There was a famine in the land that was in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went to Abimelech near Gerar. Then the Lord appeared to him and said: “Do not go down to Egypt; live in the land of which I shall tell you. Reside in this land, and I will be with you and bless you with a great blessing; for to you and your descendants I give all these lands to you, and I will perform the oath which I declared to you. And I will make your descendants multiply as the stars of heaven; I will give to your descendants all these lands; and in your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed; because Abraham obeyed My voice and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws.” So Isaac dwelt in Gerar. And the men of the place asked about his wife. And he said, “She is my sister”; for he was afraid to say, “She is my wife,” because he thought, “lest the men of the place kill me for Rebekah, because she is a wonderful sight to behold.” Now it came to pass that Abimelech looked through a window, and saw Isaac showing love to Rebekah, his wife.
Then Abimelech called Isaac and said, “Quite obviously she is your wife; so how could you say that she was your sister?” Isaac declared, “Because I said that I would die on Rebekah’s account.” And Abimelech said, “What is this you have done to us? One of the people might soon have laid down with your wife, and you would have brought guilt on us.” So Abimelech charged all his people, saying, “He who touches this man or his wife shall surely be having death on his mind.” Then Isaac planted in that land and reaped a lot in the same year, and the Lord blessed him. The man began to be successful, for he had possessions of flocks, herds and a substantial number of servants. So the Philistines envied him. Now the Philistines had stopped up all the wells which his father’s servants had dug in the days of Abraham his father, and they had increased them with earth. And Abimelech said to Isaac, “Go away from us, for you are much stronger now.” Then Isaac departed from there and pitched his tent in the Valley of Gerar, and dwelt there. And Isaac dug the wells of water again in Abraham’s days, for the Philistines had stopped them up after his death. He called them by their names.
Also Isaac’s servants dug in the valley, and found a well of running water there. But the herders of Gerar fought with Isaac’s herders, saying that the water is theirs. So he called the name of the well Esek. Then they dug another well and they fought over that one also. Its name was Sitnah. And he departed from there and dug the last well. They didn’t fight over it. So he called its name Rehoboth because he said, “For now the Lord has created space for us and we shall be exceedingly fruitful in the land.” Then he went up from there to Beersheba. And the Lord appeared to him the same night and said, “I am the God of your father Abraham; do not be afraid, for I am with you. I will bless you and increase your descendants for Abraham’s sake.” So he built an altar there and called on the name of the Lord, pitched his tent and Isaac’s servants dug a well. Then Abimelech came to him with Ahuzzath, one of his friends, and Phichol, the army’s commander. And Isaac said to them, “Why have you come to me at a time like this?” They declared, “We have certainly seen that the Lord is with you.
So we said, ‘Let there now be a serious oath between you and us; let us make a promise with you, that you will do nothing harmful to us, since we have not touched you and have done nothing to you but good and brought you away in peace. You are now fully blessed of the Lord.’” So he made them a feast, and they ate and drank. Then they rose up early in the morning and promised an oath with one another; and Isaac sent them away, and they walked away from him in peace. That very same day, Isaac’s servants came and told him about the well which they had dug and said, “We have found new water.” So he called the well Shebah. Therefore the name of the city is Beersheba to this day. When Esau was forty years old, he took Judith and Basemath as wives. And they were serious people to Isaac and Rebekah.