From Eden to Egypt- Day 32

And there was a famine in the land, beside the first famine that was in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went unto Abimelech king of the Philistines unto Gerar. – Genesis 26: 1 (KJV)

Issac experienced a “famine in the land” similar to what his father experienced.  It drove him away from home.  God warned him to not go to Egypt in verse 2.  He ended up in Gerar.  He ended up in a similar situation to the one experienced by his father during a famine, and he ended up doing something similar to his father in how he handled it.

We have to see that what Abraham did as Abram had a legacy effect on his son.  Did he share about his challenges during the famine? Did he tell his son that things got mishandled when he told his wife to say that she was his sister? I don’t know.  Commentaries may make assumptions, but I truly don’t know.  Theologians may take a stab at some hermeneutic line of inquiry, but we were not there and we don’t know.
What we do know is that Isaac repeated his father’s flaws.  Isaac repeated his father’s faults.  Isaac repeated his father’s failures.

He may not have been his father, but he didn’t have to repeat it.  It wasn’t something that he had to do.  We all could use our parents and their human fallacies as an excuse for our mistakes.  The truth is that excuses do not excuse us.  We have to take ownership of our choices.  We have options.  We need to be diligent with exercising our options.