For the past four years, we’ve embarked on a chapter-by-chapter exploration of prophetic texts. Now, we embark on a new spiritual journey: a one-year sprint through the foundational narratives of the first five books of the Bible, the Torah. As we follow the weekly Jewish reading calendar, we arrive at this week’s Torah portion, called Toldot, which means “descendants” or “generations,” covering Genesis 25:19–28:9.
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The reading picks up where the last portion ended: the union of Isaac and Rebekah. After twenty years of childlessness, God blessed the couple with twin boys: Jacob and Esau. However, before we delve into Jacob and Esau’s turbulent rivalry, it is essential to pause and give their father, Isaac, his due attention.
Isaac is a mysterious figure, by far the most understated of the patriarchs. The biblical narrative that surrounds Isaac is undramatic. Abraham negotiates with God and Jacob wrestles a divine being and demands a blessing. Isaac, on the other hand, hardly speaks at all. The stories where he is the central character rarely have him in extended dialogue.
Unlike the dynamic and often confrontational natures of his father Abraham and his son Jacob, Isaac is consistently portrayed as the “quiet one.” His narrative is less about proactive ventures and more about responsive obedience.
As a child, when his father brought him to Mount Moriah for his near-sacrifice, Isaac never resisted. Similarly, when Abraham sent his servant to select a wife for him, Isaac did not rebel against his father’s choice of Rebekah. Isaac loved Rebekah from the first moment that he saw her. It is precisely this quietude that reveals Isaac’s character. Isaac is a peacemaker, a truth teller, and an obedient follower of God. He is the consecrated anchor of the covenant.
Rabbi Joseph Telushkin describes Isaac as a Tamim, a pure and gentle soul. As the middle patriarch, he fortified the covenant connecting a people, land, and their God during an essential transitional generation.
Anchored to the Holy Land
Isaac stands alone among the patriarchs in never having left its sacred borders. His relationship with the Promised Land was uniquely steadfast.
Even though Abraham left everything to move to the land of promise, he was not there long before he had to escape to Egypt because of a severe famine. Jacob, too, left the promised land on two significant occasions. The first time Jacob fled to Paddan-Aram—partially to escape the wrath of Esau and partially to find a wife. That sojourn lasted twenty years because of a pesky father-in-law. Jacob’s second departure was also because of a severe famine in Canaan. Israel was more prone to famine than Egypt because Israel had to rely on unpredictable rainfall while Egypt had the Nile River and its dependable annual flooding.
Like Abraham and Jacob, a famine hit Canaan during Isaac’s lifetime as well. Isaac began to journey out towards the fertile lands of Egypt when God intervened and stopped him. Genesis says, “The Lord appeared to Isaac and said, ‘Do not go down to Egypt; live in the land where I tell you to live’” (Genesis 26:1-2). Obedient to this divine command, Isaac went instead to Gerar which was a Philistine territory. Gerar was slightly better off in the famine but still technically within the bounds of the promised land.
While Isaac was living in the land of the Philistines, the Lord blessed Isaac. Despite the ongoing famine, Isaac farmed and his crops were bountiful. He accrued flocks, herds, and a huge household. The text says: “Then Isaac sowed in that land and in the same year reaped a hundredfold, and the Lord blessed him” (Gen. 26:12).
The rabbinic commentaries emphasize that this extraordinary prosperity was a direct consequence and reward for his obedience to God’s command to remain in the land. His attachment to the sacred soil unlocked an unprecedented outpouring of divine blessing. He didn’t seek prosperity elsewhere; he found it by remaining exactly where God commanded him to be.
The king of that area, Abimelech, eventually asked Isaac to leave. His great wealth was making the Philistines jealous. Isaac moves away from the city of Gerar and settles in the Valley of Gerar, which was like the Philistine countryside. There, he tried to reopen the wells that his father Abraham had dug years before. Redigging old wells angered the local herdsman. They saw his wells as a threat to their resources and an encroachment on their territory. Instead of fighting back, Isaac moved on from his father’s old wells and instead dug a third well. The third well didn’t cause any problems. He named that well Rehoboth which means “room,” saying, “For now the Lord has made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land.”
Modern Israel and the Three Wells
I don’t aim to read everything in the Torah through a Zionist lens. But I can’t help but see modern Israel’s story represented allegorically in Isaac’s three wells. In the late 1800s, 30,000 Jews from Eastern Europe and Russia trickled back to the promised land. Some were fleeing persecution and others were pursuing their Zionist dreams. Most were a mixture of both.
