†. Gen 26:14b . . so that the Philistines envied him.
Some feel that the Philistines' envy was rooted in anti-Semitism. Well . . .
there are always those seeking to enhance their own image as a victim; and
this chapter would certainly seem a good source of propaganda for that
purpose.
Envy is a normal human emotion that is typically blind to racial and ethnic
identities. Envy isn't restricted to anti-Semitism, nor does it serve to identify
it. Envy is one of the chief emotions relied upon by the advertising
campaigns created on Madison Avenue. Just watch the ads on TV, and the
ones in magazines and you'll see. They constantly provoke us to keep up
with our peers in clothing, cars, physical appearance, business success, and
popularity. Envy is a powerful, negative feeling that overwhelms us
whenever others are doing better than ourselves.
†. Prv 14:30 . . A tender heart [brings] healing of the flesh, but envy
[brings] rotting of the bones.
†. Titus 3:1-3 . . Remind the people . . . to slander no one, to be peaceable
and considerate, and to show true humility toward all men. At one time we
too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions
and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one
another.
Envy is a powerful passion; destroying friendships, fueling fierce rivalries,
generating strong desires for revenge, and fracturing solidarity.
†. Gen 26:15 . . And the Philistines stopped up all the wells which his
father's servants had dug in the days of his father Abraham, filling
them with earth.
You would think the Philistines would value those wells and put the water to
use for themselves. But actually, there weren't really all that many
Philistines in the Gerar area at the time. They didn't need the water; and
they sure didn't want any squatters to discover the wells and thus be
encouraged to settle down in their region.
What the Phillistines were doing is a behavior called thwarting; which can be
roughly defined as: to frustrate the hopes and and/or aspirations of another
(often for no good reason). If those yokels had tried to buffalo a rancher like
that in America's olde west; they would have been strung up-- no delay,
no trial, and no mercy.
Abimelech forbade his citizens to harm Isaac; but that didn't preclude
harassing and annoying him. Cutting off his water supplies was very serious
because Isaac needed them to irrigate crops and water the livestock.
Without adequate water supplies, Isaac Enterprises was doomed. He had a
right to file a complaint. But Abimelech felt it best for all concerned to run
Isaac out of the country.
†. Gen 26:16 . . And Abimelech said to Isaac: Go away from us, for
you have become far too big for us.
Just exactly what Abimelech meant by "you have become far too big for us"
is hard to know for sure. But it looks suspiciously like a cowardly act of
favoritism; pure and simple. Instead of being fair and equitable with Isaac,
Abimelech, like a cheap politician, ignored the vandalism his citizens had
done against a foreigner and made it look like this whole nasty business was
Isaac's fault: he was just getting too greedy and beginning to crowd
everybody else out. Was this maybe the first antitrust suit in history?
Antitrust laws, in reality, put a limit on prosperity. They say that the
principles of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are okay as long as
you don't pursue them to an extreme. People often believe in a free
enterprise system; but typically only up until somebody else's enterprise is
having much better success at it than theirs.
†. Gen 26:17 . . So Isaac departed from there and encamped in the
wadi of Gerar, where he settled.
A wadi named Nahal Gerar is on modern maps of the Gaza region. Whether
or not that was Isaac's wadi I don't know. Wadis are basins in which brooks
flow, and therefore, were the well-watered and fertile parts of the country.
In times of scant rain up in the highlands, the brooks in many wadis dry up,
and then it becomes necessary to dig wells down into the subterranean
water table.
According to ERETZ magazine, issue 64, the Gerar river draws its waters
from tributaries that run along the slopes of the rain-swept Hebron
mountains. Enormous amounts of water flow through it in winter, flooding
the channel an average of seven times a year.
†. Gen 26:18 . . Isaac dug anew the wells which had been dug in the
days of his father Abraham and which the Philistines had stopped up
after Abraham's death; and he gave them the same names that his
father had given them.
Those wells were dug nearly a hundred years prior to this event; and makes
one wonder how Isaac knew where they were and how he knew the names
his dad had named them. The Gerarians probably waited until Abraham was
dead to plug them up because they feared him. He had a reputation as a
military leader and he also had a pact with the king Abimelech of Abraham's
period.
