Question

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Isaac and Rebekah’s Family

Lesson 6

Genesis 24-26

1. Skim chapter 24. How was Isaac’s marriage initiated? Why did Abraham not choose Isaac’s wife from the women in Canaan?

2. How did Abraham’s servant carry out his mission? What can you learn from him? What kind of a woman was Rebekah, and how did she make the decision to marry Isaac?

3. Skim 25:19-34. What was a problem in Isaac and Rebekah’s family? How did God answer their prayer? Why is prayer important for the unity of a family?

4. Skim 26:1-11. How did God intervene in Isaac's family in the time of famine? What are the differences and similarities between Abraham and Isaac in dealing with God’s command?

5. Skim 26:12-33. How did God bless Isaac’s family when they obeyed God’s words? Why did Isaac decide to dig other wells instead of fighting against the Abimelech? What was the result of his faith?

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Attachment

• Isaac and Rebekah-house church-q-r.docx

BibleNote

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Isaac and Rebekah’s Family

Lesson 6

Genesis 24-26

1. Skim chapter 24. How was Isaac’s marriage initiated? Why did Abraham not choose Isaac’s wife from the women in Canaan?

1. Abraham was now very old… (1) Abraham wanted to get a wife for Isaac before he died.

2. Abraham knew that there were no suitable helper for Isaac from among the Canaanites women.

The Canaanites women might become a snare to Isaac. (Ex 23:33, Jos 23:13)

Isaac is the covenant son, who needed spiritual support for him to live as a covenant son.

1. How did Abraham’s servant carry out his mission? What can you learn from him? What kind of a woman was Rebekah, and how did she make the decision to marry Isaac?

1. Abraham’s servant started his mission with prayer. (24:12-14) He trusted in God and depended on the God of his master Abraham.

2. The servant was obedient to Abraham and to the God of Abraham. He entrusted Isaac’s marriage into God’s hand. He was a man of prayer.

   *A godly couple is established and supported by many hidden warriors of prayer.

   Isaac’s family was established by prayer and through prayer.

3. She was a beautiful, hard-working shepherdess, virgin.

4. After listening to the testimony of Abraham’s servant, she came to believe that her marriage came from the LORD. She was willing to obey God’s will. Even though she didn’t know who Isaac was, she decided to marry him. She was a woman of faith.

1. Skim 25:19-34. What was a problem in Isaac and Rebekah’s family? How did God answer their prayer? Why is prayer important for the unity of a family?

1. Isaac was getting older, and Rebekah was childless like her mother-in-law Sarah.

2. V. 21. ²¹ Isaac prayed to the Lord on behalf of his wife, because she was childless. The Lord answered his prayer, and his wife Rebekah became pregnant.

3. Prayer brings both a husband and a wife to the presence of God. Prayer helps them to remember who they are in the sight of God. Prayer makes them be godly, think about God more than themselves or their problems.

   Prayer makes them to be one in Christ.

Jacob and Esau

¹⁹ This is the account of the family line of Abraham’s son Isaac. Abraham became the father of Isaac, ²⁰ and Isaac was forty years old when he married Rebekah daughter of Bethuel the Aramean from Paddan Aram^[a] and sister of Laban the Aramean. ²¹ Isaac prayed to the Lord on behalf of his wife, because she was childless. The Lord answered his prayer, and his wife Rebekah became pregnant. ²² The babies jostled each other within her, and she said, “Why is this happening to me?” So she went to inquire of the Lord.

²³ The Lord said to her, “Two nations are in your womb,
and two peoples from within you will be separated;
one people will be stronger than the other,
and the older will serve the younger.”

²⁴ When the time came for her to give birth, there were twin boys in her womb. ²⁵ The first to come out was red, and his whole body was like a hairy garment; so they named him Esau.^[b] 26 After this, his brother came out, with his hand grasping Esau’s heel; so he was named Jacob.^[c] Isaac was sixty years old when Rebekah gave birth to them. ²⁷ The boys grew up, and Esau became a skillful hunter, a man of the open country, while Jacob was content to stay at home among the tents. ²⁸ Isaac, who had a taste for wild game, loved Esau, but Rebekah loved Jacob. ²⁹ Once when Jacob was cooking some stew, Esau came in from the open country, famished. ³⁰ He said to Jacob, “Quick, let me have some of that red stew! I’m famished!” (That is why he was also called Edom.^[d]) ³¹ Jacob replied, “First sell me your birthright.” ³² “Look, I am about to die,” Esau said. “What good is the birthright to me?” ³³ But Jacob said, “Swear to me first.” So he swore an oath to him, selling his birthright to Jacob. ³⁴ Then Jacob gave Esau some bread and some lentil stew. He ate and drank, and then got up and left. So Esau despised his birthright.

1. Skim 26:1-11. How did God intervene in Isaac’s family in the time of famine? What are the differences and similarities between Abraham and Isaac in dealing with God’s command?

