261 Now there was a famine in the land , besides e the previous famine that had occurred in the days of Abraham . So Isaac went to Gerar , to Abimelech king of the Philistines . 2 The Lord appeared to him and said , "Do not go down to Egypt ; stay in the land of which I shall tell you. 3 "Sojourn in this land and I will be with you and bless you, for to you and to your descendants I will give all these lands , and I will establish the oath which I swore to your father Abraham . 4 " I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven , and will give your descendants all these lands ; and by your descendants all the nations of the earth shall be blessed ; 5 because e Abraham obeyed e Me and kept My charge , My commandments , My statutes and My laws ."
6 So Isaac lived in Gerar . 7 When 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 might kill me on account of Rebekah , for she is beautiful ." 8 It came about, when he had been there a long time , that Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out through a window , and saw , and behold , Isaac was caressing his wife Rebekah . 9 Then Abimelech called Isaac and said , "Behold , certainly she is your wife ! How then did you say , 'She is my sister '?" And Isaac said to him, "Because I said , 'I might die on account of her.' " 10 Abimelech said , "What is this you have done to us? One of the people might easily have lain with your wife , and you would have brought guilt upon us." 11 So Abimelech charged all the people , saying , "He who touches this man or his wife shall surely be put to death ."
12 Now Isaac sowed in that land and reaped in the same year a hundredfold e . And the Lord blessed him, 13 and the man became rich , and continued to grow richer until he became very wealthy ; 14 for he had possessions of flocks and herds and a great household , so that the Philistines envied him. 15 Now all the wells which his father's servants had dug in the days of Abraham his father , the Philistines stopped up by filling them with earth . 16 Then Abimelech said to Isaac , "Go away from us, for you are too powerful for us." 17 And Isaac departed from there and camped in the valley of Gerar , and settled there . 18 Then Isaac dug again the wells of water which had been dug in the days of his father Abraham , for the Philistines had stopped them up after the death of Abraham ; and he gave them the same names which his father had given them. 19 But when Isaac's servants dug in the valley and found there a well of flowing water , 20 the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with the herdsmen of Isaac , saying , "The water is ours!" So he named e the well Esek , because they contended with him. 21 Then they dug another well , and they quarreled over it too , so he named e it Sitnah . 22 He moved away from there and dug another well , and they did not quarrel over it; so he named e it Rehoboth , for he said , " At last e the Lord has made room for us, and we will be fruitful in the land ." 23 Then he went up from there to Beersheba . 24 The Lord appeared to him the same night and said , " I am the God of your father Abraham ; Do not fear , for I am with you. I will bless you, and multiply your descendants , For the sake of My servant Abraham ." 25 So he built an altar there and called upon the name of the Lord , and pitched his tent there ; and there Isaac's servants dug a well .
26 Then Abimelech came to him from Gerar with his adviser Ahuzzath and Phicol the commander of his army . 27 Isaac said to them, " Why have you come to me, since you hate me and have sent me away from you?" 28 They said , "We see plainly that the Lord has been with you; so we said , 'Let there now be an oath between us, even between you and us, and let us make a covenant with you, 29 that you will do us no harm , just as we have not touched you and have done to you nothing but good and have sent you away in peace . You are now the blessed of the Lord .' " 30 Then he made them a feast , and they ate and drank . 31 In the morning they arose early and exchanged oaths ; then Isaac sent them away and they departed from him in peace . 32 Now it came about on the same day , that Isaac's servants came in and told him about e the well which they had dug , and said to him, "We have found water ." 33 So he called it Shibah ; therefore e the name of the city is Beersheba to this day .
34 When Esau was forty years old he married e Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite , and Basemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite ; 35 and they brought grief e to Isaac and Rebekah .