That wave of Aliyah was like Isaac’s first two well ventures, where he tried to reopen the family wells and it stirred up conflict with the locals. Even though Isaac knew they belonged to his father, he moved on to another spot. The Philistines said the well water belonged to them. Isaac tried hard to be a quiet peacemaker. The same thing happened with the first wave of Jewish immigrants. They tried to settle in their ancestral homeland. In reality, it had become a forgotten Ottoman backwater. The Arab neighbors only woke up to the importance of Palestine once Jews felt it was the only land they could safely return.
Isaac named the first two problematic wells “Contention” and “Opposition.” That may as well be the titles of Modern Israel’s initial chapters. It has been 77 years since the birth of the modern nation-state of Israel, but they are still in that well-digging phase that only arouses contention and opposition. I long for the day of peace, when they unearth the third well, the one that assures there is finally “room” for them.
The Prophetic Vision
It was only after Isaac dug the third well that God appeared to him a second time. It was on this visitation, the only other time God spoke directly to Isaac, that he reaffirmed the Abrahamic covenant. He promised Isaac to bless him, multiply his offspring, and give him all the lands promised to his father. Soon after, even Abimelech, the Philistine king, paid a visit to Isaac. Isaac asked him, “Why have you come to me, since you were hostile to me and sent me away?”
The king explained that Isaac’s constant success had not gone unnoticed. He said:
“We saw clearly that the Lord was with you; so we said, ‘There ought to be a sworn agreement between us’—between us and you. Let us make a treaty with you that you will do us no harm, just as we did not harm you but always treated you well and sent you away peacefully. And now you are blessed by the Lord.” (Gen. 26:28-29)
It was ultimately not anything that Isaac did to finally warrant the favor of neighbors or pacify hostile forces. God intervened and opened the eyes of Isaac’s enemies. In the process, he also made his own name great among the nations. By recognizing Israel’s blessing and protection, King Abimelech also recognized the superiority of Isaac’s God.
I believe this event foreshadows what the prophets foresaw in Israel’s future. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Zechariah predict a future time when God’s supernatural restoration of Israel will compel its enemies and all nations to recognize the hand of God over the nation and therefore also the supremacy of Yahweh, the Lord of Israel.
The prophet Isaiah wrote:
In the last days the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established as the highest of the mountains; it will be exalted above the hills, and all nations will stream to it. Many peoples will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the temple of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.” The law will go out from Zion, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. (Isa. 2:2-3)
In my eyes, that is when Israel enters the third well phase.
That’s it for this week. Next week we transition to Jacob’s more complicated saga.
Also, I am trying something new this week. It was a recommendation from a faithful listener. In the newsletter version of the episode I am including four questions that you can study for either your personal use or a group study. They are just thought-provoking questions that I think the text asks of us as readers. So if you want the questions each week. Be sure to sign up for our emails at www.thejerusalemconnection.us
Join me next week as we read Vayetzei (Genesis 28:10–32:3)
Shabbat Shalom and Am Israel Chai.
Bible Study Questions on Toldot (Genesis 25:19–28:9)
- The Character of Isaac (Genesis 25:19-28:9): The text describes Isaac as the “quiet one” and the most understated of the patriarchs, characterized by responsive obedience rather than proactive ventures. How does this Tami (pure and gentle soul) nature of Isaac—his quiet strength and obedience—fortify the covenant in a unique way compared to the more dramatic actions of Abraham and Jacob? What might we learn from a life of “responsive obedience” in our own spiritual journeys?
- The Significance of Remaining in the Land (Genesis 26:1-6): Unlike Abraham and Jacob, Isaac alone never left the promised land, even during a severe famine. What was the specific divine command God gave Isaac, and what was the immediate result of his obedience (Genesis 26:12)? How does the text connect Isaac’s unprecedented prosperity directly to his steadfast attachment and obedience to God’s command to remain in the sacred soil?
- Conflict, Peace, and the Three Wells (Genesis 26:17-22): Isaac’s encounters with the Philistines involved contention and opposition over the wells (Esek and Sitnah). Instead of fighting, Isaac repeatedly moved on and dug a new well until he finally found “room” (Rehoboth). What does Isaac’s choice to be a peacemaker in the face of conflict teach us about resolving disputes or standing firm in the face of resource threats?
- Divine Intervention and Recognition (Genesis 26:26-31): The text highlights that it was not Isaac’s actions, but God’s intervention, that compelled King Abimelech and the Philistines to finally seek a treaty with him. What was Abimelech’s explicit reason for seeking peace, and what does this event reveal about God’s role in changing the hearts and minds of adversaries? How does this story foreshadow the prophetic vision cited from Isaiah 2:2-3?