THE FIRST APOSTLE OF PEACE AT ANY PRICE
by Alexander Maclaren
'Then Isaac sowed in that land, and received in the
same year an hundredfold, and the Lord blessed him. And the man waxed great,
and went forward, and grew until he became very great: For he had possession
of flocks, and possession of herds, and great store of servants: and
the Philistines envied him. For all the wells which his father's servants
had digged in the days of Abraham his father, the Philistines had stopped
them, and filled them with earth. And Abimelech said unto Isaac, Go from us;
for thou art much mightier than we. And Isaac departed thence, and pitched
his tent in the valley of Gerar, and dwelt there. And Isaac digged
again the wells of water, which they had digged in the days of Abraham his
father; for the Philistines had stopped them after the death of Abraham: and
he called their names after the names by which his father had called them.
And Isaac's servants digged in the valley, and found there a well of
springing water. And the herdmen of Gerar did strive with Isaac's herdmen,
saying, The water is ours: and he called the name of the well Esek; because
they strove with him. And they digged another well, and strove for that
also: and he called the name of it Sitnah. And he removed from thence,
and digged another well; and for that they strove not: and be called the
name of it Rehoboth; and he said, For now the Lord hath made room for us,
and we shall be fruitful in the land. And he went up from thence to Beer-sheba.
And the Lord appeared unto him the same night, and said, I am the God of
Abraham thy father: fear not, for I am with thee, and will bless thee, and
multiply thy seed for my servant Abraham's sake. And he builded an altar
there, and called upon the name of the Lord, and pitched his tent there: and
there Isaac's servants digged a well.' -- GENESIS xxvi. 12-25.
The salient feature of Isaac's life is that it has
no salient
features. He lived out his hundred and eighty years
in quiet, with
little to make history. Few details of his story are
given, and some
of these are not very creditable. He seems never to
have wandered
far from the neighbourhood of Beersheba. These
quiet, rolling
stretches of thinly peopled land contented him, and
gave pasture for
his flocks, as well as fields for his cultivation.
Like many of the
tribes of that district still, he had passed from
the purely nomad
and pastoral life, such as Abraham led, and had
begun to 'sow in
that land.' That marks a stage in progress. His
father's life had
been like a midsummer day, with bursts of splendour
and heavy
thunder-clouds; his was liker a calm day in autumn,
windless and
unchanging from morning till serene evening. The
world thinks little
of such lives, but they are fruitful.
Our text begins with a sweet little picture of
peaceful industry,
blessed by God, and therefore prospering. Travellers
tell us that
the land where Isaac dwelt is still marvellously
fertile, even to
rude farming. But to be merely a successful farmer
and sheep-owner
might have seemed poor work to the heir of such
glowing promises,
and the prospect of a high destiny often disgusts
its possessor with
lowly duties. 'But if we hope for that which we see
not, then do we
with patience wait for it,' and the best way to fit
ourselves for
great things in the future is to bend our backs and
wills to humble
toil in the present. Peter expected every day to see
the risen Lord,
when he said, 'I go a-fishing.'
The Philistines' envy was very natural, since Isaac
was an alien,
and, in some sense, an intruder. Their stopping of
the wells was a
common act of hostility, and an effectual one in
that land, where
everything lives where water comes, and dies if it
is cut off.
Abimelech's reason for 'extraditing' Isaac might
have provoked a
more pugnacious person to stay and defy the
Philistines to expel
him. 'Thou art much mightier than we,' and so he
could have said,
'Try to put me out, then,' and the result might have
been that
Abimelech and his Philistines would have been the
ones to go. But
the same spirit was in the man as had been in the
lad, when he let
his father bind him and lay him on the altar without
a struggle or a
word, and he quietly went, leaving his fields and
pastures. 'Very
poor-spirited,' says the world; what does Christ
say?
