Genesis 26:12-25

Living Bible

¹² That year Isaac’s crops were tremendous—100 times the grain he sowed. For Jehovah blessed him. ¹³ He was soon a man of great wealth and became richer and richer. ¹⁴ He had large flocks of sheep and goats, great herds of cattle, and many servants. And the Philistines became jealous of him. ¹⁵ So they filled up his wells with earth—all those dug by the servants of his father Abraham.

¹⁶ And King Abimelech asked Isaac to leave the country. “Go somewhere else,” he said, “for you have become too rich and powerful for us.”

¹⁷ So Isaac moved to Gerar Valley and lived there instead. ¹⁸ And Isaac redug the wells of his father Abraham, the ones the Philistines had filled after his father’s death, and gave them the same names they had had before, when his father had named them. ¹⁹ His shepherds also dug a new well in Gerar Valley, and found a gushing underground spring.

²⁰ Then the local shepherds came and claimed it. “This is our land and our well,” they said, and argued over it with Isaac’s herdsmen. So he named the well, “The Well of Argument!”^{[a] 21} Isaac’s men then dug another well, but again there was a fight over it. So he called it, “The Well of Anger.”^{[b] 22} Abandoning that one, he dug again, and the local residents finally left him alone. So he called it, “The Well of Room Enough for Us at Last!”^[c] “For now at last,” he said, “the Lord has made room for us and we shall thrive.”

²³ When he went to Beer-sheba, ²⁴ Jehovah appeared to him on the night of his arrival. “I am the God of Abraham your father,” he said. “Fear not, for I am with you and will bless you, and will give you so many descendants that they will become a great nation—because of my promise to Abraham, who obeyed me.” ²⁵ Then Isaac built an altar and worshiped Jehovah; and he settled there, and his servants dug a well.