Genesis 25:19-21: Take it to the Lord in prayer.

“19 This is the account of the family line of Abraham’s son Isaac. Abraham became the father of Isaac, 20 and Isaac was forty years old when he married Rebekah daughter of Bethuel the Aramean from Paddan Aram and sister of Laban the Aramean. 21 Isaac prayed to the Lord on behalf of his wife, because she was childless. The Lord answered his prayer, and his wife Rebekah became pregnant.” NIV UK

There are certain repeating patterns in Biblical history. One of these is the case of the barren wife who conceives in answer to prayer. This is also part of a repeating pattern in the Abraham and Sarah/Isaac and Rebekah stories. Sarah was barren, but miraculously bore Abraham a son. Here we read:  ‘’Isaac prayer hard to GOD for his wife because she was barren. GOD answered his prayer and Rebekah became pregnant.’’ The Message.

‘Once more we see God’s active intervention in ensuring that the covenant promises given to Abraham and Isaac would be fulfilled. God’s purposes cannot be fulfilled by human effort alone.’ Tom Hale: ‘Applied Old Testament Commentary’, p.168.

‘Isaac was forty years old when he married Rebekah. For twenty years, they waited for a family that did not come. God blessed Isaac in everything but the thing he wanted most. He and Rebekah knew that God had promised descendants (Gen.15:5), so Isaac laid hold of the promise and prayed. True prayer lays hold of God’s Word (John15:7) and seeks to accomplish God’s purposes.’ Warren W. Wiersbe: ‘With the Word’, p.33.

Wiersbe also says that the purpose of prayer is to get God’s will done on earth, not to have man’s will done in heaven. He emphasises that Isaac’s prayer was not selfish. He must have heard the covenant promises made to his father repeated in the home again and again. How could they be fulfilled if he and Rebekah remained childless. Furthermore, he makes the point that Genesis emphasises the sovereignty of God, and shows the wisdom of His ‘delays’. Abraham and Sarah had to wait 25 years for Isaac to appear; Jacob had to toil for fourteen years to obtain his two wives, and Joseph had to wait over twenty years to be reconciled to his brothers. ‘Our times are in His hands (Ps.31:15), and His timing is never wrong.’ ‘The Wiersbe Bible Commentary, OT’, p.96.

PRAYER: Lord please teach me how to marry your Word with my praying. I feel like I am just ‘in the infants’ in this school of prayer. Please be my teacher, and make me a powerful intercessor like Abraham was, and his son Isaac.