God's Promise to Isaac

26 Now there was a famine in the land, besides ^(A)the former famine that was in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went to Gerar to ^(B)Abimelech king of the ^(C)Philistines. ² And the Lord appeared to him and said, “Do not go down to Egypt; dwell ^(D)in the land of which I shall tell you. ^3 (E)Sojourn in this land, and ^(F)I will be with you and will bless you, for ^(G)to you and to your offspring I will give all these lands, and I will establish ^(H)the oath that I swore to Abraham your father. ^4 (I)I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and will give to your offspring all these lands. And ^(J)in your offspring all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, ⁵ because ^(K)Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.”

Isaac and Abimelech

⁶ So Isaac settled in Gerar. ⁷ When the men of the place asked him about his wife, ^(L)he said, “She is my sister,” for ^(M)he feared to say, “My wife,” thinking, “lest the men of the place should kill me because of Rebekah,” because ^(N)she was attractive in appearance. ⁸ When he had been there a long time, Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out of a window and saw Isaac laughing with^[a] Rebekah his wife. ⁹ 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.’” ¹⁰ Abimelech said, “What is this you have done to us? One of the people might easily have lain with your wife, and ^(O)you would have brought guilt upon us.” ¹¹ So Abimelech warned all the people, saying, “Whoever touches this man or his wife shall surely be put to death.”

¹² And Isaac sowed in that land and reaped in the same year a hundredfold. The Lord ^(P)blessed him, ¹³ and the man became rich, and gained more and more until he became very wealthy. ¹⁴ He had possessions of flocks and herds and many servants, so that the Philistines ^(Q)envied him. ¹⁵ (Now the Philistines had stopped and filled with earth all the wells ^(R)that his father's servants had dug in the days of Abraham his father.) ¹⁶ And Abimelech said to Isaac, “Go away from us, for you are much mightier than we.”

¹⁷ So Isaac departed from there and encamped in the Valley of Gerar and settled there. ¹⁸ 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 ^(S)he gave them the names that his father had given them. ¹⁹ But when Isaac's servants dug in the valley and found there a well of spring water, ²⁰ the herdsmen of Gerar ^(T)quarreled with Isaac's herdsmen, saying, “The water is ours.” So he called the name of the well Esek,^[b] because they contended with him. ²¹ Then they dug another well, and they quarreled over that also, so he called its name Sitnah.^{[c] 22} And he moved from there and dug another well, and they did not quarrel over it. So he called its name Rehoboth,^[d] saying, “For now the Lord has made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land.”

²³ From there he went up to Beersheba. ²⁴ And the Lord appeared to him the same night and said, ^(U)“I am the God of Abraham your father. ^(V)Fear not, for ^(W)I am with you and will bless you and multiply your offspring for my servant Abraham's sake.” ²⁵ So he ^(X)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.

²⁶ When Abimelech went to him from Gerar with Ahuzzath his adviser and ^(Y)Phicol the commander of his army, ²⁷ Isaac said to them, “Why have you come to me, seeing that you hate me and ^(Z)have sent me away from you?” ²⁸ 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, ²⁹ 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. ^(AA)You are now the blessed of the Lord.” ³⁰ So he made them a feast, and they ate and drank. ³¹ In the morning they rose early and ^(AB)exchanged oaths. And Isaac sent them on their way, and they departed from him in peace. ³² 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.” ³³ He called it Shibah;^[e] therefore the name of the city is ^(AC)Beersheba to this day.

³⁴ When Esau was forty years old, he took ^(AD)Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite to be his wife, and Basemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite, ³⁵ and ^(AE)they made life bitter^[f] for Isaac and Rebekah.