Genesis 26:1-22

1There was another famine in the land in addition to the one that had occurred in Abraham’s time. And Isaac went to Abimelech, king of the Philistines, at Gerar.

2The Lord appeared to him and said, “Do not go down to Egypt. Live in the land that I tell you about;

3stay in this land as an alien, and I will be with you and bless you. For I will give all these lands to you and your offspring, and I will confirm the oath that I swore to your father Abraham.

4I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of the sky, I will give your offspring all these lands, and all the nations of the earth will be blessed by your offspring,

5because Abraham listened to me and kept my mandate, my commands, my statutes, and my instructions.”

6So Isaac settled in Gerar.

7When the men of the place asked about his wife, he said, “She is my sister,” for he was afraid to say “my wife,” thinking, “The men of the place will kill me on account of Rebekah, for she is a beautiful woman.”

8When Isaac had been there for some time, Abimelech king of the Philistines looked down from the window and was surprised to see Isaac caressing his wife Rebekah.

9Abimelech sent for Isaac and said, “So she is really your wife! How could you say, ‘She is my sister’?” Isaac answered him, “Because I thought I might die on account of her.”

10Then Abimelech said, “What have you done to us? One of the people could easily have slept with your wife, and you would have brought guilt on us.”

11So Abimelech warned all the people, “Whoever harms this man or his wife will certainly be put to death.”

12Isaac sowed seed in that land, and in that year he reaped a hundred times what was sown. The Lord blessed him,

13and the man became rich and kept getting richer until he was very wealthy.

14He had flocks of sheep, herds of cattle, and many slaves, and the Philistines were envious of him.

15Philistines stopped up all the wells that his father’s servants had dug in the days of his father Abraham, filling them with dirt.

16And Abimelech said to Isaac, “Leave us, for you are much too powerful for us.”

17So Isaac left there, camped in the Gerar Valley, and lived there.

18Isaac reopened the wells that had been dug in the days of his father Abraham and that the Philistines had stopped up after Abraham died. He gave them the same names his father had given them.

19Then Isaac’s servants dug in the valley and found a well of spring water there.

20But the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with Isaac’s herdsmen and said, “The water is ours!” So he named the well Esek because they argued with him.

21Then they dug another well and quarreled over that one also, so he named it Sitnah.

22He moved from there and dug another, and they did not quarrel over it. He named it Rehoboth and said, “For now the Lord has made space for us, and we will be fruitful in the land.”