Yahweh Establishes the Oath with Isaac

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

Isaac and Abimelech

⁶ So Isaac ^[b]lived in Gerar. ⁷ Then the men of the place asked about his wife. And he said, “^(L)She is my sister,” for he was ^(M)afraid to say, “my wife,” thinking, “lest the men of the place kill me on account of Rebekah, for she is ^(N)beautiful in appearance.” ⁸ Now it happened, when he had been there a long time, that Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out through a window and saw, and behold, Isaac was ^[c]caressing his wife Rebekah. ⁹ Then Abimelech called Isaac and said, “Behold, surely she is your wife! How then did you say, ‘She is my sister’?” And Isaac said to him, “Because I said, ‘Lest I die on account of her.’” ^10 (O)And Abimelech said, “What is this you have done to us? One of the people might easily have lain with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us.” ¹¹ So Abimelech commanded all the people, saying, “He who ^(P)touches this man or his wife shall surely be put to death.”

¹² And Isaac sowed in that land and ^[d]reaped in the same year one hundredfold. And ^(Q)Yahweh blessed him, ¹³ and the man ^(R)became great and continued to grow greater until he became very great; ¹⁴ and ^(S)he had possessions of flocks and possessions of herds and many servants, so that the Philistines were jealous of him. ¹⁵ Now ^(T)all the wells which his father’s servants had dug in the days of Abraham his father, the Philistines stopped up ^[e]by filling them with earth. ¹⁶ Then Abimelech said to Isaac, “Go away from us, for you are ^[f](U)too mighty for us.” ¹⁷ And Isaac departed from there and camped in the valley of Gerar and ^[g]settled there.

The Quarrel over the Wells

¹⁸ Then Isaac dug again the wells of water which ^[h]had been dug in the days of his father Abraham, but the Philistines had stopped them up after the death of Abraham; and he ^[i]called them by the same names by which his father had called them. ¹⁹ Then Isaac’s servants dug in the valley and found there a well of ^[j]flowing water. ²⁰ And the herdsmen of Gerar ^(V)contended with the herdsmen of Isaac, saying, “The water is ours!” So he named the well ^[k]Esek, because they quarreled with him. ²¹ Then they dug another well, and they contended over it also, so he called it ^[l]Sitnah. ²² Then he moved away from there and dug another well, and they did not contend over it; so he named it ^[m]Rehoboth, and he said, “^[n](W)At last Yahweh has made ^[o]room for us, and we will be ^(X)fruitful in the land.”

²³ And he went up from there to ^(Y)Beersheba. ²⁴ And Yahweh ^(Z)appeared to him that night and said,

²⁵ So he built an ^(AD)altar there and called upon the name of Yahweh and pitched his tent there; and there Isaac’s servants dug out a well.

Isaac’s Oath with Abimelech

²⁶ Now ^(AE)Abimelech came to him from Gerar ^[p]with his adviser Ahuzzath and Phicol the commander of his army. ²⁷ And Isaac said to them, “^(AF)Why have you come to me, since you hate me and have sent me away from you?” ²⁸ Then they said, “We see plainly ^(AG)that Yahweh has been with you; so we said, ‘Let there now be an oath between us—between ^[q]you and us—and let us cut a covenant with you, ²⁹ that you will do us no harm, just as we have not touched you ^[r]and have done to you nothing but good and have sent you away in peace. You are now the ^(AH)blessed of Yahweh.’” ³⁰ Then ^(AI)he made them a feast, and they ate and drank. ³¹ In the morning they arose early, and ^(AJ)each swore to ^[s]the other; then Isaac sent them away, and they departed from him in peace. ³² Now it happened on that day, that Isaac’s servants came in and told him about the well which they had dug and said to him, “We have found water.” ³³ So he called it Shibah; therefore the name of the city is ^(AK)Beersheba to this day.

³⁴ And Esau was forty years old, ^(AL)and he took as a wife Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and also Basemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite; ³⁵ and ^(AM)they ^[t]brought bitterness to Isaac and Rebekah.