Genesis 25-26

Abraham remarries and has a ton of more kids. Yet, it is only Isaac that inherits pretty much everything from Abraham. At this point, I still envision Abraham as being fairly wealthy yet the majority of the wealth passes to Isaac.

Ishmael re-enters the picture after Abraham's death as both Isaac and Ishmael bury him. This makes me think there was probably some reconnection and reconciliation with Ishmael after Sara's death - between Ishmael-Abraham and Ishmael-Isaac.

Isaac and Rebecca have two twins. In the womb, Esau and Jacob are described as being two "nations" or two "peoples". With all the talk about exactly is a "nation" at this point, here is a clue - it appears to have a cultural and ethnic component to it.

Esau is a dumb jock. He comes back hungry from a hunt (I guess he didn't catch anything) and sells his birthright to Jacob. I envision this family as having a ton of other servants, which one would expect to also be making food. So, why does Esau do this other than he's a complete idiot? Is he really that hungry? It also rings of pride for after all he's saying, "I don't need that stupid birthright anyway." It also gives a glimpse of Jacob's craftiness to take advantage of both his brother's hunger and stupidity.

After this incident, there is a famine and Isaac considers going to Egypt to avoid it. "In case of famine, go to Egypt" seems to be on everyone's mind. But God intervenes and he goes to Guerar, where Abimilek, the Philistine king lives. I wonder if this is the same Abimilek as before or perhaps his son (Abraham lived another 80 or so years after the run-in with the first Abimilek).

Isaac immediately does what his father did - tell the city that Rebecca is his sister, not his wife. Abimilek sees them making out, figures it out, and puts a decree out to leave them alone. Eventually, Isaac's wealth and servants get so big they are forced to leave. Isaac then starts a shameful pattern of building wells, but getting run off from them. I picture this as sort of a moving city going around the desert and can only imagine the embarrassment he must feel with this happening in front of his family and servants. But then embarrassment turns to studiliness when another well is found.

This is on top of Isaac telling the Philistines that Rebecca is not his wife, so Rebecca might be thinking - "what kind of wimpy loser did I leave my family and home for? Maybe I should have at least met him before getting on the camel of no return."

Finally, Abimilek and his army chief come to visit Isaac. Does this mean the army came with them? I suspect so. So, Isaac is probably thinking "not this again. I guess I will have to find another well.". But instead of running them off, they want a treaty. Perhaps they see in him the ability to find good well-spots, a potentially very lucrative skill with a lot of upside. What's also omitted is any discussion about the treaty between Abimilek and Abraham, so maybe this was not the same Abimilek as before.