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“So, Abraham brought sheep and cattle and gave them to Abimelek, and the two men made a treaty”. 

(Genesis 21: 27)

We are told in this verse they made a covenant to live in peace. We're going to make a covenant we're going to live together in the same part of the land. One of the principles of maintaining peace is if you want to prevent conflict then there needs to be a clear cut arrangement between people. There are many occasions when someone gets into a business relationship, it could be two friends who doing something together and because they don't spell out at the beginning who's going to do what and who owns what there can be great conflict. The greater the detail of the agreement the less likely there is to be conflict. The fewer the details in the arrangement the more likely it is that there's going to be tension so lay it all out.

Illustration - Church renting to local theatre group and local college.

Assumptions were made that were never spelled out in the beginning. One of the things I learned is that situations came up and I wasn't involved in either one of those cases of making the arrangement from the beginning I inherited the situation and because it wasn't spelled out then there were all kinds of problems later. If they could just simply spell out an agreement same thing happens. I learned somebody back then, make a contract and spell things out. Then it says in next

Abraham set apart seven ewe lambs from the flock, and Abimelek asked Abraham, “What is the meaning of these seven ewe lambs you have set apart by themselves?”

(Genesis 21: 28-29)

What in the world does that mean, well verse 30 explains it?

 He replied, “Accept these seven lambs from my hand as a witness that I dug this well.”So that place was called Beersheba, because the two men swore an oath there.

(Genesis 21: 30-31)

Today we put things down on paper . They are going to settle all this so that they don't have any more conflicts.

32 After the treaty had been made at Beersheba, Abimelek and Phicol the commander of his forces returned to the land of the Philistines. 33 Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba, and there he called on the name of the Lord, the Eternal God. 34 And Abraham stayed in the land of the Philistines for a long time.

(Genesis 21: 32-34)

That tree by the way is symbolic of the fact that the Lord the everlasting God is going to give us this land as an everlasting property to Abraham and his family, because in that day a tamarisk tree was seen as an everlasting thing. By the end of this chapter we see that Abraham has taken up residence in the land,  and the first thing he does is he plants an Evergreen tree as symbolic of God giving him the land. This is the time he finally gets to the point of legally owning the land. He now has legal rights to it this, God gave it to him way back in chapter 12 and he's been sojourning there as a visitor, but this is the first time he actually gets a portion of land legally so to speak. Promised first then ratified by God now finally ratified in the civilian legal process of the time. Verse thirty-four says, “and Abraham stayed in the land of the philistines many days”. I want you to notice is the author is taking pains to point out that this was the land of the philistines, he mentions it twice. In this passage he mentions it in verse 32 and he mentions it in again in verse 34. In other words, I believe, he plants a tree that's an Evergreen tree symbolically saying this land is ours and he plants a tree as a symbolic act to act a sign to the local tribal leaders that this land was now his. It also tells us when he did it he “called upon the name of the Lord”. That sounds like it's prayer but many Bible teachers say that's true but it probably includes a proclamation, that he is calling on the Lord and claiming the land but the real point is he's for the first time he's got a legal right to own a portion of the land, a place where there is a well, and that he's now going to live there permanently. He doesn’t own the whole region yet but he's trusting the Lord to give to him what the Lord said.