A Tamarisk at Beersheba
Is there a kindness in your life you hope will outlast you? What would it mean for a promise you make today to still be shaping lives two generations from now?
“Now, therefore, swear to me here by God that you will not deal falsely with me, nor with my son, nor with my son’s son. But according to the kindness that I have done to you, you shall do to me, and to the land in which you have lived as a foreigner.”Genesis 21:23
Abimelech, king of Gerar, comes to Abraham with Phicol, the commander of his army. He has watched Abraham long enough to say, 'God is with you in all that you do' (21:22). Their history is complicated. Only a chapter earlier, Abraham had lied about Sarah, and Abimelech, after God warned him in a dream, had given her back and told Abraham, 'My land is before you. Dwell where it pleases you' (20:15). Now the king asks for an oath: don't deal falsely with me, my son or my grandson, but 'according to the kindness that I have done to you, you shall do to me.' The word for kindness is hesed, the loyal, covenant-keeping love the World English Bible often calls 'loving kindness.' It isn't a passing favor. It is faithfulness inside a relationship, love that keeps its word. What stands out here is who says it. A Philistine king speaks of hesed to the man of promise, and asks him to give back what he first received.
Abraham swears, and then he raises a grievance. Abimelech's servants had seized a well Abraham dug. In the dry Negev a well meant life: water for the flocks and a reason to stay. Abraham sets apart seven ewe lambs as a witness that the well is his, and the place is named Beersheba. The Hebrew words for 'seven' and 'swear' sound alike, so the name is read as 'well of the oath' or 'well of seven.' Then Abraham does something quiet. He plants a tamarisk tree and calls on the name of the LORD, the Everlasting God, El Olam (21:33). A tamarisk is a hardy desert tree. You don't plant one for this afternoon. You plant it for the people who will sit in its shade after you. Notice the contrast. Human hesed needed an oath, seven lambs and a named well, and even then it reached only to a son and a grandson. Under that tree Abraham names a God whose faithfulness has no last generation.
We live among neighbors we barely know, and most of our agreements come with exit clauses: leases, contracts, terms of service we scroll past. Kindness that deliberately reaches across generations has become rare. And yet nearly all of us drink from wells someone else dug. A grandmother who prayed for you by name. A church that kept its lights on through lean years. A neighbor who plowed your driveway before you were even awake. Abimelech was honest enough to know that kindness between people is fragile, so he asked for it to be bound by oath. Abraham's tamarisk says something deeper. The promises we keep to one another are small wells, and they hold water only because underneath them runs the steadfast love of an Everlasting God who never runs out of years.
Whose kindness are you living on today, a well someone else dug for you? Write about them, and then sit with this question: what are you planting now whose shade you may never sit under?
Everlasting God, you were faithful before I was born, and you will be faithful long after I am gone. Thank you for the wells others dug and for kindness I did nothing to earn. Make my word trustworthy among my neighbors, rooted in your steadfast love and not in my own strength. Let something I plant today give shade to someone I will never meet. Amen.