Beginning

25 Forsooth Abraham wedded another wife, Keturah by name,

² which childed to him Zimran, and Jokshan, and Medan, and Midian, and Ishbak, and Shuah.

³ Also Jokshan begat Sheba, and Dedan. Forsooth the sons of Dedan were Asshurim, and Letushim, and Leummim.

⁴ And soothly of Midian was born Ephah, and Epher, and Hanoch, and Abidah, and Eldaah; all these were the sons of Keturah.

⁵ And Abraham gave all (the) things which he had in possession to Isaac;

⁶ soothly he gave gifts to the sons of [the] concubines, that is, (his) secondary wives; and Abraham, while he lived yet, separated them from Isaac, his son, to the east coast (but Abraham, while yet he lived, separated them from his son Isaac, and sent them away to the east parts).

⁷ Forsooth the days of the life of Abraham were an hundred and threescore and fifteen years;

⁸ and (then) he failed, and died in [a] good eld (age), and of (a) great age, and full of days, and he was gathered to his people (and he joined his ancestors).

⁹ And Isaac and Ishmael, his sons, buried him in the double den, which is set in the field of Ephron, son of Zohar (the) Hittite, even against Mamre, (And his sons Isaac and Ishmael, buried him in the cave at Machpelah, which is set in the field of Ephron, the son of Zohar the Hittite, east of Mamre,)

¹⁰ which den he bought of the sons of Heth; and he was buried there, and Sarah his wife. (which cave he bought from the Hittites; and he was buried there, with his wife Sarah.)

¹¹ And after the death of Abraham, God blessed Isaac his son, which dwelled beside the well by name of him that liveth and seeth. (And after Abraham’s death, God blessed his son Isaac, who lived beside The Well of Lahairoi, or Beerlahairoi.)

¹² These be the generations of Ishmael, the son of Abraham, whom Hagar (the) Egyptian, handmaid of Sarah, childed to Abraham; (These be the descendants of Ishmael, Abraham’s son, whom Hagar the Egyptian, Sarah’s slave-girl, bare for Abraham;)

¹³ and these be the names of the sons of Ishmael, in their names and generations. The first begotten of Ishmael was Nebajoth, afterward Kedar, and Adbeel, and Mibsam, (and these be the names of Ishmael’s sons, by their names, and in their birth order. Ishmael’s first-born was Nebajoth, and then Kedar, and Adbeel, and Mibsam,)

¹⁴ and Mishma, and Dumah, and Massa,

¹⁵ and Hadar, and Tema, and Jetur, and Naphish, and Kedemah.

¹⁶ These were the sons of Ishmael, and these were the names by castles, and towns of them, (named after) [the] twelve princes of their lineages. (These were Ishmael’s sons, and they were also the names of their fortresses, and towns, named after the twelve princes of their tribes.)

¹⁷ And the years of [the] life of Ishmael were made an hundred and seven and thirty (years), and (then) he failed, and died, and was put to his people (and joined his ancestors).

¹⁸ Forsooth he inhabited from Havilah till to Shur, that beholdeth Egypt, as men entereth into [the] Assyrians; (and) he died before all his brethren. (And Ishmael’s people dwelled from Havilah unto Shur, which is east of Egypt, on the way to Assyria; and he died in the presence of all his kinsmen.)

¹⁹ Also these be the generations of Isaac, the son of Abraham. Abraham begat Isaac, (And these be the descendants of Isaac, Abraham’s son. Abraham begat Isaac,)

²⁰ and when Isaac was of forty years, he wedded a wife, Rebecca, the daughter of Bethuel, of Syria, of Mesopotamia, the sister of Laban. (and when Isaac was forty years old, he wedded a wife, Rebecca, the daughter of Bethuel, the Syrian from Paddan-aram, and the sister of Laban.)

²¹ And Isaac besought the Lord for his wife, for she was barren; and the Lord heard him, and gave conceiving to Rebecca.

²² But the little children were hurtled together in her womb; and she said, If it was so to coming to me, what need was it to conceive? (and she said, If such was to come to me, what meaneth it?) And she went to ask (the) counsel of the Lord,

²³ which answered, and said, Two folks be in thy womb, and two peoples shall be separated from thy womb, and one people shall overturn a people, and the more shall serve the less. (who answered, and said, Two nations be in thy womb, and two peoples shall be taken from thy womb, and one nation shall be stronger than the other nation, and the older shall serve the younger.)

²⁴ Then the time of child-bearing came, and lo! two children were found in her womb.

