In Genesis 26 we find Isaac repeating a mistake his father made.
"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." (Genesis 26:1) In Genesis 20 we found Abraham lying to Abimelek about the identity of Sarah. Later the two men made a peace treaty with each other, which is likely why Isaac goes to Abimelek in his time of need. However, Isaac will repay the kindness of Abimelek by telling a lie in Gerar about the identity of Rebekah.
"The Lord appeared to Isaac and said, 'Do not go down to Egypt; live in the land where I tell you to live. 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. I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and will give them all these lands, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because Abraham obeyed Me and did everything I required of him, keeping My commands, my decrees and My instructions.' So Isaac stayed in Gerar." (Genesis 26:2-6) Abraham went to Egypt during the previous famine, and that is not where the Lord wanted him to be. He got into trouble in Egypt, plus he brought back slaves from Egypt, including Hagar who would end up being used in Sarah's plan to obtain a son by a surrogate mother. We all know how badly that turned out. The Lord instructs Isaac to remain in the promised land. The Lord reminds Isaac of the promise He made to Abraham. If He's going to make the descendants of Isaac so numerous that no man can count them, then obviously He isn't going to allow Isaac's family to perish during the famine.
Abraham didn't perfectly keep all the Lord's commands, decrees, and instructions. But the Lord commends him for his faith anyway. Faith is what credited righteousness to Abraham (Genesis 15:6, Romans 4:3, Galatians 3:6) and faith is what credits righteousness to any of us, for "without faith it is impossible to please God". (Hebrews 11:6) We aren't going to live perfect lives no matter how hard we try, not while we inhabit these weak mortal bodies, not while we live in a fallen world where we're surrounded by temptations and difficult circumstances. It's our faith that God "exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him" (Hebrews 11:6) that enables Him to commend us. Faith makes up for what we lack. It bridges the gap between our imperfect selves and a perfect God.
So now Isaac is in Gerar with his beautiful wife Rebekah. He has the faith to obey the Lord by not going down to Egypt but he lacks the faith to believe the Lord will protect him in Gerar. He's afraid the men of Gerar will want her for themselves and will kill him in order to have her. He tells a lie. "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.'" (Genesis 26:7) Does he know his father told this same lie about Sarah in Egypt and in Gerar? If he does, does he not know that it didn't turn out well either time? I think it's possible he doesn't know about his father's lies because it's human nature for us to want to sweep our mistakes under the rug. Plus it's not every parent who wants to reveal to their children the poor choices they made in their pre-parenting days. In Isaac's case I think it would have been best if Abraham had told him of his own mistakes as a cautionary tale, but then again it can be difficult for us to learn from the mistakes of others. There are some things we only seem to learn the hard way.
Isaac's situation doesn't go as far as Abraham's did. Both times when Abraham lied about Sarah, a king took her into his household with the intention of making her his wife. Isaac and Rebekah live in Gerar quite a while without the king making any advances to her. It may be that Abimelek is quite old by this time and is no longer adding to his harem. He won't appear on the pages of Genesis anymore after we conclude our current chapter. Abimelek may be elderly but he's not blind, so he figures out the true nature of Isaac and Rebekah's relationship. "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." (Genesis 26:8) Abimelek recognizes what's going on because the way Isaac touches Rebekah is not the way a brother would touch a sister. He hasn't simply put his arm around her or given her a brotherly hug or patted her on the back. He's caressing her in some sort of romantic fashion. Since they are outdoors, I don't believe he's doing anything that would be inappropriate to do in public, but the way a man looks at and touches a romantic partner is different from the way he looks at and touches anyone else. Even if all Isaac did was caress her long hair or softly touch her cheek, Abimelek would have known what he was seeing. And he does know, so he calls for Isaac immediately.
"So Abimelek summoned Isaac and said, 'She is really your wife! Why did you say, 'She is my sister'?" (Genesis 26:9a) Abimelek is understandably hurt and outraged. He's shown Isaac nothing but hospitality. He's shared food and water with him. He's provided housing for him. And Isaac has returned his kindness with a lie.
"Isaac answered him, 'Because I thought I might lose my life on account of her.'" (Genesis 26:9b) His reply is as insulting as Abraham's was. He's saying, "I was afraid one of your godless, violent men would kill me and take her by force. I don't trust your people to do what's honorable and decent. I don't believe they have the morals to leave a married woman alone or to respect human life." I think Isaac and Abraham didn't give the people of Gerar the respect they deserved. Abimelek's next words shows us that he and his citizens disapprove of adultery. If they look down upon adultery, then surely they look down upon murdering a man to take his wife.
"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.'" (Genesis 26:10) Abimelek asks, "What if someone had seduced her thinking she was a single woman? Then that man would have been guilty of adultery. That would have brought the disfavor of your God upon us." We don't know about the moral character of the Philistines in general, but it seems as if they are not in the habit of sleeping with married women. Abimelek is telling Isaac that he and Rebekah would have been completely safe if they had revealed their relationship from the start.
Not wanting to incur the wrath of God, Abimelek makes the relationship of Isaac and Rebekah known and he issues a dire warning to anyone who tries to lay a hand on either of them. "So Abimelek gave orders to all the people, 'Anyone who harms this man or his wife shall surely be put to death.'" (Genesis 26:11) Abimelek knows the God of Abraham and Isaac is real. He knows this is the God who rained fire down on Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19. He knows this is the God who came to him in a dream in Genesis 20 and revealed to him that Sarah was married and warned him not to touch her. He doesn't want to get on the bad side of this God, so he makes the penalty so harsh if anyone harms Isaac or Rebekah that he knows no one will dare touch them.
Isaac falters in his faith due to fear. We all falter from time to time due to fear. In fact, fear may be what causes us to mess up more often than anything else. We might go through the day saying no to temptations left and right, but when anxiety hits we may suddenly find ourselves filled with doubts. It's interesting because the pagan king Abimelek displays more faith in God in our passage today than Isaac does. Due to his fear of the Philistines, Isaac harbors doubts in his mind about God protecting him from them. Abimelek, on the other hand, fears God and has no doubts that God will protect Isaac. The reason Abimelek displays more faith than Isaac is because Isaac's fear is focused on man but Abimelek's fear is focused on God. David, who had to deal with mortal enemies at several points during his life, often had to remind himself that if he feared God he wouldn't have to fear anyone else, saying, "The Lord is my light and my salvation---whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life---of whom shall I be afraid?" (Psalm 27:1)
Sometimes those who don't serve our God can make us feel ashamed of ourselves, and that's always a very humbling and uncomfortable and unpleasant thing. I've had unbelievers point out my faults to me. I've had people show me I'm being hypocritical about a certain thing or that I'm simply not reacting to something in the way Jesus would. It hurts when that happens. Our first instinct might be to become angry, but that's the wrong way to react. When someone who doesn't really know the Lord tells us we aren't behaving like the Lord, we need to take their words to heart. We need to apologize to them and to the Lord. I don't know if that's what Isaac did, but I think perhaps he did since Abimelek allows him to remain in the land and plant crops there, as we will see as we move on through the chapter.
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