Genesis 26

1There was a famine in the land, besides the earlier famine that had happened 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. Live in the land I will tell you about.

3Stay as a foreigner in this land, and I will be with you and bless you. For to you and to your offspring I will give all these lands, and I will confirm the oath I swore to your father Abraham.

4I will make your offspring as many as the stars in the sky and will give your offspring all these lands, and through your offspring all the nations of the earth will be blessed,

5because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my requirements, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.”

6So Isaac stayed in Gerar.

7When the men of the place asked about his wife, he said, “She is my sister,” because he was afraid to say, “My wife.” He thought, “The men of the place might kill me because of Rebekah, since she is beautiful.”

8When he had been there a long time, Abimelech king of the Philistines looked down through a window and saw Isaac caressing his wife Rebekah.

9So Abimelech called for Isaac and said, “So she is really your wife! How could you say, ‘She is my sister’?” Isaac said to him, “Because I thought I might die because of her.”

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

11So Abimelech gave orders to all the people: “Whoever touches this man or his wife will surely be put to death.”

12Isaac planted crops in that land, and in that year he reaped a hundred times what he sowed. Yahweh blessed him.

13The man became rich, and he kept growing richer until he was very wealthy.

14He had flocks and herds and a great household of servants, so that the Philistines envied him.

15Now the Philistines had stopped up all the wells that his father’s servants had dug in the time of his father Abraham, filling them with dirt.

16Then Abimelech said to Isaac, “Go away from us, because you have become much too powerful for us.”

17So Isaac left there, camped in the Valley of Gerar, and settled there.

18Isaac dug again the wells of water that had been dug in the time of his father Abraham, which the Philistines had stopped up after Abraham’s death, and he gave them the same names his father had given them.

19Isaac’s servants dug in the valley and found a well of fresh running water there.

20But the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with Isaac’s herdsmen and said, “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, and they did not quarrel over it. He named it Rehoboth, saying, “Now Yahweh has made room for us, and we will be fruitful in the land.”

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 offspring for the sake of my servant Abraham.”

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

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

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

28They said, “We have seen plainly that Yahweh has been with you. So we said, ‘Let there be an oath between us, between us and you. Let us make a covenant with you

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

30So Isaac made a feast for them, and they ate and drank.

31Early in the morning they got up and swore an oath to each other. Then Isaac sent them on their way, and they left him in peace.

32That same day Isaac’s servants came and told him about the well they had dug. They said to him, “We have found water!”

33He named it Shibah; that is why the name of the city is Beersheba to this day.

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

35They made life bitter for Isaac and Rebekah.