Now there was a famine in the land, besides the former famine
that was in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went to Gerar to
Abimelech king of the Philistines. And the LORD appeared to him and
said, “Do not go down to Egypt; dwell in the land of which I shall
tell you. Sojourn in this land, and I will be with you and will
bless you, for to you and to your offspring I will give all these
lands, and I will establish the oath that I swore to Abraham your
father. I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and
will give to your offspring all these lands. And in your offspring
all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because Abraham
obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes,
and my laws.”
So Isaac settled in Gerar. When the men of the place asked him
about his wife, he said, “She is my sister,” for he feared to say,
“My wife,” thinking, “lest the men of the place should kill me
because of Rebekah,” because she was attractive in appearance. When
he had been there a long time, Abimelech king of the Philistines
looked out of a window and saw Isaac laughing with Rebekah his
wife. So Abimelech called Isaac and said, “Behold, she is your
wife. How then could you say, ‘She is my sister’?” Isaac said to
him, “Because I thought, ‘Lest I die because of her.’” Abimelech
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
upon us.” So Abimelech warned all the people, saying, “Whoever
touches this man or his wife shall surely be put to death.”
And Isaac sowed in that land and reaped in the same year a
hundredfold. The LORD blessed him, and the man became rich, and
gained more and more until he became very wealthy. He had
possessions of flocks and herds and many servants, so that the
Philistines envied him. (Now the Philistines had stopped and filled
with earth all the wells that his father's servants had dug in the
days of Abraham his father.) And Abimelech said to Isaac, “Go away
from us, for you are much mightier than we.”
So Isaac departed from there and encamped in the Valley of Gerar
and settled there. And Isaac dug again the wells of water that had
been dug in the days of Abraham his father, which the Philistines
had stopped after the death of Abraham. And he gave them the names
that his father had given them. But when Isaac's servants dug in
the valley and found there a well of spring water, the herdsmen of
Gerar quarreled with Isaac's herdsmen, saying, “The water is ours.”
So he called the name of the well Esek, because they contended with
him. Then they dug another well, and they quarreled over that also,
so he called its name Sitnah. And he moved from there and dug
another well, and they did not quarrel over it. So he called its
name Rehoboth, saying, “For now the LORD has made room for us, and
we shall be fruitful in the land.”
From there he went up to Beersheba. And the LORD appeared to him
the same night and said, “I am the God of Abraham your father. Fear
not, for I am with you and will bless you and multiply your
offspring for my servant Abraham's sake.” So he built an altar
there and called upon the name of the LORD and pitched his tent
there. And there Isaac's servants dug a well.
When Abimelech went to him from Gerar with Ahuzzath his adviser
and Phicol the commander of his army, Isaac said to them, “Why have
you come to me, seeing that you hate me and have sent me away from
you?” They said, “We see plainly that the LORD has been with you.
So we said, let there be a sworn pact between us, between you and
us, and let us make a covenant with you, that you will do us no
harm, just as we have not touched you and have done to you nothing
but good and have sent you away in peace. You are now the blessed
of the LORD.” So he made them a feast, and they ate and drank. In
the morning they rose early and exchanged oaths. And Isaac sent
them on their way, and they departed from him in peace. That same
day Isaac's servants came and told him about the well that they had
dug and said to him, “We have found water.” He called it Shibah;
therefore the name of the city is Beersheba to this day.
When Esau was forty years old, he took Judith the daughter of
Beeri the Hittite to be his wife, and Basemath the daughter of Elon
the Hittite, and they made life bitter for Isaac and Rebekah.
