Evil Seed, Evil Womb

WHAT???

Isaac, Rebekah and Abimelek

26 Now there was a famine in the land—besides the previous famine in Abraham’s time—and Isaac went to Abimelek king of the Philistines in Gerar. 2 The Lord appeared to Isaac and said, “Do not go down to Egypt; live in the land where I tell you to live. 3 Stay in this land for a while, and I will be with you and will bless you. For to you and your descendants I will give all these lands and will confirm the oath I swore to your father Abraham. 4 I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and will give them all these lands, and through your offspring[a] all nations on earth will be blessed,[b] 5 because Abraham obeyed me and did everything I required of him, keeping my commands, my decrees and my instructions.” 6 So Isaac stayed in Gerar.

7 When the men of that place asked him about his wife, he said, “She is my sister,” because he was afraid to say, “She is my wife.” He thought, “The men of this place might kill me on account of Rebekah, because she is beautiful.”

8 When Isaac had been there a long time, Abimelek king of the Philistines looked down from a window and saw Isaac caressing his wife Rebekah. 9 So Abimelek summoned Isaac and said, “She is really your wife! Why did you say, ‘She is my sister’?”

Isaac answered him, “Because I thought I might lose my life on account of her.”

10 Then Abimelek said, “What is this you have done to us? One of the men might well have slept with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us.”

11 So Abimelek gave orders to all the people: “Anyone who harms this man or his wife shall surely be put to death.”

12 Isaac planted crops in that land and the same year reaped a hundredfold, because the Lord blessed him. 13 The man became rich, and his wealth continued to grow until he became very wealthy. 14 He had so many flocks and herds and servants that the Philistines envied him. 15 So all the wells that his father’s servants had dug in the time of his father Abraham, the Philistines stopped up, filling them with earth.

16 Then Abimelek said to Isaac, “Move away from us; you have become too powerful for us.”

17 So Isaac moved away from there and encamped in the Valley of Gerar, where he settled. 18 Isaac reopened the wells that had been dug in the time of his father Abraham, which the Philistines had stopped up after Abraham died, and he gave them the same names his father had given them.

19 Isaac’s servants dug in the valley and discovered a well of fresh water there. 20 But the herders of Gerar quarreled with those of Isaac and said, “The water is ours!” So he named the well Esek,[c] because they disputed with him. 21 Then they dug another well, but they quarreled over that one also; so he named it Sitnah.[d] 22 He moved on from there and dug another well, and no one quarreled over it. He named it Rehoboth,[e] saying, “Now the Lord has given us room and we will flourish in the land.”

23 From there he went up to Beersheba. 24 That night the Lord appeared to him and said, “I am the God of your father Abraham. Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will bless you and will increase the number of your descendants for the sake of my servant Abraham.”

25 Isaac built an altar there and called on the name of the Lord. There he pitched his tent, and there his servants dug a well.

26 Meanwhile, Abimelek had come to him from Gerar, with Ahuzzath his personal adviser and Phicol the commander of his forces. 27 Isaac asked them, “Why have you come to me, since you were hostile to me and sent me away?”

28 They answered, “We saw clearly that the Lord was with you; so we said, ‘There ought to be a sworn agreement between us’—between us and you. Let us make a treaty with you 29 that you will do us no harm, just as we did not harm you but always treated you well and sent you away peacefully. And now you are blessed by the Lord.”

30 Isaac then made a feast for them, and they ate and drank. 31 Early the next morning the men swore an oath to each other. Then Isaac sent them on their way, and they went away peacefully.

32 That day Isaac’s servants came and told him about the well they had dug. They said, “We’ve found water!” 33 He called it Shibah,[f] and to this day the name of the town has been Beersheba.[g]


What is a famine? Is it a sign of God's displeasure? Or is it an inevitable sign of disharmony between men and women, a natural law that plays itself out automatically? Did people mistake the changes in weather and fertility for the actions of a divine interference, because they seemed to be direct responses to their behavior?  - What, if some people knew the connections and others did not? - What, if the initiates into the subtle laws knew that a beautiful woman would raise the juices in an entire population, so that the whole country becomes fertile? Was this not the role and function of the real queens, the real priestesses of fertility? In "pagan" Europe this was known by our forefathers and women were honored accordingly - until the advent of Christianity. Is it really godly or simply demonic, if a non-physical entity can manipulate the flow of blessings, withhold it from one and bestow it on another, make it flow overly much for seven years and therefore know in advance that there will be a compensating decline for the next seven years? 

Is famine only a lack of fruit in the fields or would a continued barrenness of the wombs not also be a sign of famine? No children to take care of their parents in old age!

The famine in Abraham's time made him turn to Egypt, made him turn to Hagar, the Egyptian, who was really a queen, but treated as an inferior. Her presence in Abraham's household even enlivened the womb of Sarah, a healing that a good sister can give another sister. When she went out into the desert, the water sprung up from the sand, the Earth-Father flowed to give her sustenance.  - In my family, the name "Sarah" was used to express displeasure with the conduct of girls. "What a Sarah!" meant to criticize a woman for crafty, willful, disloyal and clever behavior, getting away with it and unable to be contained.

In Isaac's time again there was a famine, but he was counseled not to turn to Egypt like his forefather Abraham. No good, to take another woman to get out of the impasse.  This time the famished couple was sent to the land of the Philistines. There he passed Rebekah off as his sister. When I first read the story as a child, I thought, what a coward, what a wimp. - Yet the reaction of the king proved him wrong. Was Isaac such a bad judge of the situation? What did Rebekah think about it? Would she have objected? If so, she probably would have been able to change Issac's mind. Isaac was known as an obedient husband. So we must assume that she was complicit in this idea, that it may have been her plan in the first place. So we can safely consider it a possibility that Rebekah had planned to become the wife of one of the locals and the mother of their offspring, as well as Isaac taking on the corresponding role. What kind of influence would that have given them in the generations after? She would have displaced the women of the land and her mental narrative would have had a hugely increased field to play in. We would have an entirely different history, I dare say. I doubt, we would even know, that Rebekah and Isaac had ever been anything else but siblings and the ancestors of many. Yet the Philistines were obviously decent people and their king was shown the evidence of their true relationship from "his window", even though we may assume that the couple had not paraded their love-making in any public. -

The land of the Philistines in question is in our days known as the Gaza strip, Gerar and Beersheba are further inland from there, towards the Negev desert, clearly the less desirable place.

The couple had arrived in Gerar with the prospects of taking it into their possession on the strength of a prophecy, a promise by a non-physical entity. - So exactly how did they intend to take possession of it? We don't know for sure, since Abimelek made sure none of his men took Rebekkah as a wife and Issac didn't take any of the women either. Yet their descendants try to get this land under their belt to this very day.