The third recipient of the command not to be afraid is Isaac! Have you read the story of how Isaac and his wife Rebekah got married? It’s pretty amazing.
At this point in the narrative, Isaac is living in the land of the Philistines and being blessed filthy stinking rich by the Lord. His crops are abundant and he has a whole mess of cows and sheep and other various hoofed creatures that equaled riches back then. The Philistines were extremely jealous of Isaac’s good fortune and began to get nervous about how powerful he was, so they asked him to leave. He camped in the valley of Gerar and began to dig wells, which one by one became sources of contention between himself and the herdsmen of Gerar, so much so that Isaac gave the wells names like “Quarrel” and “Hostility”. He finally moved far enough away that the next well he dug was not quarreled over, and he named it “Open Spaces” (For now the Lord has made room for us, and we will be fruitful in the land), which for some reason is very beautiful in my opinion, although I do wish I could read it without getting the Dixie Chicks song stuck in my head.
Wide open spaaaaces….
And moving right along to Genesis 26:23-24-
From there he went up to Beer-sheba, and the Lord appeared to him that night and said, “I am the God of your father Abraham. Do not be afraid, for I am with you. I will bless you and multiply your offspring because of My servant Abraham.”
I can imagine that there were all sorts of things for Isaac to fear. Quarreling with foreigners, the vindictive and jealous Philistines he had fled from (who had, years earlier, stopped up all of Abraham’s wells out of spite), his apparent inability to settle in one place without problems. As blessed as he was, that’s a pretty substantial burden for a boy whose dad almost sacrificed him to God in the wilderness. (Also an incredible story…) I can imagine Isaac sitting up at night pondering the incredible responsibility placed upon him to care for his growing family, and then the Lord appears to him with exactly what he needs to hear…
I am with you.
This is, I think, the first instance of an allusion to one of Jesus’s names, Immanuel. God with us.
Chills.
Fear Not # 3- He is with us.
Fear Not # 2- He hears us in the place where we are.
Fear Not # 1- He is our shield.
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