Now there was a famine in the land, besides the former famine that was in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went to Gerar to Abimelech king of the Philistines.
1. And there was a famine. Moses relates that Isaac was tried by nearly the same kind of temptation as that through which his father Abraham had twice passed. I have before explained how severe and violent was this assault.
Here, I. God tried Isaac by his providence. Isaac had been trained up in a believing dependence upon the divine grant of the land of Canaan to him and his heirs; yet now there is a famine in the land, Gen 26:1. What shall he think of the promise when the promised land will not find him bread?
Commenting on Genesis 26:1-5
And there was a famine in the land,.... In the land of Canaan, as the Targum of Jonathan expresses it: besides the first famine that was in the days of Abraham; of which see Gen 12:10; which was an hundred years before this: and Isaac went unto Abimelech king of the Philistines, unto Gerar; where his father Abraham had sojourned before he was born; and...