Saved by the Well – Isaac
Saved by the Well – Isaac.
“And the Lord appeared to Isaac and said… ‘Dwell in the land of which I shall tell you. Sojourn in this land, and I will be with you and will bless you, for to you and your offspring I will give all these lands, and I will establish the promise that I swore to Abraham your father.’ (Genesis 26:2-3).
SAVED: The Hebrew word for save is “Yasha,” which means to be set free into the wide open; to be delivered in a time of desperate need; to be saved from destruction and certain death. “Salvation” literally means to become spacious, and refers to “the sense of deliverance from an existence that had become confined, compressed, or cramped.” (Eugene Peterson). When Jesus delivers us from our inner spiritual confinement, we are liberated into a wide open, broad, expansive place. The word for “wide open space” is the opposite of a straitjacket. Without Jesus, our soul will never be freed from our spiritual straitjacket. There are three passages in Psalms that describe this freedom deliverance beautifully:
- “From my distress, I called upon the Lord. He answered me and set me on a large place. After being in a tight spot, the Lord placed me into a broad space. Because I was hemmed in, I called on Lord Yahweh. He answered me and gave me room.” (Ps. 118:5);
- “Lord, you have not given me over into the hands of the Enemy; You have liberated me and set my feet in a wide expanse, a good and spacious land. You have given me the freedom to roam at large, where I can freely move. You have given me room to breathe.” (Ps. 31:8);
- “The Lord rescued me because He delighted in me. He brought me out to freedom into a wide-open space. My soul has been delivered because of God’s love for me, and my soul finally has some elbow room!” (Ps. 18:19).
I’VE GOT A RIVER OF LIFE (SPRING UP O WELL) (youtube.com)
THE WELL: There are four Hebrew words used in the Jewish Bible to describe the different kinds of ancient wells. There was the traditional well that was a deep hole dug in the ground to tap into an underground source of water. Another type of well was a fountain spring that had naturally broken through the earth’s surface on its own without man’s help. The wellspring is another version of well in Scripture in which fresh water flowed out of the ground in any number of ways to become available for cleansing, nourishment, refreshment, for survival itself. Life-giving wells of water have always been a powerful picture of our dependence upon God for spiritual survival. Just as Creator God has designed the human body to completely depend on water to live, our spiritual life totally relies on His presence in us to not just survive but to flourish. God is our spiritual well of fresh water, the only stable source of nourishment and purity. He is our fountain of life that gushes forth to replenish and cleanse us. God is our eternal wellspring of living water that will never run dry. Each of us is born spiritually dehydrated, and God alone is the constant, reliable water source to bring us back to life. As the silly joke goes, wells is a deep subject, and the biblical wells involve such stalwarts as Hagar and Abraham; Isaac and Moses; Samson and Solomon; the psalmists and the prophets. And of course, the glorious fulfillment of all these ancient stories of wells… Messiah Jesus and the woman at the well.
Isaac. Here is the miracle baby of Abraham and Sarah, the first Jewish child in history, whose name means “he laughs.” Isaac has been honored down through rabbinic tradition and continues to be remembered to this day for his midday prayer life, conversing with Yahweh in the middle of the afternoon in the great outdoors… “Isaac went out to meditate with God in the field toward evening.” (Gen. 24:63). Who knew that by simply digging some wells this biblical patriarch would soon be the stimulus for history’s first example of that insidious evil called antisemitism? This well-digging scenario in the land of the Philistines was the birth of “the world’s longest hatred,” according to Rabbi Jonathon Sacks in his commentary on Genesis. He continues… “No other prejudice has lasted so long, mutated so persistently, attracted such demonic myths, or had such devastating effects.”
