Genesis 26

¹ There was a famine in the land – a second one after the famine which took place in the time of Abraham – and Isaac went to Abimilech, the Philistine king at Gerar.

² Yahweh appeared to him and said, ‘Do not go down into Egypt; stay in the land I shall tell you of.

³ Remain for the present here in this land, and I will be with you and bless you. For it is to you and your descendants that I will give all these lands, and I will fulfil the oath I swore to your father Abraham.

⁴ I will make your descendants as many as the stars of heaven, and I will give them all these lands; and all the nations in the world shall bless themselves by your descendants

⁵ in return for Abraham’s obedience; for he kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes and my laws.’

⁶ So Isaac stayed at Gerar.

⁷ When the people of the place asked him about his wife he replied, ‘She is my sister’, for he was afraid to say, ‘She is my wife’, in case they killed him on Rebekah’s account, for she was beautiful.

⁸ When he had been there some time, Abimelech the Philistine king happened to look out of the window and saw Isaac fondling his wife Rebekah.

⁹ Abimelech summoned Isaac and said to him, ‘Surely she must be your wife! How could you say she was your sister?’ Isaac answered him, ‘Because I thought I might be killed on her account’.

¹⁰ Abimelech said, ‘What is this you have done to us? One of my subjects might easily have slept with your wife, and then you would have made us incur guilt.’

¹¹ Then Abimelech issued this order to all the people: ‘Whoever touches this man or his wife shall be put to death’.

¹² Isaac sowed his crops in that land, and that year he reaped a hundredfold. Yahweh blessed him

¹³ and the man became rich; he prospered more and more until he was very rich indeed.

¹⁴ He had flocks and herds and many servants. The Philistines began to envy him.

¹⁵ The Philistines had sealed all the wells dug by his father’s servants, filling them with earth. These had existed from the time of his father Abraham.

¹⁶ Abimelech said to Isaac, ‘Leave us, for you have become much more powerful than we are.’

¹⁷ So Isaac left; he pitched camp in the Valley of Gerar and there he stayed.

¹⁸ Isaac dug again the wells made by the servants of his father Abraham and sealed by the Philistines after Abraham’s death, and he gave them the same names as his father had given them.

¹⁹ Isaac’s servants dug in the valley and found a well of spring-water

²⁰ But the shepherds of Gerar quarrelled with Isaac’s shepherds, saying, ‘That water is ours!’ So Isaac named the well Esek, because they had quarrelled with him.

²¹ They dug another well, and there was a quarrel about that one too; so he named it Sitnah.

²² Then he left there, and dug another well, and since there was no quarrel about this one, he named it Rehoboth, saying, ‘Now Yahweh has made room for us, so that we may thrive in the land’.[*a]

²³ From here he went up to Beersheba.

²⁴ Yahweh appeared to him that night and said: ‘I am the God of your father Abraham. Do not be afraid, for I am with you. I will bless you and make your descendants many in number on account of my servant Abraham.’

²⁵ There be built an altar and invoked the name of Yahweh. There he pitched his tent, and there Isaac’s servants sank a well.

²⁶ Abimelech came from Gerar to see him, with his adviser Ahuzzath and the commander of his army, Phicol.

²⁷ Isaac said to them, ‘Why do you come to me since you hate me, and have made me leave you?’

²⁸ ‘It became clear to us that Yahweh was with you:’ they replied ‘and so we said, “Let there be a sworn treaty between ourselves and you, and let us make a covenant with you”.

²⁹ Swear not to do us any harm, since we never molested you but were unfailingly kind to you and let you go away in peace. Now you have Yahweh’s blessing.’

³⁰ He then made them a feast and they ate and drank.

³¹ Rising early in the morning, they exchanged oaths. Then Isaac bade them farewell and they went from him in peace.

³² ‘Now it was on the same day that Isaac’s servants brought him news of the well they had dug. ‘We have found water!’ they said to him,

³³ So he called the well Sheba, and hence the town is named Beersheba to this way.

³⁴ When Esau was forty years old he married Judith, the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Basemach, the daughter of Elon the Hittite.

³⁵ These were a bitter disappointment to Isaac and Rebekah.