“He [Isaac] went up from there to Beersheba. The Lord appeared to him that same night and said, ‘I am the God of Abraham your father. Do not fear, for I am with you. I will bless you and multiply your descendants for the sake of My servant Abraham.’ He built an altar there, called on the name of the Lord, and pitched his tent there. And there Isaac’s servants dug a well.” (Genesis 26:24)
Isaac met God in Beersheba in a powerful way. The Lord spoke to him in the night. He let Isaac know that that he need not fear because the God of his father was now with him. Just as Abraham had received the promises of God under the covenant they made, God made it clear that He was passing this down to Isaac. Because of Abraham’s faithfulness, Isaac would experience the same promised blessings. The promises were inherited by faith.
From the verse in Genesis, we see that Isaac was a worshipper like Abraham and built altars to the Lord, calling on his name and pitching his tent there. He knew from his father that when God showed up somewhere, not to just move on. Isaac would dwell and reside in those places. He also knew how to build an altar to the Lord from learning this from his father.
What are we passing down to our children? The Lord promises for those who fear the Lord, “I will be your children’s God, jus as I am your God. And their descendants will inherit all that is good.”
Jacob, like Abraham, had been raised to deeply revere and love the Lord with his whole heart. Just as Abraham was a man of faith, Isaac received this faith from his father by being raised up under him and learning his ways. Jacob took on both his father’s greatest strengths and his greatest weaknesses.
Isaac knew how to seek the Lord. David Wilkerson writes, “The perfect heart seeks to be in God’s presence always, to dwell in communion, talking with the Lord, sharing sweet fellowship with Him, seeking His face and knowing His presence in our daily walk.” [1]
Abraham passed this on to his son. At the same time, just like his father, when there was famine in the land, Isaac went to king Abimelek in Gerar. And there, when Isaac was asked about his wife, just like Abraham, he lied to him and said she was his sister. He was afraid they would kill him over her beauty.
Isaac stepped in the footprints of his father in many ways. When Isaac was sent away by the king, he departed and settled in the places that his father had dug up wells. There he redug all the wells that had been stopped up that were initially dug by his father. Each one, as the Philistines would quarrel about them, he would move on and dig up another well of his fathers.
Digging a well, I imagine, was laborious. It took time and a great deal of effort to dig a well. But as one continued to dig deeper and deeper, eventually fresh water would spring up and would quench the thirst of everyone in the family. It was a place that was central to all the family. It was there that Isaac dug his well and pitched his tent.
“You are my place to dwell securely” sings in the background.
By his example, Abraham taught Isaac to dwell at the well and drink from the living water. To reside there and worship. In doing so, he not only taught Isaac how to do this in his own family, but caused Isaac to inherit the land.
Ultimately, a well is a shadow of Jesus. And drinking from it, a shadow of receiving from Him. To dig a well, is to labor in prayer to establish an open portal to heaven in commune with Jesus. It says in John 4:10-14,
“Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”
Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
Do we value what our parents gave us and recognize it’s place in our lives? What do we dig up from the past? Is it good or bad? God calls us to honor our mother and father. We are to hold with high regard those things that they have invested and labored to give us.
My mother is a woman of prayer. She loves the Lord with her whole heart and has trusted him through some very difficult times. About five years ago now, she went through a great deal of loss in her life one after the other. She lost her ability to drive, lost her home because she could no longer care for it, lost her independence, her health, her ability to get on and off her socks and even lost her dog.
Yet, through it all, she never became bitter about any of it. The Lord has been her joy, comfort and strength. She hugs me every night and tells me how grateful she is. Even now as I push her into church in her wheelchair and she can’t stand on her own anymore, she pushes herself up in her chair to stand as long as she can to worship of the Lord. She will not let anything get in the way.
Abraham was a worshiper that did not let anything get in the way. The land the Isaac experienced God speak to him powerfully about the covenant promises was the same exact place Abraham received those promises. Abraham had named the land Beersheba. It means well of seven and was named such as Abraham, after digging the well, had it violently seized from him by some of Abimelek’s servants. He gave the king seven lambs to be a witness that he had dug the well and the two of them made an oath there. Seven represents perfection and the lamb a sacrifice, i.e. a shadow of the perfect sacrifice offered. Abraham had planted a tamarisk tree and called on the name of the Lord.
