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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Genesis 26:12 - 26:12
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Isaac's Increasing Wealth. - As Isaac had experienced the promised protection (“I will be with thee,” Gen 26:3) in the safety of his wife, so did he received while in Gerar the promised blessing. He sowed and received in that year “a hundred measures,” i.e., a hundred-fold return. This was an unusual blessing, as the yield even in very fertile regions is not generally greater than from twenty-five to fifty-fold (Niebuhr and Burckhardt), and it is only in the Ruhbe, that small and most fruitful plain of Syria, that wheat yields on an average eighty, and barley a hundred-fold. Agriculture is still practised by the Bedouins, as well as grazing (Robinson, Pal. i. 77, and Seetzen); so that Isaac's sowing was no proof that he had been stimulated by the promise of Jehovah to take up a settled abode in the promised land.
Gen 26:13-17
Being thus blessed of Jehovah, Isaac became increasingly (הָלֹוךְ, vid., Gen 8:3) greater (i.e., stronger), until he was very powerful and his wealth very great; so that the Philistines envied him, and endeavoured to do him injury by stopping up and filling with rubbish all the wells that had been dug in his father's time; and even Abimelech requested him to depart, because he was afraid of his power. Isaac then encamped in the valley of Gerar, i.e., in the “undulating land of Gerar,” through which the torrent (Jurf) from Gerar flows from the south-east (Ritter, Erdk. 14, pp. 1084-5).