²⁵ He that went out first was red, and all rough in the manner of a skin; and his name was called Esau.

²⁶ Anon the other went out (And at once the other went out), and held with his hand the heel of his brother; and therefore he called him Jacob^[a]. (And) Isaac was sixty years eld, when the little children were born.

²⁷ And when they were waxen, Esau was a man knowing of hunting, and a man (who was) an earth-tiller; forsooth Jacob was a simple man, and dwelled in tabernacles. (And when they were fully grown, Esau was a man knowledgeable about hunting, and who worked the soil, or was a farmer; and Jacob was a simple man, who stayed at home in the tents.)

²⁸ Isaac loved Esau, for he ate of the hunting of Esau; and Rebecca loved Jacob.

²⁹ Soothly Jacob seethed pottage (And one day Jacob boiled some stew); and when Esau came (in) weary from the field,

³⁰ he said to Jacob, Give thou to me of this red seething, for I am full weary; for which cause his name was called Edom (and for this reason he was called Edom, or Red).

³¹ And Jacob said to him, Sell to me the right(s) of the first begotten child. (And Jacob said to him, First sell me thy birthright/First sell me the rights of the first-born child.)

³² Esau answered, Lo! I die, what shall the first begotten things profit to me? (And Esau answered, Lo! I am starving right now, and what good is my birthright to me!)

³³ Jacob said, Therefore swear thou to me. Therefore Esau swore, and sold the first engendered things. (And Jacob said, And so swear thou to me. And so Esau swore to Jacob, and sold him his birthright.)

³⁴ And so when he had taken bread and pottage, Esau ate and drank, and went forth, and charged little that he had sold the right(s) of the first begotten child (and cared little that he had sold his birthright as the first-born son).

26 Forsooth for hunger rose on the land, after that barrenness that befelled in the days of Abraham, Isaac went forth to Abimelech, king of Palestines, in Gerar. (And another famine arose in the land, like the one which had come in Abraham’s days, and Isaac went to Abimelech, the king of the Philistines, in Gerar.)

² And the Lord appeared to him, and said, Go not down into Egypt, but rest thou in the land which I shall say to thee, (For the Lord had appeared to him, and said, Do not go down to Egypt, but rest thou in this land, where I tell thee to stay,)

³ and be thou a pilgrim therein; and I shall be with thee, and I shall bless thee; for I shall give all these countries to thee, and to thy seed, and I shall [ful]fill the oath which I promised to Abraham, thy father. (and live thou there; and I shall be with thee, and I shall bless thee; for I shall give all these lands to thee, and to thy descendants, and I shall fulfill the oath which I promised to thy father Abraham.)

⁴ And I shall multiply thy seed as the stars of (the) heaven(s), and I shall give all these countries to thine heirs, and all folks of the earth shall be blessed in thy seed, (And I shall multiply thy descendants like the stars of the night sky, and I shall give all these lands to thy heirs, and all the nations of the earth shall pray to be blessed as thy descendants be blessed/and through thy descendants I shall bless all the nations of the earth,)

⁵ for Abraham obeyed to my voice, and kept my behests, and my commandments, and my ceremonies, and my laws.

⁶ And so Isaac dwelled in Gerar.

⁷ And when he was asked of [the] men of that place of his wife (And when he was asked by the men of that place about his wife), he answered, She is my sister; for he dreaded to acknowledge that she was fellowshipped to him in matrimony, and he guessed lest peradventure they would slay him for the fairness of her.

⁸ And when full many days were passed, and he (had) dwelled there, Abimelech, king of Palestines, beheld by a window, and saw him playing with Rebecca, his wife. (And when they had lived there for many days, Abimelech, the king of the Philistines, looked out a window, and saw Isaac kissing his wife Rebecca.)

⁹ And when Isaac was called (to him), the king said, It is open, that she is thy wife; why saidest thou, that she was thy sister? Isaac answered, For I dreaded (For I was afraid), lest I should die for her.

¹⁰ And Abimelech said, Why hast thou deceived us? Some man of the people might do lechery with thy wife, and thou haddest brought in grievous sin on us. (And Abimelech said, Why hast thou deceived us? Some man of my people might have done lechery with thy wife, and then thou wouldest have brought in a grievous sin upon us.)

¹¹ And the king commanded to all the people, and said, He that toucheth the wife of this man shall die by death.

¹² Forsooth Isaac sowed in that land, and he found an hundredfold increase in that year (and he received a hundredfold increase that year); and the Lord blessed him.

¹³ And the man was made rich, and he went profiting and increasing, till he was made full great.

