Genesis 21:22-34

The Voice

²²Meanwhile, Abimelech, along with Phicol, the commander of his army, spoke confidentially to Abraham.

Now that Abraham’s people are so numerous and powerful, Abimelech wants to see whether Abraham will remain loyal to him.

Abimelech: God seems to bless everything you do. ²³So swear to me right now on the name of your God that you and your people will be honest with me and never try to deceive me, my children, or my descendants. Promise that you will always treat me and this land where you have resided as a foreigner with kindness and grace, as I have treated you.

Abraham: ²⁴I swear.

²⁵Then Abraham complained to Abimelech about a time when he wasn’t treated so kindly: a well of water Abraham’s men had dug had been seized by Abimelech’s servants.

Abimelech: ²⁶I don’t know who has done this. You didn’t tell me before; this is the first I have heard about it.

²⁷Abraham took sheep and oxen and gave them to Abimelech, and the two men made a covenant-treaty together. ²⁸Abraham took seven female lambs from the flock and set them aside.

Abimelech (to Abraham): ²⁹Why have you set these seven female lambs apart from the others?

Abraham: ³⁰These seven female lambs I am presenting to you represent your personal and public acknowledgment that I am the one who dug this well, and that it belongs to me.

³¹From then on, the place where the well was located was called Beersheba because it was there that the two of them swore this oath together. ³²After they had made the covenant-treaty at Beersheba, Abimelech, along with Phicol, the commander of his army, left and went back to the land which now belongs to the Philistines. ³³And Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba at the site, and he used it as yet another place to honor and call upon the name of the Eternal One, the Everlasting God.^[a] ³⁴For many years Abraham lived in peace as a foreigner in what would become the land of the Philistines.