The Lord renews the covenant with Isaac but with a warning
not to go to Egypt. The nation would go
there and the allure would be great until remaining became untenable due to
slavery. It was not yet time to go there
and the Lord promised the land to his offspring and that if he sojourned for a
time in this land, the country of Gerar, the Lord would bless him. Gerar was where Abraham and Sarah sojourned
in Genesis 20, the second time they contrived to deceive a ruler, that time
because they believed there was no fear of God in that place. The lectionary omits the story of Isaac and
Rebekah doing the same thing but the king, Abimelech, the same king as before,
sees them together and sorts out the truth.
He had to have thought there was something truly strange about this
family. Isaac indeed prospers in Gerar,
a hundredfold return on his sowing in the first year. The king implores him to go away from them
because he is "much mightier than we." In the valley of Gerar, outside the city, the
Lord blesses Isaac further as he goes about the work of unstopping the wells
his father had dug and spreading out in the land. His prosperity concerns the king who comes in
recognition that the Lord is with him as He was with his father and makes a
covenant with Isaac. There was no
covenant needed in some ways as the original promise was that the Lord would
bless those who blessed Abraham. Nonetheless,
Isaac and Abimelech make the covenant and that very day his servants find new
springs of water, confirming that his actions with respect to the king were
proper.
There is no history of actually carrying out the punishment
of stoning for adultery, any more than there is for a disobedient child. Here, however, the leaders bring a woman that
was caught in adultery (where is her partner?)
and demand that the penalty be carried out. We know that the Jews didn't have the ability
to carry out such punishment at the time, the death penalty was denied them by
the Romans, thus Jesus' trial before Roman officials. Why did they bring her to Jesus, He had no
authority, wasn't recognized as such a leader?
He demurs by writing something in the dust but when they continue to
press Him on the matter He stands to address them before returning to the
kneeling position to write again. At this,
all leave. What did He write? That is a question for the ages and the
sages. At any rate, He does not condemn
her but does warn her about continuing in sin.
She is a perfect picture of our own forgiveness, we deserve death but
because of Jesus we have life.
Is your desire to act honorably in all things as the writer
says? Isaac acted honorably in some
respects with Abimelech but not completely.
The king acted honorably with respect to Isaac. Acting honorably sometimes reveals that we
are failing to trust the Lord in all things.
We act dishonorably when we fear things won't turn out the way we want
them to so we take matters into our own hands.
The leaders in the Gospel were acting dishonorably with Jesus by
bringing this woman to them but not her partner in adultery and demanding He
carry out the Law when they never carried out this same portion of the
Law. Their motives were not to carry out
the law at all, but to entrap Jesus as an anti-nomian, a man who didn't truly
respect the Law. Acting honorably should
be a hallmark of both faith and faithful people. Trusting God for His promises is revealed by
our actions.
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