Isaac was not 'original.' He cleaned out the wells
which his father
had digged, and with filial piety gave them again
the old names
'which his father had called them.' Some of us
nowadays get credit
for being 'advanced and liberal thinkers,' because
we regard our
fathers' wells as much too choked with rubbish to be
worth clearing
out, and the last thing we should dream of would be
to revive the
old names. But the old wells were not enough for the
new time, and
so fresh ones were added. Isaac and his servants did
not say, 'We
will have no water but what is drawn from Abraham's
wells. What was
enough for him is enough for us.' So, like all wise
men, they were
conservatively progressive and progressively
conservative. The Gerar
shepherds were sharp lawyers. They took strong
ground in saying,
'The _water_ is ours; you have dug wells, but we are
ground-
owners, and what is below the surface, as well as
what is on it, is
our property.' Again Isaac fielded, moved on a
little way, and tried
again. A second well was claimed, and given up, and
all that Isaac
did was to name the two 'Contention' and 'Enmity,'
as a gentle
rebuke and memorial. Then, as is generally the
result, gentleness
wearied violence out, and the Philistines tired of
annoying before
Isaac tired of yielding. So he came into a quiet
harbour at last,
and traced his repose to God, naming his last well
'Broad Places,'
because the Lord had made room for him.
Such a quiet spirit, strong in non-resistance, and
ready to yield
rather than quarrel, was strangely out of place in
these wild days
and lands. He obeyed the Sermon on the Mount
millenniums before it
was spoken. Whether from temperament or from faith,
he is the first
instance of the Christian type of excellence in the
Old Testament.
For there ought to be no question that the spirit of
meekness, which
will not meet violence by violence, is the Christian
spirit.
Christian morals alter the perspective of moral
excellences, and
exalt meekness above the 'heroic virtues' admired by
the world. The
violets and lilies in Christ's garden outshine
voluptuous roses and
flaunting sunflowers. In this day, when there is a
recrudescence of
militarism, and we are tempted to canonise the
soldier, we need more
than ever to insist that the highest type is 'the
Lamb of God,' who
was 'as a sheep before her shearers.' To fight for
my rights is not
the Christian ideal, nor is it the best way to
secure them. Isaac
will generally weary out the Philistines, and get
his well at last,
and will have escaped much friction and many evil
passions.
'Tis safer being meek than fierce.'
Isaac won the friendship of his opponents by his
patience, as the
verses after the text tell. Their consciences and
hearts were
touched, and they 'saw plainly that the Lord was
with him,' and sued
him for alliance. It is better to turn enemies into
friends than to
beat them and have them as enemies still. 'I'll
knock you down
unless you love me' does not sound a very hopeful
way of cementing
peaceful relations. But 'when a man's ways please
the Lord, he
maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.'
But Isaac won more
than the Philistines' favour by his meek
peacefulness, for 'the Lord
appeared unto him,' and assured him that, undefended
and unresisting
as he was, he had a strong defence, and need not be
afraid: 'Fear
not, for I am with thee.' The ornament of a meek and
quiet spirit
is, in the sight of God, of great price, and that
not only for 'a
woman'; and it brings visions of God, and assurances
of tranquil
safety to him who cherishes it. The Spirit of God
comes down in the
likeness of a dove, and that bird of peace sits
'brooding "only" on
the charmed wave' of a heart stilled from strife and
wrath, like a
quiet summer's sea.
Isaac's new home at Beersheba, having been thus
hallowed by the
appearance of the Lord, was consecrated by the
building of an altar.
We should hallow by grateful remembrance the spots
where God has
made Himself known to us. The best beginning of a
new undertaking is
to rear an altar. It is well when new settlers begin
their work by
calling on the name of the Lord. Beersheba and
Plymouth Rock are a
pair. First comes the altar, then the tent can be
trustfully
pitched, but 'except the Lord build the house, they
labour in vain
that build it.' And if the house is built in faith,
a well will not
be lacking; for they who 'seek first the kingdom of
God' will have
all needful 'things added unto them.'
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