We learn here of the second wife of Abraham’s—Keturah was her name. Abraham lived thirty-eight years after Sarah died. All the children of Keturah, and of the concubines, of whom the sixth verse tells, were sent away from Isaac before Abraham died, though they were given presents. There were no presents for Isaac, because everything was his. Abraham was one hundred and seventy-five years old at his death, and Ishmael joined Isaac in burying him in the cave of Machpelah beside Sarah’s body.
Verses 12 to 18 tell of Ishmael’s family and when he died, but we can see that God was mostly thinking about Isaac and his family. And that was not because Isaac was any better than his half-brother. No, it was just God’s doing what He chose to do, because neither Isaac nor Ishmael were naturally good, or deserved to have God love them, take care of them, and take them to heaven. Indeed not, and if God had been looking for people that deserved to have something done for ‘them, to have Him love them, He would have found none, because there is not any, and there never has been any. We just have to turn back to John 3:16,16For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16) and say, “God so loved.”
Isaac and Rebekah were married for twenty years and had no children, but when in verse 21 we learn that he prayed to God about it, God listened, and answered his prayers, for they got two boy babies, twins; Esau was the older one, and Jacob the younger. Esau was a strange looking baby, covered all over with red hair. As he grew up he became very fond of hunting, but Jacob always liked best to stay at home, and their mother liked him better: while the father loved Esau because of the food he brought home from his hunting trips.
Isn’t it sad to have to think that Isaac’s thoughts didn’t rise higher than the food he ate? He wasn’t much like his father Abraham who, in spite of all his mistakes, was a wonderful man of faith in God.
But if we don’t see much to admire Isaac, we see, as we read about Esau, that he was a man who cared nothing at all for God’s promises to his father and grandfather. One day when Esau came home from hunting he was very hungry.
Jacob had cooked some lentils, and Esau begged for them, but his brother, anxious to get something for himself, said, “Sell me this day thy birthright” Jacob wanted to have the rights of the older brother, and to get the blessing which his father would give the oldest son, and God meant that he should, but surely He did not like Jacob’s ways. Esau said to. himself, I am going to die if I don’t get something to eat right away, and what good is this birthright to me? So he said All right to Jacob, and gave up his rights as the oldest son, for the meal the last verse of the chapter tells about,—bread and lentils. Many years after, God caused what Esau had done to be again written about in the Bible,—in Hebrews 12:16-1716Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. 17For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears. (Hebrews 12:16‑17).
Children, God does not forget what we say and do! He knows what you think about Him, and about what He says in His Word.