Genesis 26

Isaac and Abimelech at Gerar

1There was a famine in the land, besides the earlier famine that had come in Abraham’s time, and Isaac went to Abimelech, king of the Philistines, at Gerar. 2Yahweh appeared to him and said, “Do not go down to Egypt. Stay in the land that I show you. 3Live here as a foreigner, and I will be with you and bless you. I will give all these lands to you and your descendants, and I will keep the oath I swore to your father Abraham. 4I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky, and I will give them all these lands, and through your descendants all the nations of the earth will bless themselves — 5because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge: my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.” 6So Isaac settled in Gerar. 7When the men of that place asked about his wife, he said, “She is my sister.” He was afraid to say “my wife,” thinking the men there might kill him because of Rebekah — she was beautiful. 8After he had been there a long time, Abimelech, king of the Philistines, looked out of a window and saw Isaac caressing his wife Rebekah. 9Abimelech summoned Isaac and said, “So she is really your wife! How could you say, ‘She is my sister’?” Isaac answered, “Because I thought I might be killed on account of her.” 10Abimelech said, “What have you done to us? One of the people might easily have slept with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us.” 11So Abimelech warned all the people: “Whoever touches this man or his wife will be put to death.”

The Wells of Gerar

12Isaac planted crops in that land, and that year he reaped a hundredfold, because Yahweh blessed him. 13The man grew rich, and kept growing richer until he became very wealthy. 14He had so many flocks and herds and so many servants that the Philistines began to envy him. 15So the Philistines stopped up all the wells that his father’s servants had dug in the days of his father Abraham, filling them with dirt. 16Abimelech said to Isaac, “Go away from us — you have become far too powerful for us.” 17So Isaac left there and camped in the valley of Gerar, and settled there. 18Isaac reopened the wells that had been dug in the days of his father Abraham, which the Philistines had stopped up after Abraham died, and he gave them the same names his father had given them. 19Isaac’s servants dug in the valley and found there a well of fresh spring water. 20But the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with Isaac’s herdsmen, saying, “The water is ours.” So he named the well Esek, because they had disputed with him. 21Then they dug another well, and they quarreled over that one too, so he named it Sitnah. 22He moved on from there and dug another well. This time no one quarreled over it, so he named it Rehoboth, saying, “Now Yahweh has made room for us, and we will be fruitful in the land.”

The Covenant at Beersheba

23From there he went up to Beersheba. 24That night Yahweh appeared to him and said, “I am the God of your father Abraham. Do not be afraid, for I am with you. I will bless you and multiply your descendants, for the sake of my servant Abraham.” 25So he built an altar there and called on the name of Yahweh. He pitched his tent there, and Isaac’s servants dug a well there too. 26Then Abimelech came to him from Gerar, with Ahuzzath his advisor and Phicol, the commander of his army. 27Isaac said to them, “Why have you come to me? You hate me, and you sent me away from you.” 28They said, “We have clearly seen that Yahweh is with you, so we said, let there be an oath between us — between us and you — and let us make a treaty with you: 29that you will do us no harm, just as we have not touched you, and just as we have done nothing but good to you, sending you away in peace. You are now blessed by Yahweh.” 30So he prepared a feast for them, and they ate and drank. 31Early the next morning they exchanged oaths with one another. Then Isaac sent them off, and they left him in peace. 32That same day Isaac’s servants came and told him about the well they had dug. “We have found water!” they said. 33He named it Shebah, and that is why the city is called Beersheba to this day.

Esau’s Hittite Wives

34When Esau was forty years old, he married Judith, daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Basemath, daughter of Elon the Hittite. 35They brought Isaac and Rebekah nothing but grief.