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Genesis 26

1There was a famine in the land, besides the earlier famine in Abraham's days. Isaac went to Abimelech king of the Philistines at Gerar. 2Yahweh appeared to him and said, “Do not go down to Egypt. Dwell in the land I tell you about. 3Reside as a foreigner in this land, and I will be with you and bless you. For I will give all these lands to you and to your offspring, and I will establish the oath I swore to Abraham your father. 4I will multiply your offspring like the stars of heaven and give all these lands to your offspring. All the nations of the earth will bless themselves by your offspring, 5because Abraham listened to my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my instructions.” 6Isaac lived in Gerar.

7The men of the place asked about his wife, and he said, “She is my sister,” because he was afraid to say, “My wife,” thinking, “The men of the place might kill me because of Rebekah, since she is beautiful.” 8When he had been there a long time, Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out through the window and saw, and look, Isaac was caressing Rebekah his wife. 9Abimelech called Isaac and said, “Look, she is certainly your wife! How could you say, ‘She is my sister’?” Isaac said to him, “Because I thought, ‘I might die because of her.’” 10Abimelech said, “What is this you have done to us? One of the people could easily have lain with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us.” 11Abimelech commanded all the people, saying, “Anyone who touches this man or his wife will certainly be put to death.”

12Isaac sowed in that land and reaped a hundredfold in that year. Yahweh blessed him. 13The man became great and kept growing greater until he was very great. 14He had flocks, herds, and a large slave workforce, and the Philistines envied him. 15The Philistines had stopped up all the wells his father's slaves had dug in the days of Abraham his father, and filled them with dust. 16Abimelech said to Isaac, “Go away from us, because you have become far too powerful for us.” 17Isaac went away from there, camped in the Gerar valley, and lived there. 18Isaac again dug the wells of water that had been dug in the days of Abraham his father, which the Philistines had stopped up after Abraham's death. He gave them the names his father had given them. 19Isaac's slaves dug in the valley and found a well of living water there. 20The herders of Gerar quarreled with Isaac's herders, saying, “The water is ours.” He named the well Esek, because they contended with him. 21They dug another well, and they quarreled over it too. He named it Sitnah. 22He moved from there and dug another well, and they did not quarrel over it. He named it Rehoboth and said, “For now Yahweh has made room for us, and we will be fruitful in the land.”

23From there he went up to Beer-sheba. 24Yahweh appeared to him that night and said, “I am the God of Abraham your father. Do not be afraid, because I am with you. I will bless you and multiply your offspring for the sake of Abraham my servant.” 25He built an altar there and called on Yahweh's name. He pitched his tent there, and Isaac's slaves dug a well there. 26Abimelech came to him from Gerar, with Ahuzzath his companion and Phicol the commander of his army. 27Isaac said to them, “Why have you come to me, when you hated me and sent me away from you?” 28They said, “We have clearly seen that Yahweh has been with you. So we said, ‘Please let there be an oath-curse between us, between us and you, and let us make a covenant with you: 29that you will do us no harm, just as we have not touched you and have done you only good and sent you away in peace.’ You are now blessed by Yahweh.” 30He made a feast for them, and they ate and drank. 31They rose early in the morning and swore to one another. Isaac sent them away, and they went from him in peace. 32On that day Isaac's slaves came and told him about the well they had dug, saying, “We have found water.” 33He named it Shibah. That is why the city's name is Beer-sheba to this day.

34When Esau was forty years old, he took Judith daughter of Beeri the Hittite as a wife, and Basemath daughter of Elon the Hittite. 35They became bitterness of spirit to Isaac and Rebekah.

Translation notes 4

26:1–11 — Famine; caressing. The chapter distinguishes this famine from Abraham's and narrates Isaac's sister claim in its own form. No woman is taken into the king's house here. Caressing translates the laughter or play root connected with Isaac's name, used here for an intimacy that reveals marriage. It does not explicitly say that Abimelech witnessed intercourse.

26:5, 12–19 — Instructions; greatness. The plural instructions and other command terms are retained without specifying that Abraham possessed the later written Torah. Repeated becoming great describes Isaac's growing wealth and power. The workforce term in verse 14 is broad, but the household's actual slaves are named in the digging accounts. Living water means fresh flowing or spring water, not stagnant collected water.

26:20–33 — Wells; treaty. Esek evokes contention, Sitnah hostility, and Rehoboth spaciousness. Shibah evokes an oath and the number seven, giving another Beer-sheba naming account beside chapter 21. The participants claim to have done only good; Isaac's earlier complaint remains alongside that claim. The draft does not make the narrator endorse every treaty participant's account.

26:34–35 — Wives. The names and fathers are retained as given here. Later lists in Genesis have differences in Esau's wives' names and parentage; those differences are not silently reconciled. Bitterness of spirit preserves the family's stated distress.