Inheritance Confirmed, Worship Established Text: Genesis 26:23-25
Introduction: The Quiet Patriarch
Isaac is the quiet patriarch. He is sandwiched between his monumental father, Abraham, the father of the faithful, and his tumultuous son, Jacob, the father of the twelve tribes. Isaac’s life seems, at first glance, to be less eventful. He doesn't leave the land. He doesn't wrestle with angels in the same way. His greatest trial, being offered on Moriah, was something that happened to him more than something he did. And yet, this is a profound mistake. Isaac’s life is a master class in the quiet, steady, and often contested work of inheritance.
Abraham received the promise; Isaac was the promise. His job was to receive, to hold, to occupy, and to pass on the covenant. This is often a harder thing to do than pioneering. It requires a stubborn, settled faith. And in this chapter, we see that this is anything but a quiet life. Isaac has been driven from place to place by the envy and hostility of the Philistines. They have been stopping up the wells his father dug, which was a direct assault on his inheritance. A filled-in well in that arid land was a declaration of war. It was an attempt to erase the memory and the claim of Abraham. It was an attempt to cancel his father. But Isaac, in his quiet way, is a fighter. He re-digs the wells. He insists on his father's legacy. He is contending for the covenant.
After a series of conflicts over these wells, Esek (Contention) and Sitnah (Enmity), and after finding a place of peace at Rehoboth (Room), Isaac moves again. He goes up to Beersheba. This is not a random move. Beersheba is a place saturated with covenant history. It is the "Well of the Oath," where his father Abraham made a covenant with this same Abimelech's predecessor. Isaac is going back to his roots. He is returning to a place of foundational promise. And it is here, after all the strife, that God meets him. It is here that God reaffirms the covenant. And it is here that we see Isaac’s response, a response which must be our own: worship, testimony, and settlement.
This passage is a beautiful picture of the Christian life. We are heirs of a promise given to another, our father Abraham by faith. We live in a hostile world that constantly tries to fill in our wells, to cut us off from the source of living water. Our task is to persevere, to re-dig the old wells, to trust the old promises, and to wait for the Lord to meet us and confirm His word to us. And when He does, our response must be the same as Isaac's: build an altar, call on His name, and get to work digging.
The Text
And he went up from there to Beersheba. And Yahweh appeared to him that night and said, "I am the God of your father Abraham; Do not fear, for I am with you. I will bless you and multiply your seed, For the sake of My servant Abraham." So he built an altar there and called upon the name of Yahweh and pitched his tent there; and there Isaac’s servants dug out a well.
(Genesis 26:23-25 LSB)
A Deliberate Journey (v. 23)
The context is crucial. Isaac has just come through a season of intense conflict, and he makes a significant move.
"And he went up from there to Beersheba." (Genesis 26:23)
Notice the direction: he "went up." Beersheba was geographically higher, but this is also spiritual language. He is ascending. He is leaving the place of contention and strife and going up to a place of covenant memory. This is not a retreat; it is a pilgrimage. He is going back to the place of the oath, the place where his father had called on the name of Yahweh. In times of conflict and uncertainty, the wise man returns to the foundational promises of God. He goes back to the well of the oath.
We live in a rootless age. People drift from place to place, church to church, idea to idea, with no sense of history or inheritance. Isaac teaches us the opposite. He understood that his identity and his future were tied to what God had promised and done in the past. He was not inventing a new faith; he was inhabiting his father’s faith. This is why we must teach our children the stories of God’s faithfulness. We must take them to our own Beershebas, reminding them of the covenants God has made with us in Christ, so that when they face their own Philistines, they know where to go.
The Covenant Confirmed (v. 24)
Just as Isaac arrives at this place of covenant history, God Himself arrives to meet him. God always honors those who honor His promises.
"And Yahweh appeared to him that night and said, 'I am the God of your father Abraham; Do not fear, for I am with you. I will bless you and multiply your seed, For the sake of My servant Abraham.'" (Genesis 26:24 LSB)
This is a dense and glorious reaffirmation of the Abrahamic covenant, and every phrase is packed with meaning. First, God identifies Himself: "I am the God of your father Abraham." This is covenant language. God is not a generic deity; He is the God who makes and keeps promises to specific people in specific historical contexts. He is reminding Isaac that the relationship is not new. The promises Isaac is living under were not earned by Isaac, but were given to Abraham. Our standing with God is the same. We stand before Him as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Our acceptance is for the sake of another.
