1 Now there was a famine in the land, besides the first famine that was in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went to Avimelekh king of the Philistines, to Gerar. 2 And Yehovah appeared to him and said, “Don’t go down to Egypt. Live in the land I tell you. 3 Live as a foreigner in this land, and I will be with you and will bless you. For I will give to you and to your offspring all these lands, and I will perform the oath which I swore to Abraham your father. 4 And I will increase the number of your offspring as the stars of the sky, and will give all these lands to your offspring. And in your offspring all the nations of the earth will be blessed, 5 because Abraham obeyed My voice, and kept My commission, My commandments, My edicts, and My instructions.”
6 So Isaac stayed in Gerar. 7 And the men of the place asked him about his wife. And he said, “She is my sister,” because he was afraid to say, “my wife,” thinking, “the men of the place might kill me for Rebekah, because she is good looking.” 8 And it was, when he had been there a long time, that Avimelekh king of the Philistines looked out though a window, and saw, and, look, Isaac was playing with Rebekah his wife. 9 And Avimelekh called Isaac and said, “Look, surely she is your wife. Why did you say, ‘She is my sister?’”
And Isaac said to him, “Because I said, ‘So I won’t die because of her.’”
10 And Avimelekh said, “What is this you have done to us? One of the people could easily have lain with your wife, and you would have brought guilt on us!”
11 And Avimelekh commanded all the people, saying, “He who touches this man or his wife will surely be put to death.”
12 Now Isaac sowed in that land, and reaped in the same year 100 times what he planted. And Yehovah blessed him. 13 The man became great, and went on and on becoming greater, until he became very great, 14 for he had possessions of flocks and possessions of herds and many servants. And the Philistines were jealous. 15 Now the Philistines had stopped all the wells which his father’s servants had dug in the days of Abraham his father, and they had filled them with dirt. 16 And Avimelekh said to Isaac, “Go away from us, because you are much stronger in number than we are.”
17 And Isaac departed from there and encamped in the Gerar Valley, and settled there.
18 And Isaac dug the wells of water again, which they had dug in the days of Abraham his father, because the Philistines had stopped them after the death of Abraham. And he called them by the same names as the names by which his father had called them.
19 Now Isaac’s servants dug in the valley and discovered a well of spring water there. 20 And the herdsmen of Gerar argued with Isaac’s herdsmen, saying, “The water is ours.” So he called the name of the well Argument, because they argued with him. 21 And they dug another well, and they argued over that one too. So he called its name Hostility. 22 And he moved on from there and dug another well. And they didn’t argue over that one, so he called it Spacious. And he said, “Because now Yehovah has made space for us, and we will produce fruit in the land.”
23 And he went up from there to Be’er-Sheva. 24 And Yehovah appeared to him the same night, and said, “I am the God of Abraham your father. Don’t be afraid, because I am with you, and will bless you, and increase the number of your offspring for the sake of My servant Abraham.”
25 And he built an altar there, and called on Yehovah’s name, and pitched his tent there. And Isaac’s servants dug a well there.
26 Now Avimelekh went to him from Gerar, and Aḥuzzat his advisor, and Pikhol the captain of his army. 27 And Isaac said to them, “Why have you come to me, since you hate me, and have sent me away from you?”
28 And they said, “We have certainly seen that Yehovah is with you. So we said, ‘Please let there be an oath between us, between us and you, and let’s make a contract with you, 29 that you will do us no harm, as we have not touched you, and as we have done to you nothing but good, and have sent you away in peace.’ You are now blessed by Yehovah.”
30 And he made them a feast, and they ate and drank. 31 And they got up early in the morning and swore an oath to one another. And Isaac sent them off, and they departed from him in peace. 32 And it was on the same day that Isaac’s servants came and told him concerning the well which they had dug, and said to him, “We have found water.” 33 So he called it Shivah (which means Oath). Therefore the name of the city is Be’er-Sheva (which means Well of the Oath) to this day.
34 Now when Esau was 40 years old, he took as wife Yehudit the daughter of Be’eri the Hittite, and Ba’semat the daughter of Elon the Hittite. 35 And they were bitterness of spirit for Isaac and for Rebekah.