Jacob and King Abimelech

¹ There was a famine in the land, beside the first famine that was in the days of Abraham.

Isaac went unto Abimelech king of the Philistines unto Gerar.

² Enki appeared unto him:

Do not go into Egypt. Live in the land that I tell you. {26:3} Sojourn in this land, and I will be with you, and will bless you. For unto you and your seed, I will give all these countries, and I will perform the oath which I sware unto Abraham your father.

⁴ I will make your seed to multiply as the stars of heaven, and will give unto your seed all these countries; and in your seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed;

⁵ Because that Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.

⁶ So Isaac dwelt in Gerar:

⁷ The men of the place asked him of his wife. He said:

She [is] my sister.

He feared to say, [She is] my wife; lest, [said he,] the men of the place should kill me for Rebekah; because she [was] fair to look upon.

⁸ When he had been there a long time, Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out at a window, and saw, and, behold, Isaac was sporting with Rebekah his wife.

⁹ Abimelech called Isaac:

She is your wife. Why did you say she is your sister?

I said it lest I die for her.

¹⁰ What have you done to us? one of the people might lightly have lien with your wife, and you shouldest have brought guiltiness upon us.

¹¹ Abimelech charged all [his] people, saying, He that toucheth this man or his wife shall surely be put to death.

¹² Then Isaac sowed in that land, and received in the same year an hundredfold: and Enki blessed him.

¹³ The man waxed great, and went forward, and grew until he became very great:

¹⁴ For he had possession of flocks, and possession of herds, and great store of servants: and the Philistines envied him.

¹⁵ For all the wells which his father’s servants had digged in the days of Abraham his father, the Philistines had stopped them, and filled them with earth. {26:16} And Abimelech said unto Isaac, Go from us; for you art much mightier than we.

¹⁷ Isaac departed thence, and pitched his tent in the valley of Gerar, and dwelt there.

¹⁸ Isaac digged again the wells of water, which they had digged in the days of Abraham his father; for the philistines had stopped them after the death of Abraham: and he called their names after the names by which his father had called them.

¹⁹ Isaac’s servants digged in the valley, and found there a well of springing water.

²⁰ The herdmen of Gerar did strive with Isaac’s herdmen, saying, The water [is] ours: and he called the name of the well Esek; because they strove with him.

²¹ They dug another well, and strove for that also: and he called the name of it Sitnah.

²² He removed from thence, and digged another well; and for that they strove not: and he called the name of it Rehoboth; and he said, For now Enki hath made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land.

²³ He went up from thence to Beer-sheba. ²⁴ Enki appeared to him the same night, and said:

I [am] the God of Abraham your father: fear not, for I [am] with you, and will bless you, and multiply your seed for my servant Abraham’s sake.

²⁵ He built an altar there, and called on Enki and pitched his tent there: and there Isaac’s servants digged a well.

²⁶ Then Abimelech went to him from Gerar, and Ahuzzath one of his friends, and Phichol the chief captain of his army.

²⁷ Isaac said to them:

Wherefore come you to me, seeing you hate me, and have sent me away from you? {26:28} And they said, We saw certainly that Enki was with you: and we said, Let there be now an oath betwixt us, [even] betwixt us and you, and let us make a covenant with you

²⁹ You wilt do us no hurt, as we have not touched you, and as we have done unto you nothing but good, and have sent you away in peace: you [art] now the blessed of Enki.

³⁰ He made them a feast, and they did eat and drink. {26:31} And they rose up betimes in the morning, and sware one to another: and Isaac sent them away, and they departed from him in peace.

³² Isaac’s servants came the same day, and told him concerning the well which they had digged, and said unto him, We have found water.

³³ He called it Shebah: therefore the name of the city [is] Beer-sheba unto this day.

³⁴ Esau was 40 years old when he married his wife Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Bashemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite.

³⁵ Which were a grief of mind unto Isaac and to Rebekah.