Fluent Translation · Read & Reflect
Genesis 26
Isaac in Gerar
Another famine came over the land, apart from the earlier famine in Abraham’s time. Isaac went to Gerar, to Abimelech, king of the Philistines. The LORD appeared to Isaac and said, “Do not go down to Egypt. Stay in the land I tell you to live in. Live in this land as a stranger, and I will be with you and bless you. I will give all these lands to you and your descendants, and fulfill the oath I swore to your father Abraham. I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars of the heavens and give them all these lands. Through your descendants all the nations of the earth will find blessing, because Abraham listened to my voice and kept what I entrusted to him: my commands, my statutes, and my instructions.”
Isaac stayed in Gerar.
When the men there asked about his wife, Isaac said, “She is my sister.” He was afraid to say, “My wife.” “The men here might kill me because of Rebekah,” he thought—she was beautiful.
After Isaac had been there a long time, Abimelech, king of the Philistines, looked out a window and saw Isaac caressing his wife Rebekah.
Abimelech summoned Isaac. “She is your wife!” he said. “How could you say, ‘She is my sister’?” Isaac answered, “I thought I might be killed because of her.”
“What have you done to us?” Abimelech said. “Someone here could easily have slept with your wife. You would have brought guilt on us!”
Abimelech ordered all the people, “Anyone who touches this man or his wife must be put to death.”
Fields and Wells
Isaac sowed crops in that land and harvested a hundredfold that same year. The LORD blessed him, and his wealth grew and grew until he was very rich.
He owned flocks and herds and had a large household of servants. The Philistines envied him. The Philistines had stopped up all the wells his father’s servants had dug in the days of his father Abraham, filling them with earth.
Abimelech told Isaac, “Leave us. You have become far too powerful for us.”
Isaac left and camped in the valley of Gerar. He made his home there. He reopened the wells dug in the days of his father Abraham, which the Philistines had stopped up after Abraham’s death. He gave the wells the same names his father had given them.
Isaac’s servants dug in the valley and found a well of fresh, flowing water.
The herders of Gerar argued with Isaac’s herders. “The water belongs to us!” they said. Isaac named the well Esek because they disputed it with him.
They dug another well, but there was an argument over that one too. Isaac named it Sitnah.
He moved on and dug another well, and no one argued over it. He named it Rehoboth, saying, “Now the LORD has made room for us, and we will be fruitful in the land.”
The Promise at Beersheba
From there he went up to Beersheba. That night the LORD 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 descendants for the sake of my servant Abraham.”
Isaac built an altar there and called on the name of the LORD. He pitched his tent there, and his servants dug a well.
An Oath with Abimelech
Abimelech came to him from Gerar with Ahuzzath, his adviser, and Phicol, the commander of his army.
Isaac asked them, “Why have you come to me? You hated me and drove me away.”
They answered, “We have seen clearly that the LORD has been with you. So we said, ‘Let an oath bind us, you and us.’ Let us make a covenant with you: you must do us no harm, just as we did not touch you. We did you only good and sent you away in peace. Now you are blessed by the LORD.”
Isaac prepared a feast for them, and they ate and drank.
Early the next morning they swore an oath to one another. Isaac sent them on their way, and they left him in peace.
That same day Isaac’s servants came and told him about the well they had dug. “We have found water!” they said.
He named it Shibah. That is why the city is called Beersheba to this day.
Esau’s Marriages
When Esau was forty years old, he married Judith, daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Basemath, daughter of Elon the Hittite. They brought bitterness to Isaac and Rebekah.