January 4 - Isaac

January 4 - Isaac

When Sarah had gotten quite old, one day she overheard the Lord tell her husband that they were going to have a child and she laughed. (Genesis 18:9-15).  I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m afraid that laughter would be the least of my responses to that statement. But, when the Lord declares that something will happen, there is nothing that can change the fact that it will happen.

When Isaac was born (Genesis 21:5-7), her laughter was different.  She rejoiced in her son and named him Isaac, which means ‘he laughs.’  Sarah told everyone that God had brought laughter back into her life with the birth of this child.  After years and years of sadness due to the fact that she could bear no children for her husband, Abraham, everything about this child was joyous.

This child is to be the one through whom the covenant with God is kept. He is the first to be circumcised at the correct age of eight days old.  God reinforces and renews the promise that had been made to Abraham of blessings upon him and his descendants (Genesis 26:3-5).

To Isaac and his wife, Rebekah, two sons – Jacob and Esau are born.

If you read through Genesis 26, you realize that water was of extreme importance to the area.  Abraham had dug wells and the Philistines had stopped them up after his death. Isaac dug them up again.  Other nomads in the area demanded that those wells be given over to them – they lay claim to the water.  So, Isaac’s people dug another – there was another quarrel.  Isaac’s people dug yet another and when no one argued about it, Isaac knew they would be fruitful.

Without water, herds could not be cared for, crops could not be planted, people could not live.

When God met Isaac in Beer-sheba (Genesis 26:24), not only did Isaac build an altar for him there, his servants dug a well.

Isaac is not quite as prominent as his father, Abraham before him or his son, Jacob after him in the story of God’s work among humanity. While it was through him that Abraham was tested and it was his blessing of Jacob that led to the next part of the story, he was the child of promise (Romans 9:7, 10; Gal. 4:28; Heb. 11:18, through whom we all are tied to the covenant.