(All scripture from the World English Bible, ebible.org, all rights reserved)
“Isaac sowed in that land, and reaped in the same year one hundred times what he planted. Yahweh blessed him. The man grew great, and grew more and more until he became very great. He had possessions of flocks, possessions of herds, and a great household. The Philistines envied him.”
(Genesis 26:12-14)
Isaac had been told not to go to Egypt, but to stay in the Land. He did that, but started off on the wrong foot. Once he was corrected, he remained. He did not go to Egypt. There was a famine on and he planted. As if there was no famine. It was an insane thing to do, from a human point of view. Crops don’t grow without water. You can’t get a harvest that way. Every farmer out there would tell us that and I am sure they told him that. But without planting, they would have no way to survive in a famine. There was nothing in the land to live off of. That’s why people left the area. But when God tells you to do something, you do it whether you can see the end or not. Isaac trusted that since God told him to stay, he could do what he would normally do and God would take care of the rest. He believed and he trusted.
Isaac got a harvest. Not a normal one, either. Isaac got a hundred-fold back. Isaac acquired so much stuff in a famine that the Philistines were jealous of him. Everything he did prospered. That happened because he listened to God and obeyed what God told him. That was the foundation for all of his wealth. Not only did he have a great inheritance from his father, who was a rich man, but Isaac was growing his wealth exponentially. It was happening because he believed and trusted.
The blessing of the Lord is what was working in Isaac’s life (Proverbs 10:22). Isaac’s belief in God’s promise of blessing and his trust that God would bring it about it what allowed him to receive from God. He still had to do something. He had to rent or lease land, plant seed, and care for the crops, but the foundation was his belief and trust. He consistently listened. He consistently obeyed. What he did was consistently blessed.
The sage Sforno writes: ‘ויזרע יצחק בארץ ההיא, in accordance with G’d’s instructions “גור בארץ הזאת” (verse 3). מאה שערים. In accordance with G’d’s promise to Avraham in Genesis 12,2 ואהיה עמך ואברכך, “I will be with you and bless you,” i.e. with material blessings. ויברכהו ה, with money. He sold his crops for cash. According to our sages as quoted by Rashi, the estimate of the size of Yitzchok’s crops given here is to teach us something about tithing properly. [according to Bereshit Rabbah 64,6 the question is why Yitzchok, who must have been aware that blessing does not rest on items which have been measured or weighed, bothered to measure his crop. The answer is that one must not tithe by estimating, but by measuring. If he wanted to tithe correctly, he had to first measure the size of his crop. Ed.] G’d directed the blessing to Yitzchok on account of his concern to tithe correctly, something we also find reflected in Maleachi 3,10 “bring the full tithe into the storehouse and let there be food in My House, and thus put Me to the test-said the Lord of Hosts. I will surely open the floodgates of the sky for you and pour down blessings on you.” ועבודה רבה, soil ready to be worked. ויקנאו אותו פלשתים, seeing that what happened on their own fields was the exact opposite of what Yitzchok experienced. They had planted extra seed only to produce smaller crops.’
The sage Or HaChaim writes: ‘מאה שערים, ויברכהו. one hundred fold; G’d blessed him. Since we have a general rule that anything that is measured does not qualify for a blessing, the Torah here informs us that G’d blessed Isaac’s harvest even though the amount of his harvest had been measured. The Torah also wanted to tell us that despite the phenomenal success of Isaac as a farmer during a famine he did not suffer the effects of an evil eye of anyone who was jealous of his success.’
The sage Rav Hirsch writes: ‘V. 12. In that land and in that year, the country itself and the year in particular were unfavourable and still he found a hundred שערים. It is true that in Rabbinic Hebrew שער does mean measure, (and so it has been taken to mean here a hundred measures or a hundredfold I.L.) but in the whole of תנ״ך it only occurs with the meaning of gate or market place (as in II Kings 7,1). Hence also the verb שעור, to sit in the market, to haggle, to offer for sale, from which we get Prov. 23,6.7 אל תלחם את לחם רע עין וגו׳ כי כמו שער בנפשו כן הוא וגו׳. If a stingy man invites you to his table he is “as if he was bargaining at the market with his soul, “as if he was offering a bit of his life cheaply for sale”. תאנים שערים (Jer. 24,17) are fruit from a stall in the market, rotten fruit that are not saleable. שערוריה and שערורה in Jeremiah and Hosea mean vendible, cheap. Accordingly מאה שערים here would mean: a hundred markets. His produce was not only sufficient for his own requirements but he brought a hundredfold, compared to ordinary produce, to the market. ויברכהו ה׳. Thus he became the “blessed of God”. Inasmuch as he did not usuriously hoard up the blessing but brought it out generously to the markets, in that year of famine used his blessing to the general good, he becomes recognised as the man blessed by God. V. 13. ויגדל האיש, not ויגדל, also not ויגדל יצחק but quite from the point of view of the Philistines. The man became too great for them, and thereby excited not only their envy but their jealousy. In the same way as is later recorded of the feelings of Laban’s sons towards Jacob: ויפרץ האיש (Ch. 30,43) V. 14. ויקנאו אתו, not ויקנאו בו as is usual. קנה to acquire something and possess it as one’s property, from which we get מקנָה sale, and מקנֵה property, possession. — קַנֵא to justify one’s property, to demand something as belonging to oneself. Hence to claim something from somebody else as really belonging to oneself, to be jealous of somebody having something that should be yours. קנא את to demand the person, to enforce his right to the person, thus וקנא את אשתו, he warns his wife against infidelity. So here too: ויקנאו אתו, not they envied him on account of his riches, at a time like that his being blessed was at bottom a blessing for them all, but they felt themselves injured by the position and respect which he received through his riches, the קנאה was directed more to the man than to his riches.’
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