Chapter 26

¹There was a famine in the land, besides the first famine that was in the days of Abraham. Isaac went to Abimelech king of the Philistines, to Gerar. ²Yahweh appeared to him, and said, “Don’t go down into Egypt. Live in the land I will tell you about. ³Sojourn in this land, and I will be with you, and will bless you. For to you, and to your seed, I will give all these lands, and I will establish the oath which I swore to Abraham your father. ⁴I will multiply your seed as the stars of the sky, and will give to your seed all these lands. In your seed will all the nations of the earth be blessed, ⁵because Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.”

⁶Isaac lived in Gerar. ⁷The men of the place asked him about his wife. He said, “She is my sister,” for he was afraid to say, “My wife,” lest, he thought, “the men of the place might kill me for Rebekah, because she is beautiful to look at.” ⁸It happened, when he had been there a long time, that Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out at a window, and saw, and, behold, Isaac was caressing Rebekah, his wife. ⁹Abimelech called Isaac, and said, “Behold, surely she is your wife. Why did you say, ‘She is my sister?’”

Isaac said to him, “Because I said, ‘Lest I die because of her.’”

¹⁰Abimelech 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 on us!”

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

¹²Isaac sowed in that land, and reaped in the same year one hundred times what he planted. Yahweh blessed him. ¹³The man grew great, and grew more and more until he became very great. ¹⁴He had possessions of flocks, possessions of herds, and a great household. The Philistines envied him. ¹⁵Now all the wells which his father’s servants had dug in the days of Abraham his father, the Philistines had stopped, and filled with earth. ¹⁶Abimelech said to Isaac, “Go from us, for you are much mightier than we.”

¹⁷Isaac departed from there, encamped in the valley of Gerar, and lived there.

¹⁸Isaac dug again the wells of water, which they had dug in the days of Abraham his father. For the Philistines had stopped them after the death of Abraham. He called their names after the names by which his father had called them. ¹⁹Isaac’s servants dug in the valley, and found there a well of springing water. ²⁰The herdsmen of Gerar argued with Isaac’s herdsmen, saying, “The water is ours.” He called the name of the well Esek, because they contended with him. ²¹They dug another well, and they argued over that, also. He called the name of it Sitnah. ²²He left that place, and dug another well. They didn’t argue over that one. He called it Rehoboth. He said, “For now Yahweh has made room for us, and we will be fruitful in the land.”

²³He went up from there to Beersheba. ²⁴Yahweh appeared to him the same night, and said, “I am the God of Abraham your father. Don’t be afraid, for I am with you, and will bless you, and multiply your seed for my servant Abraham’s sake.”

²⁵He built an altar there, and called on the name of Yahweh, and pitched his tent there. There Isaac’s servants dug a well.

²⁶Then Abimelech went to him from Gerar, and Ahuzzath his friend, and Phicol the captain of his army. ²⁷Isaac said to them, “Why have you come to me, since you hate me, and have sent me away from you?”

²⁸They said, “We saw plainly that Yahweh was with you. We said, ‘Let there now be an oath between us, even between us and you, and let us make a covenant with you, ²⁹that you will do us no harm, as we have not touched you, and as we have done to you nothing but good, and have sent you away in peace.’ You are now the blessed of Yahweh.”

³⁰He made them a feast, and they ate and drank. ³¹They rose up some time in the morning, and swore one to another. Isaac sent them away, and they departed from him in peace. ³²It happened the same day, that Isaac’s servants came, and told him concerning the well which they had dug, and said to him, “We have found water.” ³³He called it Shibah.¹¹¹¹Shibah means “oath” or “seven.” Therefore the name of the city is Beersheba¹²¹²Beersheba means “well of the oath” or “well of the seven” to this day.

³⁴When Esau was forty years old, he took as wife Judith, the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Basemath, the daughter of Elon the Hittite. ³⁵They grieved Isaac’s and Rebekah’s spirits.