18Then Isaac dug again the wells of water which had been dug in the days of his father Abraham, for the Philistines had stopped them up after the death of Abraham; and he gave them the same names which his father had given them. 19But when Isaac’s servants dug in the valley and found there a well of flowing water, 20the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with the herdsmen of Isaac, saying, “The water is ours!” So he named the well Esek, because they contended with him. 21Then they dug another well, and they quarreled over it too, so he named it Sitnah. 22He moved away from there and dug another well, and they did not quarrel over it; so he named it Rehoboth, for he said, “At last the LORD has made room for us, and we will be fruitful in the land.” 23Then he went up from there to Beersheba. 24The LORD appeared to him the same night and said,
“I am the God of your father Abraham;
Do not fear, for I am with you
I will bless you, and multiply your descendants,
For the sake of My servant Abraham.”
25So he built an altar there and called upon the name of the LORD, and pitched his tent there; and there Isaac’s servants dug a well.
As I said yesterday, Isaac was facing some attacks due to his immense success resulting from God’s blessings. And it didn’t end with getting kicked out of Gerar. He settled in the nearby valley and tried to dig wells there, and the local herdsman pick a fight over those too. He aptly names them ‘strife’ and ‘contention’. Finally, he digs a third well, and the herdsman leave him alone. He gives God the glory for it, and that’s when the ‘God moment’ happens. That night, God appears to him in a vision and affirms the covenant of Abraham with Isaac. Isaac could have easily given up after the first well, or the second well, but He perseveres, and God blesses him for it. And then he digs a fourth well, and an altar to commemorate the occasion.