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Genesis 26:1-35 — Isaac and Abimelech

Gen.26.1-35

¹Now there was a famine in the land, besides the first famine that was in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went to Abimelech king of the Philistines, to Gerar. ²And Yahweh 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 I 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 about his wife, he said, “She is my sister,” for he was afraid to say, “My wife,” thinking, “lest the men of the place kill me on account of Rebekah, because she is beautiful in appearance.” ⁸When he had been there a long time, Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out through a window and saw, and behold, Isaac was caressing Rebekah his wife. ⁹So Abimelech called Isaac and said, “Behold, she is surely your wife! How then could you say, 'She is my sister'?” And Isaac said to him, “Because I thought, 'Lest I die on account 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 commanded 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. And Yahweh blessed him, ¹³and the man became great, and continued to grow greater until he became very great. ¹⁴He had possessions of flocks and possessions of herds and a great household, so that the Philistines envied him. ¹⁵Now all the wells that his father's servants had dug in the days of Abraham his father, the Philistines had stopped up and filled with earth. 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 water wells that had been dug in the days of Abraham his father, which the Philistines had stopped up after the death of Abraham. And he gave them names like the names that his father had given them. ¹⁹But when Isaac's servants dug in the valley and found there a well of flowing 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 Yahweh has made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land.” ²³From there he went up to Beersheba. ²⁴And Yahweh appeared to him the same night and said, “I am the God of Abraham your father. Do not be afraid, for I am with you and will bless you and multiply your offspring for the sake of my servant Abraham.” ²⁵So he built an altar there and called upon the name of Yahweh and pitched his tent there. And there Isaac's servants dug a well. ²⁶Then 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 Yahweh has been with you. So we said, 'Let there now be an oath between us, between us and you, and let us make a covenant with you, ²⁹that you will do us no harm, just as we have not touched you and just as we have done to you nothing but good and have sent you away in peace. You are now the blessed of Yahweh.'" ³⁰So he made them a feast, and they ate and drank. ³¹They rose early in the morning and swore an oath to one another. Then Isaac sent them away, 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 as wives Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Basemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite. ³⁵And they were a bitterness of spirit to Isaac and to Rebekah.

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4/11/2026

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