¹⁴ Also he had possessions of sheep and of great beasts, and full much of menials. For this thing Palestines had envy to him, (And he had possessions of sheep and of great beasts, and many servants and slaves. And because of this, the Philistines envied him,)

¹⁵ and they stopped in that time and filled with earth all the wells which the servants of Abraham his father had digged, (and so they stopped up, and filled with earth, all the wells which the servants of his father Abraham had dug,)

¹⁶ in so much that Abimelech himself said to Isaac (and finally Abimelech himself said to Isaac), Go thou away from us, for thou art made greatly mightier than we (be).

¹⁷ And he went away, that he should come to the strand of Gerar, and dwelled there. (And so he went away from that place, and came to the Gerar Valley, and lived there.)

¹⁸ And he digged again other wells, which the servants of Abraham his father had digged, and which the Philistines had stopped sometime, when Abraham was dead (and which the Philistines had stopped up after Abraham died); and he called those wells by the same names, by which his father had called (them) before.

¹⁹ They digged in the strand (And they dug in the valley), and they found quick, or welling up, water.

²⁰ But also strife of [the] shepherds of Gerar was there against the shepherds of Isaac, and they said, The water is ours; wherefore of that strife that befelled, Isaac called the name of that well False Challenge. (But the shepherds of Gerar also quarreled with Isaac’s shepherds, and they said, This water is ours; and so for the strife that befell, Isaac called the name of that well Esek, or Quarrel.)

²¹ And they digged another (well), and they strived also for that, and Isaac called that well Enmities. (And they dug another well, and they also quarreled over that one, and Isaac called that well Sitnah, or Enmity.)

²² And he went forth from thence, and digged another well, for which they strived not, [and] therefore he called the name of that well Breadth, either Largeness; and said, Now God hath alarged us, and hath made us to increase on [the] earth. (And he went forth from there, and dug another well, which they did not quarrel over, and so he called the name of that well Rehoboth, or Broad Places; and he said, Now God hath enlarged us, and we shall be fruitful in this land.)

²³ Isaac forsooth went up from that place into Beersheba, (And Isaac went up from that place to Beersheba,)

²⁴ where the Lord appeared to him in that night; and said, I am [the] God of Abraham, thy father; do not thou dread (do not thou fear), for I am with thee, and I shall bless thee, and I shall multiply thy seed for (the sake of) my servant Abraham.

²⁵ And so Isaac builded there an altar to the Lord; and when the name of the Lord was inwardly called, he stretched forth a tabernacle; and he commanded his servants that they should dig wells. (And so Isaac built an altar there to the Lord; and after he had inwardly called on the Lord’s name, he pitched his tent there; and then he commanded his servants to dig a well.)

²⁶ And when Abimelech, and Ahuzzath, (one of) his friends, and Phicol, [the] duke of knights (the leader of his soldiers), had come from Gerar to that place,

²⁷ Isaac spake to them, (and said,) What came ye to me, a man whom ye have hated, and putted away from you? (Isaac said to them, Why have ye come to me, a man whom ye hate, and whom ye sent away from you?)

²⁸ Which answered, We saw that God is with thee, and therefore we said now, An oath be betwixt us, and make we a covenant of peace, (And they answered, We saw that God was with thee, and so we said, Now let there be an oath between us, and make we a covenant of peace,)

²⁹ (so) that thou do not any[thing of] evil to us, as we (have) touched nothing of thine, neither did that that hurted thee, but with peace we let go thee (but we let thee go away in peace), (and now thou art) increased by the blessing(s) of the Lord.

³⁰ Therefore Isaac made them a feast; and after meat and drink, (And so Isaac made a feast for them; and after food and drink,)

³¹ they rose early, and swore each to (the) other; and Isaac let go them peaceably into their place. (they rose up early, and swore an oath to each other; and then Isaac let them go away in peace.)

³² Lo! forsooth in that day the servants of Isaac came, telling to him of the well which they had digged, and said, We have found water.

³³ Wherefore Isaac called that well Abundance; and the name of the city was set Beersheba till into this present day. (And so Isaac called that well Shebah; and the city there is called Beersheba unto this present day.)

³⁴ Esau forsooth forty years eld wedded two wives (And when Esau was forty years old he wedded two wives), Judith^[b], the daughter of Beeri (the) Hittite, and Bashemath^[c], the daughter of Elon, of the same place;

³⁵ which both offended the soul of Isaac and of Rebecca. (and because both women were heathen, that offended, or greatly distressed, Isaac and Rebecca.)