Chapter 26

Isaac Settles in Gerar

1 Now there was aa famine in the land, besides the previous famine that had occurred in the days of Abraham. So Isaac went to Gerar, to bAbimelech king of the Philistines.

2 The Lord aappeared to him and said, “Do not go down to Egypt; 1bstay in the land of which I shall tell you.

3 “Sojourn in this land and aI will be with you and bbless you, for cto you and to your 1descendants I will give all these lands, and I will establish dthe oath which I swore to your father Abraham.

4 “aI will multiply your 1descendants as the stars of heaven, and will give your 1descendants all these lands; and bby your 1descendants all the nations of the earth 2shall be blessed;

5 because Abraham 1aobeyed Me and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes and My laws.”

6 So Isaac 1lived in Gerar.

7 When the men of the place asked about his wife, he said, “aShe is my sister,” for he was bafraid to say, “my wife,” thinking, “1the men of the place might kill me on account of Rebekah, for she is cbeautiful.”

8 It came about, when he had been there a long time, that Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out through a window, and saw, and behold, Isaac was caressing his wife Rebekah.

9 Then Abimelech called Isaac and said, “Behold, certainly she is your wife! How then did you say, ‘She is my sister’?” And Isaac said to him, “Because I said, ‘I might die on account of her.’ ”

10 aAbimelech said, “What is this you have done to us? One of the people might easily have lain with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us.”

11 So Abimelech charged all the people, saying, “He who atouches this man or his wife shall surely be put to death.”

12 Now Isaac sowed in that land and 1reaped in the same year a hundredfold. And athe Lord blessed him,

13 and the man abecame rich, and continued to grow 1richer until he became very 1wealthy;

14 for ahe had possessions of flocks 1and herds and a great household, so that the Philistines envied him.

15 Now aall the wells which his father’s servants had dug in the days of Abraham his father, the Philistines stopped up 1by filling them with earth.

16 Then Abimelech said to Isaac, “Go away from us, for you are 1atoo powerful for us.”

17 And Isaac departed from there and camped in the valley of Gerar, and 1settled there.

Quarrel over the Wells

18 Then Isaac dug again the wells of water which 1had been dug in the days of his father Abraham, for the Philistines had stopped them up after the death of Abraham; and he 2gave them the same names which his father had 3given them.

19 But when Isaac’s servants dug in the valley and found there a well of 1flowing water,

20 the herdsmen of Gerar aquarreled with the herdsmen of Isaac, saying, “The water is ours!” So he named the well 1Esek, because they contended with him.

21 Then they dug another well, and they quarreled over it too, so he named it 1Sitnah.

22 He moved away from there and dug another well, and they did not quarrel over it; so he named it 1Rehoboth, for he said, “2aAt last the Lord has made 3room for us, and we will be bfruitful in the land.”

23 Then he went up from there to aBeersheba.

24 The Lord aappeared to him the same night and said,

“bI am the God of your father Abraham;

cDo not fear, for I am with you.

I dwill bless you, and multiply your 1descendants,

For the sake of My servant Abraham.”

25 So he built an aaltar there and called upon the name of the Lord, and pitched his tent there; and there Isaac’s servants dug a well.

Covenant with Abimelech

26 Then aAbimelech came to him from Gerar 1with his adviser Ahuzzath and Phicol the commander of his army.

27 Isaac said to them, “aWhy have you come to me, since you hate me and have sent me away from you?”

28 They said, “We see plainly athat the Lord has been with you; so we said, ‘Let there now be an oath between us, even between 1you and us, and let us make a covenant with you,

29 that you will do us no harm, just as we have not touched you 1and have done to you nothing but good and have sent you away in peace. You are now the ablessed of the Lord.’ ”

30 Then ahe made them a feast, and they ate and drank.

31 In the morning they arose early and 1aexchanged oaths; then Isaac sent them away and they departed from him in peace.

32 Now it came about on the same day, that Isaac’s servants came in and told him about the well which they had dug, and said to him, “We have found water.”

33 So he called it Shibah; therefore the name of the city is aBeersheba to this day.

34 When Esau was forty years old ahe 1married Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Basemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite;

35 and athey 1brought grief to Isaac and Rebekah.