The Backstory of Isaac and His Wells. Soon after the death of his great father Abraham, Isaac is forced to depend on the Philistines during a famine, and the local chieftain, another Abimelech who was probably the grandson of Abraham’s Abimelech, was initially intent on continuing the original peace treaty enjoyed between Abraham and the elder Abimilech years ago. Grandson Abimelech even went so far as to give a royal edict, “Anyone who harms this man Isaac or his wife shall surely be put to death.” (26:11). It turns out a little later that Isaac had planted crops in that land and soon reaped “a hundredfold” because of Yahweh’s promises of blessings upon His chosen people. So Isaac became extremely wealthy, a prominent farmer and herdsman with huge flocks of livestock. Well, the Philistines were not happy with these developments. In their hate-filled envy they began to fill in all the wells that Abraham had dug long ago with Abimelech’s full permission. But now this Abimelech began to change his attitude toward Isaac and ordered Isaac and his family and his prospering business to pick up stakes and leave the territory pronto. “Move away from us; you have become too powerful for us.” (21:12-33). And there see what Rabbi Sacks called “the birth of antisemitism.” To keep the peace, Isaac moved to a nearby valley, reopened some of those old wells, and began to settle in. The Philistine herdsmen were extremely jealous, though, and quarreled with Isaac’s servants, claiming that the water was actually theirs. So Isaac named that well “contention.” Isaac soon reopened another well nearby, but once again the herdsmen disputed that water source, so Isaac named that well “enmity.” Once again, Isaac shrugged his shoulders and moved on. It can easily be seen why Isaac was famous for being persistent and a seeker of peace.
Rehoboth. So Isaac moved to still another valley and dug another well, and the third time was the charm. No one complained or disputed this well, so Isaac triumphantly named this well “Rehoboth,” which means “wide space” or “roomy place.” Isaac celebrated by exclaiming that “Now Yahweh has given us room and we will flourish in this land.” This spacious land in which to settle that contained a permanent water source, delighted Isaac, of course. He considered this new home to be a divine enlargement of his homeland, and was only twenty miles from the place of his birth in Beersheba. Sure enough, Isaac soon went to visit Beersheba, and Yahweh confirmed His eternal covenant then and there with Isaac and his descendants. Isaac gratefully built an altar to the Lord there and “called upon the Name of Yahweh.” (26:25). Unexpectedly, our old friend Abimelech soon approached Isaac and expressed a desire to establish another treaty with Isaac. Abimelech had noticed that God had His hand of blessing on Isaac, and wisely figured that if he couldn’t beat him, why not join him? So Isaac agreed to this peace treaty and hosted a lavish covenant meal which made it all official once again. As of 2026 the ancient ruins of Beersheba have been discovered, and believe it or not, there remain a large number of functioning wells amidst the ruins, still pumping out fresh water.
Praying Like Isaac. If we based our afternoon prayers on Isaac’s prayer life at midday, we would lean towards having a conversation with God that would involve meditation and reflection on the faith. We would seek God’s help in maintaining the faith that we started the day with and will end the day with. Our afternoon prayers will continue the continuity between our morning and our evening with God, between the faith handed to us and the faith we want to hand down to our children. Afternoon prayers seek God’s sufficiency in remaining steadfast, faithful, and consistent in fleshing out the character and life of Jesus. Our midday prayers should encourage us to maintain ourselves in connection to our faithful past and our faithful future. We ask God to enable us to demonstrate the fruits of the Holy Spirit, to shine our light, to be the salt of the earth. We ask God to keep us from laziness, listlessness or weakness, and to inspire the energy to work and live productively and responsibly. Midday prayers are the meaningful link between our morning life and our evening life. These prayers should propel us to keep the faith alive, to continue through the day and close it, not somehow, but triumphantly.
A Closing Thought by Rabbi Sacks. “Isaac’s life is the quiet heroism of continuity, a link in the chain of the covenant, joining one generation to the next. He was not the initiator or prime mover like his father Abraham or his son Jacob. His role was to peacefully continue what his father started, exhibiting those transitional values of steadfastness, loyalty, and the will to persevere.” (Genesis: The Book of Beginnings).