Genesis 26:1-35

26  And there came a famine in the country, besides the first famine in Abraham’s time; and Isaac went to Gerar to King Abimelec of Philistia. 2  And Jehovah appeared to him and said “Do not go down to Egypt; live in the country I tell you to; 3  live in an immigrant’s condition in this country, and I will be with you and bless you, because to you and your descendants I will give all these countries and make good the oath I swore to your father Abraham. 4  And I will make your descendants numerous as the stars in the sky, and give your descendants all these countries, and all the nations of the earth shall bless by your descendants, 5  because Abraham obeyed me and kept my charge, my commands, rules, and instructions”; 6  and Isaac lived in Gerar. 7  And the men of the place asked about his wife, and he said “She is my sister,” because he was afraid to say wife “for fear the men of the place should kill me on Rebekah’s account because she is so handsome.” 8  But when he had been there a good while King Abimelec of Philistia looked out at a window and saw that Isaac was amusing himself with his wife Rebekah; 9  and Abimelec called Isaac and said “Why, it must be she is your wife; and how was it you said ‘She is my sister?’” And Isaac said to him “Because I thought I might come to my death on her account.” 10  And Abimelec said “What does this mean that you have done to us? one of the people might have lain with your wife, and you would have brought guilt on us”; 11  and Abimelec gave all his people the order “Whoever touches this man and his wife must die.” 12  And Isaac sowed in that country, and got a hundredfold in that year; and Jehovah blessed him, 13  and the man grew wealthy, and wealthier and wealthier, till he was very wealthy indeed. 14  And he had property in flocks and herds, and a great body of slaves; and the Philistines were jealous of him, 15  and all the wells that his father’s servants had dug in the time of his father Abraham the Philistines choked and filled up with earth. 16  And Abimelec said to Isaac “Go away from us, because you are too much for us.” 17  And Isaac went from there and made a camp in Gerar Arroyo and lived there; 18  and Isaac dug over again the wells of water which they had dug in the time of his father Abraham and which the Philistines had choked after Abraham’s death, and named them after the names his father had called them by. 19  And Isaac’s servants dug in the arroyo and found a flowing well there; 20 * and the Gerarite herders disputed with Isaac’s herders, saying the water was theirs; and he named the well ʽEsek because they had kept him in trouble. 21  And they dug another well, and they disputed over that also; and he named it Sitnah [Antagonism]. 22  And he moved on from there and dug another well, and they did not dispute over it; and he named it Rehoboth and said “Because now Jehovah has made room for us and we shall increase in the country.” 23  And he went up from there to Beer-Shebaʽ; 24  and Jehovah appeared to him that night and said “I am your father Abraham’s God; do not be afraid, because I am with you and will bless you and make your descendants numerous for the sake of my servant Abraham,” 25  and he built an altar there and invoked Jehovah’s name, and pitched his tent there, and Isaac’s servants dug for a well. 26  And Abimelec went to him from Gerar, and his friend Ahuzzath and his general Picol; 27  and Isaac said to them “How is it you have come to me, when you hate me and sent me out of your company?” 28  And they said “We have seen that Jehovah was with you, and we thought ‘Let there be an adjuration between us, between us and you, and let us make a treaty with you 29  that you will do nothing bad by us, as we did not touch you and as we did nothing but good by you and sent you off in peace’; you now are blessed of Jehovah.” 30  And he made a banquet for them, and they ate and drank; 31  and the first thing in the morning they swore each to each, and Isaac sent them off, and they went from him in peace. 32  And that day Isaac’s servants came and reported to him as to the well they had dug, and told him “We have found water,” 33  and he called it Shibʽah; that is why the name of the city is Beer-Shebaʽ to this day. 34 * And when ʽEsau was forty years old he married Jehudith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite and Basemath the daughter of Elon the Hivvite, 35  and they were a bitter grief to Isaac and Rebekah.

Footnotes

26:20 Conj. ʽEsek because they had kept wronging him
26:34 (Hivvite) Var. Hittite