Genesis 26

¹Now 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 .

²And the Lord appeared to him and said , Do not go down to Egypt ; dwell in the land of which I shall tell you.

³Sojourn 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 .

⁴I 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 ,

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 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 .

⁸When 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 .

⁹So 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.

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 upon us.

¹¹So Abimelech warned all the people , saying , Whoever touches this man or his wife shall surely be put to death .

¹²And Isaac sowed in that land and reaped in the same year a hundredfold . The Lord blessed him,

¹³and the man became rich , and gained more and more until he became very wealthy .

¹⁴He had possessions of flocks and herds and many servants , so that the Philistines envied him.

¹⁵(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 .)

¹⁶And Abimelech said to Isaac , Go away from us, for you are much mightier than we.

¹⁷So Isaac departed from there and encamped in the Valley of Gerar and settled there .

¹⁸And 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 .

¹⁹But when Isaac’s servants dug in the valley and found there a well of spring water ,

²⁰the 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.

²¹Then they dug another well , and they quarreled over that also , so he called its name Sitnah .

²²And 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 .

²³From there he went up to Beersheba .

²⁴And 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 .

²⁵So 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 .

²⁶When Abimelech went 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, seeing that you hate me and have sent me away from you?

²⁸They 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,

²⁹that 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.

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

³¹In the morning they rose early and exchanged oaths . And Isaac sent them on their way, and they departed from him in peace .

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

³³He called it Shibah ; therefore the name of the city is Beersheba to this day .

³⁴When 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 ,

³⁵and they made life bitter for Isaac and Rebekah .