†. Gen 26:19-20 . . But when Isaac's servants, digging in the wadi,
found there a well of spring water, the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled
with Isaac's herdsmen, saying: The water is ours. He named that
well Esek, because they contended with him.
Isaac was much too affable. He didn't have to let those guys buffalo him;
after all, Isaac had a pretty good sized army of his own; left to him by his
dad. He could easily have posted an armed platoon by the well to keep the
local cowboys away from it. But no, he chose rather to condescend and let
them have their own way. Isaac was truly a "turn the other cheek" kind of
man who was willing (maybe a bit too willing) to bend over backward to
accommodate people and prevent violence and ill will.
That well was a new one; not one of Abraham's. The herdsmen were
motivated by envy so they were reluctant to share the regions resources
with the likes of Isaac because they hated his success. They didn't contest
Isaac's access to the water in Abraham's wells. They probably felt he had a
right to use those; but the men would not tolerate Isaac taking any more
water than that; and most especially water of this quality. It was literally
living water-- viz: artesian.
City slickers really don't appreciate their water and typically haven't a clue
where it comes from nor how it gets into their homes. But in Isaac's day,
people couldn't live too far from a natural source of water. Many of the
ancient cities and communities were located adjacent to rivers for that very
reason.
Along with the advent of pumps and pipelines, came the advent of urban
sprawl. Where remote sites in America were once safe from congestion and
overpopulation for lack of easy water, now they're cities. Poway California is
a good example. When I was a kid in the 1940's and 50's, Poway property
was dirt cheap because nobody wanted to live out there. It was remote, and
it was expensive to put in a well. Septic tanks and outhouses were the only
means for disposing waste water and human offal. Now Poway is a bulging
community because of access to San Diego City services like municipal water
and sewage.
The County of San Diego's requirements long ago exceeded it's own local
water resources and now imports the lion's share of it's water needs via
aqueducts conveying water from the Colorado River by tapping into the
Colorado River Aqueduct to the north, which is connected to the river at
Lake Havasu City, Arizona. Any city dependant upon imported water is very
vulnerable to collapse: same as any country dependent upon imported oil.
Cont.
/
Some feel that the Philistines' envy was rooted in anti-Semitism. Well . . .
there are always those seeking to enhance their own image as a victim; and
this chapter would certainly seem a good source of propaganda for that
purpose.
Envy is a normal human emotion that is typically blind to racial and ethnic
identities. Envy isn't restricted to anti-Semitism, nor does it serve to identify
it. Envy is one of the chief emotions relied upon by the advertising
campaigns created on Madison Avenue. Just watch the ads on TV, and the
ones in magazines and you'll see. They constantly provoke us to keep up
with our peers in clothing, cars, physical appearance, business success, and
popularity. Envy is a powerful, negative feeling that overwhelms us
whenever others are doing better than ourselves.
†. Prv 14:30 . . A tender heart [brings] healing of the flesh, but envy
[brings] rotting of the bones.
†. Titus 3:1-3 . . Remind the people . . . to slander no one, to be peaceable
and considerate, and to show true humility toward all men. At one time we
too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions
and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one
another.
Envy is a powerful passion; destroying friendships, fueling fierce rivalries,
generating strong desires for revenge, and fracturing solidarity.
†. Gen 26:15 . . And the Philistines stopped up all the wells which his
father's servants had dug in the days of his father Abraham, filling
them with earth.
You would think the Philistines would value those wells and put the water to
use for themselves. But actually, there weren't really all that many
Philistines in the Gerar area at the time. They didn't need the water; and
they sure didn't want any squatters to discover the wells and thus be
encouraged to settle down in their region.
What the Phillistines were doing is a behavior called thwarting; which can be
roughly defined as: to frustrate the hopes and and/or aspirations of another
(often for no good reason). If those yokels had tried to buffalo a rancher like
that in America's olde west; they would have been strung up-- no delay,
no trial, and no mercy.
Abimelech forbade his citizens to harm Isaac; but that didn't preclude
harassing and annoying him. Cutting off his water supplies was very serious
because Isaac needed them to irrigate crops and water the livestock.
Without adequate water supplies, Isaac Enterprises was doomed. He had a
right to file a complaint. But Abimelech felt it best for all concerned to run
Isaac out of the country.
