may see what the earth is, straightness and strife; men cannot thrive, for the throng of their neighbors. This well shows us what heaven is; it is enlargement and peace, room enough there, for there are many mansions.
Conclusion: The story is told by Dr. John R. Rice, that once he was preaching in a conference with the late Gypsy Smith. After the service he walked out of the building to catch a cab back to his motel, once in the cab, he began to witness to the driver, whereupon the driver with tears in his eyes, told him that a strange little man had already won him to Christ. Gypsy Smith had already gone before brother Rice and led this cab driver to Christ. What a testimony to these great men of God. There is fruit out there, the trouble is that most don’t go and witness for the Lord. Soul winning is the main business of the Christian. Will you? Let us re-dig some of God’s wells today!
Are we ready to go through the hoop of Esek [strife + contention] and Sitnah [accusation + hatred] successfully before reaching Rehoboth [enlargement ~ abundant blessings + fruitfulness]? While going through the Valley are we ready to re-dig those wells which Abraham, Isaac and our spiritual forefather dug before we experience God’s abundant blessings in our lives?
