26 Then there was a famine in the region (a different one from the earlier famine that was in the days of Avraham) so Yitshak (Isaac) moved to Gerar, the region of Avimelek, the Pelishtim king. 2 Then Yahweh appeared to Yitshak and told him, “Don’t go down to Mitsrayim (Egypt)—stay in the area that I’ll tell you. 3 Stay as a guest in this region, and I’ll be with you and bless you, because I’ll give all this land to you and to your descendants, and I’ll confirm the oath that I made to your father Avraham.[ref] 4 I’ll multiply your descendants to be as numerous as the stars in the sky, and I’ll give all this region to them. And all the nations on the earth will be blessed through your descendants, 5 because Avraham obeyed me by keeping my requirements, my commands, my decrees, and my laws.”

6 So Yitshak settled there in Gerar. 7 Then the men of the place asked about his wife, and he said, “She’s my sister,”[ref] because he was afraid to say, “She’s my wife.” He was thinking, “What if the men in this place kill me because Rivkah is so beautiful to look at.” 8 Then when he’d been in that area for quite a while, the Pelishti King Avimelek looked down from a window and saw that to his surprise, Yitshak was laughing together with his wife Rivkah. 9 So Avimelek called for Yitshak and said, “Hey, she’s really your wife! So how could you say, ‘She’s my sister’?”

“Because I said to myself, ‘I might die because of her.’,” Yitshak replied.

10 “What’s this that you’ve done to us?” continued Avimelek. “One of my people might easily have slept with your wife and you would have brought condemnation onto us!” 11 Then King Avimelek ordered all the people, “Anyone who touches this man or his wife will certainly be killed.”

12 Then Yitshak planted a crop in that land and Yahweh blessed him and gave him one hundred times as much as he’d planted. 13 Hence he became wealthier and that repeated until eventually he was very powerful. 14 He also owned sheep and goats, and cattle, and many slaves. Because the Pelishtim now envied him, 15 they blocked up all the wells that his father’s slaves had dug when his father Avraham had been alive, and they filled them with dirt.

16 Then King Avimelek told Yitshak, “You all need to leave this area because you’ve become more powerful than us.” 17 So Yitshak left that place and set up camp in the Gerar Valley and settled there. 18 Then he returned and dug out the water wells that they had dug in the days of Avraham his father and that the Pelishtim had blocked up after Avraham’s death, and he called them similar names to the ones that his father had called them.

19 Then Yitshak’s slaves dug in the valley and found an underground spring with flowing water there. 20 But the herdsmen from Gerar quarrelled with Yitshak’s herdsmen, saying, “The water belongs to us.” So he named the well ‘Esek’ (which means ‘dispute’), because they disputed with him.

21 Yitshak’s men dug another well, but they quarrelled over it too, so he named it ‘Sitnah’ (which means ‘opposition’). 22 Then he moved from there and dug another well, and they didn’t quarrel over it, so he named it ‘Rehovot’ (which means ‘space’), and he said, “Because now Yahweh has made space for us and we’ll be productive in this area.”

23 Then from there Yitshak moved down to Be’er-Sheva (Beersheba), 24 and Yahweh appeared to him during that night and said, “I am the god of your father Avraham. Don’t be afraid, because I’m with you and I will bless you and multiply your descendants for the sake of my slave Avraham.” 25 So Yitshak built an altar there and he prayed to Yahweh. He set up his tents there and his slaves dug a well there.