Open English Translation GEN Chapter 26

26 Then there was a famine in the region (a different one from the earlier famine that was in the days of Abraham) so Yitshak moved to Gerar, the region of Abimelech, the Philistines king. 2 Then Yahweh appeared to Yitshak and told him, “Don’t go down to 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 Abraham.[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 Abraham 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,” because he was afraid to say, “She’s my wife.” He was thinking, “What if the men in this place kill me because Rebekah is so beautiful to look at.”[ref] 8 Then when he’d been in that area for quite a while, the Philistine King Abimelech looked down from a window and saw that to his surprise, Yitshak was laughing together with his wife Rebekah. 9 So Abimelech 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 Abimelech. “One of my people might easily have slept with your wife and you would have brought condemnation onto us!” 11 Then King Abimelech ordered all the people, “Whoever 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 Philistines now envied him, 15 they blocked up all the wells that his father’s slaves had dug when his father Abraham had been alive, and they filled them with dirt.

16 Then King Abimelech 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 Abraham his father and that the Philistines had blocked up after Abraham’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 ‘Rehoboth’ (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 Beer-Sheba, 24 and Yahweh appeared to him during that night and said, “I am the God of your father Abraham. Don’t be afraid, because I’m with you and I will bless you and multiply your descendants for the sake of my slave Abraham.” 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.

26 Then King Abimelech came to Yitshak from Gerar along with his friend Ahuzzath and Phicol the commander of his army[ref] 27 and Yitshak asked them, “Why have you come here since you hate me and you forced me away from you?”

28 “We have clearly seen that Yahweh has been with you,” they answered, “so we said, ‘There should be an agreement between us’—between us and you. So let us make an agreement with you, 29 that you won’t do anything evil against us, just as we did not touch you, and just as we did only did good to you and sent you away in peace. Now you are blessed by Yahweh.” 30 Then Yitshak prepared a feast for them, and they all ate and drank together. 31 The visitors got up early the next morning and make promises to each other. Then Yitshak sent them on their way, and they left from there in peace.

32 That very day, Yitshak’s slaves came and updated him about the well that they had just been digging and told him, “We’ve found water.” 33 So Yitshak named the well ‘Shibah’ (which sounds like the Hebrew word meaning ‘promise’), so that’s why that city is named ‘Beersheba’ (meaning ‘well of the promise’) to this day.

34 When Esau was forty years old, he married two Hittite women: Be’eri’s daughter Judith and Elon’s daughter Basemat, 35 but this brought grief to his parents Yitshak and Rebekah.