†. Gen 26:16 . . And Abimelech said to Isaac: Go away from us, for
you have become far too big for us.
Just exactly what Abimelech meant by "you have become far too big for us"
is hard to know for sure. But it looks suspiciously like a cowardly act of
favoritism; pure and simple. Instead of being fair and equitable with Isaac,
Abimelech, like a cheap politician, ignored the vandalism his citizens had
done against a foreigner and made it look like this whole nasty business was
Isaac's fault: he was just getting too greedy and beginning to crowd
everybody else out. Was this maybe the first antitrust suit in history?
Antitrust laws, in reality, put a limit on prosperity. They say that the
principles of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are okay as long as
you don't pursue them to an extreme. People often believe in a free
enterprise system; but typically only up until somebody else's enterprise is
having much better success at it than theirs.
†. Gen 26:17 . . So Isaac departed from there and encamped in the
wadi of Gerar, where he settled.
A wadi named Nahal Gerar is on modern maps of the Gaza region. Whether
or not that was Isaac's wadi I don't know. Wadis are basins in which brooks
flow, and therefore, were the well-watered and fertile parts of the country.
In times of scant rain up in the highlands, the brooks in many wadis dry up,
and then it becomes necessary to dig wells down into the subterranean
water table.
According to ERETZ magazine, issue 64, the Gerar river draws its waters
from tributaries that run along the slopes of the rain-swept Hebron
mountains. Enormous amounts of water flow through it in winter, flooding
the channel an average of seven times a year.
†. Gen 26:18 . . Isaac dug anew the wells which had been dug in the
days of his father Abraham and which the Philistines had stopped up
after Abraham's death; and he gave them the same names that his
father had given them.
Those wells were dug nearly a hundred years prior to this event; and makes
one wonder how Isaac knew where they were and how he knew the names
his dad had named them. The Gerarians probably waited until Abraham was
dead to plug them up because they feared him. He had a reputation as a
military leader and he also had a pact with the king Abimelech of Abraham's
period.
†. Gen 26:19-20 . . But when Isaac's servants, digging in the wadi,
found there a well of spring water, the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled
with Isaac's herdsmen, saying: The water is ours. He named that
well Esek, because they contended with him.
Isaac was much too affable. He didn't have to let those guys buffalo him;
after all, Isaac had a pretty good sized army of his own; left to him by his
dad. He could easily have posted an armed platoon by the well to keep the
local cowboys away from it. But no, he chose rather to condescend and let
them have their own way. Isaac was truly a "turn the other cheek" kind of
man who was willing (maybe a bit too willing) to bend over backward to
accommodate people and prevent violence and ill will.
That well was a new one; not one of Abraham's. The herdsmen were
motivated by envy so they were reluctant to share the regions resources
with the likes of Isaac because they hated his success. They didn't contest
Isaac's access to the water in Abraham's wells. They probably felt he had a
right to use those; but the men would not tolerate Isaac taking any more
water than that; and most especially water of this quality. It was literally
living water-- viz: artesian.
City slickers really don't appreciate their water and typically haven't a clue
where it comes from nor how it gets into their homes. But in Isaac's day,
people couldn't live too far from a natural source of water. Many of the
ancient cities and communities were located adjacent to rivers for that very
reason.
Along with the advent of pumps and pipelines, came the advent of urban
sprawl. Where remote sites in America were once safe from congestion and
overpopulation for lack of easy water, now they're cities. Poway California is
a good example. When I was a kid in the 1940's and 50's, Poway property
was dirt cheap because nobody wanted to live out there. It was remote, and
it was expensive to put in a well. Septic tanks and outhouses were the only
means for disposing waste water and human offal. Now Poway is a bulging
community because of access to San Diego City services like municipal water
and sewage.
The County of San Diego's requirements long ago exceeded it's own local
water resources and now imports the lion's share of it's water needs via
aqueducts conveying water from the Colorado River by tapping into the
Colorado River Aqueduct to the north, which is connected to the river at
Lake Havasu City, Arizona. Any city dependant upon imported water is very
vulnerable to collapse: same as any country dependent upon imported oil.
Cont.
/