Second, God gives a command: "Do not fear." Why would Isaac be afraid? He had just been run out of town. His life's work was being systematically destroyed by his neighbors. He was a sojourner in a hostile land. He had every human reason to be afraid. But God's command is based not on Isaac's circumstances, but on God's presence. "Do not fear, for I am with you." The presence of the sovereign God is the ultimate antidote to all human fear. If He is with us, who can be against us? This is the promise that echoes down through all of Scripture, from Isaac, to Moses, to Joshua, to the disciples in the boat, and to the Church in the Great Commission: "I am with you always."
Third, God repeats the promise: "I will bless you and multiply your seed." This is the heart of the covenant. God's intention is not to contain His goodness but to pour it out, to multiply it, to make it fruitful. This blessing is not just for Isaac's personal comfort; it is for the sake of the world. Through this multiplied seed, all the nations of the earth would be blessed. This is the promise that finds its ultimate fulfillment in the seed of Abraham, Jesus Christ, and in His body, the Church, which is made up of all nations.
Fourth, God gives the basis for all of this: "For the sake of My servant Abraham." This is pure grace. The blessing rests not on Isaac's performance, which was, as we have seen, somewhat spotty. He had repeated his father's sin of lying about his wife just a few verses earlier. No, the blessing is grounded in God's prior commitment to Abraham. This is gospel grammar. God blesses us for the sake of His servant, Jesus. Our blessings are not earned; they are inherited because of the faithfulness of our elder brother.
The Proper Response (v. 25)
How does Isaac respond to this glorious, grace-filled visitation from God? His response is threefold, and it is the pattern for all true faith.
"So he built an altar there and called upon the name of Yahweh and pitched his tent there; and there Isaac’s servants dug out a well." (Genesis 26:25 LSB)
First, he built an altar. Before he builds his own house, he builds God's house. Worship is the first and foundational response to grace. An altar is a place of sacrifice, communion, and dedication. By building it, Isaac is consecrating that piece of land to God. He is planting the flag of Yahweh in the midst of a pagan land. This is a public and potent act. Our worship must be the same. It is the center from which all of life flows. Before we do anything else, we must respond to God’s promises with worship.
Second, he "called upon the name of Yahweh." This is more than private prayer. It is a public proclamation. He is declaring who his God is. He is identifying himself with the covenant-keeping God in the hearing of anyone who would listen. He is bearing witness. After we worship, we witness. We name the name. We are not ashamed of the God who has met us and saved us. We call upon His name, publicly identifying ourselves as His people.
Third, he "pitched his tent there; and there Isaac’s servants dug out a well." This is the practical outworking of faith. He settles in. He gets to work. Pitching his tent means he is taking up residence. He is living in the promise. And digging a well means he is planning for the future. He is acting on the promise of blessing and multiplication. Faith is not passive. Faith hears the promise of God and then picks up a shovel. Worship leads to witness, and witness leads to work. He builds an altar for his God, pitches a tent for his family, and digs a well for his future. This is the pattern of a godly dominion: worship, family, and vocation, all grounded in the promise of God.
Conclusion: Digging Our Own Wells
We are Isaac. We have inherited a promise that was secured by the faithfulness of another, our Lord Jesus. We live in a world of hostile Philistines who are constantly trying to fill in our wells with the dirt of secularism, relativism, and despair. They want to cut us off from the living water of our heritage, to make us forget the promises of God.
Our task is to be like Isaac. We must refuse to be driven from the land of promise. We must patiently, stubbornly, re-dig the wells of our fathers. We must re-dig the well of biblical literacy, the well of historic worship, the well of family discipleship, the well of Christian education. These are the wells from which our fathers drank, and the world hates them for it.
And as we do this work, we must listen for the voice of God. He will meet us, just as He met Isaac. He will come to us in the night, in the midst of our struggles, and He will say, "I am the God of your Savior, Jesus. Do not fear, for I am with you. I will bless you and multiply you for His sake."
And when He speaks, our response must be immediate and threefold. We must build an altar, making worship the central, non-negotiable reality of our lives. We must call on His name, bearing bold and public witness to the truth of the gospel. And we must pitch our tents and dig more wells, settling in for the long haul, building faithful families and fruitful vocations for the glory of God and the good of the generations to come. This is how the inheritance is held. This is how the covenant goes forward.