The internet notes that a tamarisk tree is “a slow growing tree, increasing only an inch per year and taking close to 400 years to grow to full height. Its evergreen leaves collect water vapor from the moisture in the air during the night, and when the sun radiates its heat, the droplets evaporate and produce a cooling system. It is an outdoor air conditioning unit for the blistering desert heat. Further exploration about the tree reveals that insects transform the juice of the tree into a white-like substance that is sweet to eat. Some have called this substance manna.” [2]
While this tree would not have impact in the time that Abraham planted it in the desert, it would bless his generations that the Lord promised him would be as vast as the stars in the sky some 400 years later with sustenance. It represents leaving a legacy of blessing in God through generations down.
Another article writes, “To a Bedouin or a Jew, you don’t plant a tamarisk for yourself, you plant it for the generations to come. From the Abraham story, they took the idea that I am planting this tree to say, “for generations to come, my family is going to be here”. “This shade is for the generations to come, I’ll never get to use it.”[3]
Can you see the promises of God for generations following? What seeds are you sowing that will not impact you directly, but your future generations? Do you plan and labor with the next generation in mind?
Psalm 112:1-2 says, Happy is the man who fears the Lord, who loves His Word. A great and prosperous warrior shall be the children and grandchildren of those who fear the Lord.”
“Let Gen. Z arise as warriors. Let them arise in this hour and stand in the courts of the Lord” sings in the background.
Beersheba would have felt like home to Isaac as it was the place his father had raised him and passed down so much to him. It was deeply meaningful. As Isaac passed down his ways of connecting with God to his son Jacob, it also became a deeply meaningful place of worship for Jacob.
Genesis 46:1-4 says, “So Israel [Jacob] set out with all that he had and came to Beersheba and offered sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac. God spoke to Israel in visions of the night and said, ‘Jacob, Jacob.’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ Then He said, ‘I am God, the God of your father. Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for I will make you into a great nation there. I will go down with you to Egypt, and I will also surely bring you back again. And Joseph’s own hand shall close your eyes.’”
Are we in position and alignment to hear the promises of God at the wells that those who came before us have dug? Are we willing to pick them up and own them as our own? Even more, do we dig wells and build altars with the next generation in mind?
A dear friend of mine who is a revivalist has been reading a book about all the revival sites of the past in Minnesota. She has been praying for these old wells to be re-dug as, at the same time, the Lord pours out the new rain of the latter day. She realized that there is a special place of blessing and outpouring in standing in what work has all ready been done. Rather than starting something brand new, unearthing the promises and provision from the past can tap into past blessings for the future.
Will we re-dig and open back up the promises of God given to those before us? Are we willing to carry forward the legacy and step into the promises that God has given to those who went before us for their lineage? Are we willing to bring them forward for our children and grandchildren?
More than ever, our kids need the promises and power of God in their lives. There is confusion, darkness, pain, anxiety and fear all around. Sexuality is being celebrated as a range of preferences rather than a gift from birth. It is becoming expected to use your sexual identification (like it is an option from multiple choices) in your name plate on your email.
More children than ever are confused about their sexual orientation, suicides among young people have increased by 30% and anxiety among young people is called “the growing epidemic.”
In the same set of verses In Deuteronomy 6 where we are told that we should love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul and might [which Jesus called the most important scripture in the Bible], it says in that we should also, in all diligence, teach them to our children and what we say and in everything that we do in our lives.
To be diligent, is to consistently and persistently pursue and tend to with all care, determination and effort. It is not half hearted or casual as we have extra time. Rather, it is making it a central priority in our life that we plan and schedule into our lives.
Lord, help us to see the world through you perspective. Give us the passion, wisdom, persistence and planning we need to see the next generation step into all that you have for them. That our children would not be defined by fear, anxiety and confusion but by Your lovingkindness, goodness and presence.
- Wilkerson, David. God is Faithful. Chosen Books, Bloomington, MN. World Challenge, Inc. 2012
2. The Tamarisk Tree | The Well Blog | The Well (thewellcommunity.org).
3. Acts 242 Study | Tamarisk Tree
