Genesis 26

1 Now there was a famine in the land — besides the earlier famine that had come in Abraham’s time — and Isaac went to Abimelech, the king of the Philistines, at Gerar. 2 And the Lord appeared to him and said, “Do not go down to Egypt. Settle in the land that I will tell you of. 3 Live as a stranger in this land, and I will be with you and bless you. For to you and to your seed I will give all this land, and I will keep the oath that I swore to your father Abraham. 4 I will multiply your seed like the stars of heaven, and I will give your seed all this land — and in your seed all the nations of the earth will be blessed, 5 because your father Abraham listened to my voice and kept my decrees, and my commands, and my rules, and my practices.” 6 So Isaac settled in Gerar. 7 When the men of the place asked him about Rebekah his wife, he said, “She is my sister” — for he was afraid to say “She is my wife,” in case the men of the place killed him because of Rebekah, since she was beautiful. 8 He had been there a long time when Abimelech, the king of Gerar, leaned out to look through the window — and saw Isaac playing with Rebekah his wife. 9 And Abimelech called Isaac and said, “So she is your wife! Why did you say, ‘She is my sister’?” And Isaac said to him, “Because I said to myself, I might die on her account.” 10 And Abimelech said to him, “Why have you done this to us? One of my kin was a step from lying with your wife — and you would have brought a sin of ignorance down on us.” 11 And Abimelech commanded all his people: “Any man who touches this man or his wife shall be put to death.”

12 And Isaac sowed in that land, and that year he harvested barley a hundredfold — and the Lord blessed him. [a] 13 And the man became great, and went on advancing and increasing until he was very great indeed. 14 He had flocks of sheep and herds of oxen and many worked fields — and the Philistines envied him. 15 All the wells his father’s servants had dug in his father’s time, the Philistines stopped up and filled with earth. 16 And Abimelech said to Isaac, “Go away from us, for you have become far mightier than we are.” 17 So Isaac went away from there and camped in the valley of Gerar, and settled there. 18 And Isaac dug again the wells of water that the servants of his father Abraham had dug — the ones the Philistines had stopped up after his father Abraham’s death — and he called them by the same names his father had given them. 19 And Isaac’s servants dug in the valley of Gerar, and found there a well of living water. 20 But the shepherds of Gerar quarreled with Isaac’s shepherds, claiming the water was theirs. So he named that well Injury — for they had done him injury. 21 He moved on and dug another well, and they quarreled over that one too; and he named it Enmity. 22 He moved on from there and dug another well, and over that one there was no quarrel. He named it Room, saying, “Because now the Lord has made room for us, and has increased us in the earth.” [b]

23 From there he went up to the Well of the Oath. 24 And the Lord appeared to him that night and said, “I am the God of Abraham your father. Do not be afraid, for I am with you. I have blessed you, and I will multiply your seed, for the sake of Abraham your father.” 25 And he built an altar there and called on the name of the Lord, and there he pitched his tent. And there Isaac’s servants dug a well. 26 Then Abimelech came to him from Gerar, with Ahuzzath his groomsman and Phicol the commander of his army. [c] 27 And Isaac said to them, “Why have you come to me? You hated me, and sent me away from you.” 28 And they said, “We have seen plainly that the Lord is with you. So we said: let there be an oath between us and you, and let us make a covenant with you, 29 that you will do us no wrong — just as we did not detest you, and treated you well, and sent you away in peace. And now you are blessed of the Lord.” 30 So he made them a feast, and they ate and drank. 31 They rose in the morning and swore, each man to his neighbor. And Isaac sent them on their way, and they left him in safety. 32 That same day, Isaac’s servants came and told him about the well they had dug, and they said, “We have found no water.” [d] 33 And he called it Oath. That is why the name of that city is the Well of the Oath, to this day. [e] 34 When Esau was forty years old, he took as wives Judith the daughter of Beer the Hittite, and Basemath the daughter of Elon the Hivite. [f] 35 And they were quarreling with Isaac and Rebekah.