1. God appeared to Isaac and commanded him to stay in Gerar, not to go down to Egypt. So Isaac obeyed God and stayed in Gerar. (26:6)

2. Abraham didn’t ask God when he went down to Egypt. So he got troubled there.

   But, Isaac obeyed God and stayed in Gerar. Both confronted famine. Abraham went down to Egypt, but Isaac stayed.

   Isaac must have prayed about God’s command. Even though he made the same mistake in Abimelek as Abraham did in Egypt, God intervened and rescued Isaac’s family.

Isaac and Abimelek

26 Now there was a famine in the land—besides the previous famine in Abraham’s time—and Isaac went to Abimelek king of the Philistines in Gerar. ² The Lord appeared to Isaac and said, “Do not go down to Egypt; live in the land where I tell you to live. ³ Stay in this land for a while, and I will be with you and will bless you. For to you and your descendants I will give all these lands and will confirm the oath I swore to your father Abraham. ⁴ I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and will give them all these lands, and through your offspring^[a] all nations on earth will be blessed,^[b] 5 because Abraham obeyed me and did everything I required of him, keeping my commands, my decrees and my instructions.” ⁶ So Isaac stayed in Gerar. ⁷ When the men of that place asked him about his wife, he said, “She is my sister,” because he was afraid to say, “She is my wife.” He thought, “The men of this place might kill me on account of Rebekah, because she is beautiful.” ⁸ When Isaac had been there a long time, Abimelek king of the Philistines looked down from a window and saw Isaac caressing his wife Rebekah. ⁹ So Abimelek summoned Isaac and said, “She is really your wife! Why did you say, ‘She is my sister’?” Isaac answered him, “Because I thought I might lose my life on account of her.” ¹⁰ Then Abimelek said, “What is this you have done to us? One of the men might well have slept with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us.” ¹¹ So Abimelek gave orders to all the people: “Anyone who harms this man or his wife shall surely be put to death.”

1. Skim 26:12-33. How did God bless Isaac’s family when they obeyed God’s words? Why did Isaac decide to dig other wells instead of fighting against the Abimelech? What was the result of his faith?

1. ¹² Isaac planted crops in that land and the same year reaped a hundredfold, because the Lord blessed him. ¹³ The man became rich, and his wealth continued to grow until he became very wealthy. Abraham taught Isaac a good example of how to obey God.

2. Isaac believed that God will provide: Jehovah-Jaireh. Isaac must have prayed about this. He brought all problems to God and prayed. When he prayed, he had peace in his mind and had faith that God will provide. Isaac saw all things from God’s point of view.

3. The Ablimelech saw God in Isaac. So he feared God and Isaac that he asked peace treaty with Isaac.

¹⁴ He had so many flocks and herds and servants that the Philistines envied him. ¹⁵ So all the wells that his father’s servants had dug in the time of his father Abraham, the Philistines stopped up, filling them with earth. ¹⁶ Then Abimelek said to Isaac, “Move away from us; you have become too powerful for us.” ¹⁷ So Isaac moved away from there and encamped in the Valley of Gerar, where he settled. ¹⁸ Isaac reopened the wells that had been dug in the time of his father Abraham, which the Philistines had stopped up after Abraham died, and he gave them the same names his father had given them. ¹⁹ Isaac’s servants dug in the valley and discovered a well of fresh water there. ²⁰ But the herders of Gerar quarreled with those of Isaac and said, “The water is ours!” So he named the well Esek,^[a] because they disputed with him. ²¹ Then they dug another well, but they quarreled over that one also; so he named it Sitnah.^[b] 22 He moved on from there and dug another well, and no one quarreled over it. He named it Rehoboth,^[c] saying, “Now the Lord has given us room and we will flourish in the land.” ²³ From there he went up to Beersheba. ²⁴ That night the Lord appeared to him and said, “I am the God of your father Abraham. Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will bless you and will increase the number of your descendants for the sake of my servant Abraham.” ²⁵ Isaac built an altar there and called on the name of the Lord. There he pitched his tent, and there his servants dug a well. ²⁶ Meanwhile, Abimelek had come to him from Gerar, with Ahuzzath his personal adviser and Phicol the commander of his forces. ²⁷ Isaac asked them, “Why have you come to me, since you were hostile to me and sent me away?” ²⁸ They answered, “We saw clearly that the Lord was with you; so we said, ‘There ought to be a sworn agreement between us’—between us and you. Let us make a treaty with you ²⁹ that you will do us no harm, just as we did not harm you but always treated you well and sent you away peacefully. And now you are blessed by the Lord.” ³⁰ Isaac then made a feast for them, and they ate and drank. ³¹ Early the next morning the men swore an oath to each other. Then Isaac sent them on their way, and they went away peacefully. ³² That day Isaac’s servants came and told him about the well they had dug. They said, “We’ve found water!” ³³ He called it Shibah,^[d] and to this day the name of the town has been Beersheba.^[e]

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Attachment

• Isaac and Rebekah-house church-answer.docx