Through My Bible Year 03 – March 16

Genesis 26

Isaac and Abimelech

¹ There was famine in the land, apart from the first famine in the days of Abraham. Isaac went to Gerar to Abimelech, king of the Philistines. ² God Appearing to him, he said, “Do not go to Egypt, stay in the country where I tell you to stay.” ³ Stay in this land, and I will be with you and bless you. For I will give all these lands to you and your descendants, and I will fulfill the oath I swore to your father Abraham. ⁴ I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky, and will give all this land to your descendants. in your seed ⁽¹⁾ All nations of the earth will be blessed, ⁵ Because Abraham obeyed me, and kept my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.

⁶ Isaac lived in Gerar. ⁷ When the people there asked him about his wife, he said, “She is my sister.” He was afraid to say, “She is my wife,” because he thought, “The people here will kill me for Rebekah, because she is beautiful.” ⁸ When he had been there a long time, Abimelech, king of the Philistines, looked out the window and saw Isaac caressing his wife Rebekah.

⁹ Abimelech called Isaac and said, “It is obvious that she is your wife. Then why did you say, ‘She is my sister?’

Isaac said to him, “Because I thought, ‘If I don’t do this, I will die because of her.'”

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

¹¹ Abimelech gave orders to all the people that anyone who touches this man or his wife must be killed.

¹² Isaac sowed grain in that land, and that same year he reaped a hundred times as much as he had sown, because God Blessed him. ¹³ The man became more and more wealthy until he became very great. ¹⁴ He had sheep, goats, cattle and a large family, so the Philistines were jealous of him.

¹⁵ Now the Philistines had stopped all the wells that the servants of his father Abraham had dug in the days of his father Abraham, and they had filled them with earth. ¹⁶ Abimelech said to Isaac, “Get away from us, for you are too powerful for us.” ⁽²⁾

¹⁷ So Isaac went away from there and camped in the valley of Gerar.

¹⁸ Isaac re-dug the wells that had been dug in the days of his father Abraham, because the Philistines had closed them after Abraham’s death. He gave them the same names that his father had given them. ¹⁹ Isaac’s servants dug in the valley by the stream and found a well from which there was a constant flow of water. ²⁰ But the herdsmen of Gerar started a dispute with the herdsmen of Isaac. “The water is ours,” he said. He named the well Isek, ⁽³⁾ Because they argued with him. ²¹ They dug another well, but they started a dispute over that too. He named it Sitna. ^{(4) 22} He left that place and dug another well. They did not want to start a dispute over him, so they named him Rehoboth. ⁽⁵⁾ He said, “Now God He has made a place for us, and we will be fruitful in the land.”

²³ From there they traveled to Beersheba. ²⁴ God That night he appeared to him and said, “I am the God of your father Abraham. Do not fear, for I am with you, and will bless you and will multiply your descendants for the sake of my servant Abraham.”

²⁵ He built an altar there and announced ⁽⁶⁾ Name of God. He pitched his tent there. Isaac’s servants dug a well there.

²⁶ Then Abimelech came from Gerar with his advisor Ahuzzath and his commander Picol. ²⁷ Isaac said to them, You have hated me and driven me out from you, so why have you come to me?

²⁸ He said, “We clearly saw that God Was with you. So we said, ‘Now let there be an oath between us, yes, between us and you. Let us make a treaty with you, ²⁹ That you will do us no harm, because we did not touch you, and we did nothing except for your welfare, and have sent you away in peace. blessings be upon you now God“

³⁰ He prepared a banquet for them, and they ate and drank. ³¹ They woke up the next morning and took their oaths. Isaac bid them farewell, and they went away from him in peace. ³² It so happened that the same day Isaac’s servants came and told him about the well that they had dug. They told him, “We have found water.” ³³ He named it Shiba. ⁽⁷⁾ Therefore the name of the city is Beersheba ⁽⁸⁾ Till today.

Esau and Jacob

³⁴ When Esau was forty years old, he took two wives: Judith, daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Basemath, daughter of Elon the Hittite. ³⁵ They were a source of bitterness for Isaac and Rebekah.