Genesis 26:6-22

English Standard Version

Isaac and Abimelech

⁶ So Isaac settled in Gerar. ⁷ When the men of the place asked him about his wife, ^(A)he said, “She is my sister,” for ^(B)he feared to say, “My wife,” thinking, “lest the men of the place should kill me because of Rebekah,” because ^(C)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 ^(D)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 ^(E)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 ^(F)envied him. ¹⁵ (Now the Philistines had stopped and filled with earth all the wells ^(G)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 ^(H)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 ^(I)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.”