Chapter 21
Drafted by Grok 4.7 on 8 October 2026. First draft. Not independently reviewed. Leningrad Codex, through the Open Scriptures Westminster Leningrad Codex. The written consonants are printed. A Masoretic reading is footnoted when it differs. No Dead Sea reading was substituted unless it was read from a fragment. The Samaritan Pentateuch and the Greek, Syriac, and Latin versions are witnesses, not the default.
1Yahweh visited Sarah as he had said, and Yahweh did for Sarah as he had spoken.
2Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the appointed time God had spoken of.
3Abraham named his son who was born to him, whom Sarah bore to him, Isaac.
4Abraham circumcised Isaac his son when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him.
5Abraham was one hundred years old when Isaac his son was born to him.
6Sarah said, “God has made laughter for me. Everyone who hears will laugh with me.”
7She said, “Who would have said to Abraham, ‘Sarah will nurse children’? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.”
8The child grew and was weaned, and Abraham made a great feast on the day Isaac was weaned.
9Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, laughing.
10She said to Abraham, “Drive out this servant and her son, for the son of this servant will not inherit with my son, with Isaac.”
11The thing was very evil in Abraham’s eyes, on account of his son.
12God said to Abraham, “Do not let it be evil in your eyes because of the boy and because of your servant. Everything Sarah says to you, listen to her voice, for through Isaac offspring will be named for you.
13The son of the servant, too, I will make a nation, because he is your offspring.”
14Abraham rose early in the morning, took bread and a skin of water, and gave them to Hagar, putting them on her shoulder, and the boy, and sent her away. She went and wandered in the wilderness of Beer-sheba.
15The water in the skin was gone, and she shoved the boy under one of the bushes.
16She went and sat down opposite him, about a bowshot away, for she said, “I will not watch the boy die.” She sat opposite, and she lifted her voice and wept.
17God heard the boy’s voice, and the messenger of God called to Hagar from the sky and said to her, “What is the matter, Hagar? Do not fear, for God has heard the boy’s voice where he is.
18Get up, lift the boy, and hold him with your hand, for I will make him a great nation.”
19God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. She went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink.
20God was with the boy, and he grew. He lived in the wilderness and became an archer.
21He lived in the wilderness of Paran, and his mother took a wife for him from the land of Egypt.
22At that time Abimelech, and Phicol the commander of his army, said to Abraham, “God is with you in everything you do.
23Now swear to me here by God that you will not deal falsely with me, or with my offspring, or with my descendants. According to the loyalty I have done for you, you shall do for me, and for the land where you have stayed.”
24Abraham said, “I will swear.”
25Abraham complained to Abimelech about a well of water that Abimelech’s servants had seized.
26Abimelech said, “I do not know who did this thing. You did not tell me, and I have not heard of it until today.”
27Abraham took sheep and cattle and gave them to Abimelech, and the two of them cut a covenant.
28Abraham set seven ewe lambs of the flock by themselves.
29Abimelech said to Abraham, “What are these seven ewe lambs you have set by themselves?”
30He said, “You shall take the seven ewe lambs from my hand, so that they may be a witness for me that I dug this well.”
31Therefore he called that place Beer-sheba, because there the two of them swore.
Notes (1)Hide notes
- Translation
Sheva is both “seven” and “oath.” The seven lambs and the swearing are both in the story. Beer-sheba is the name that holds both.
32They cut a covenant at Beer-sheba. Abimelech and Phicol, the commander of his army, got up and returned to the land of the Philistines.
33He planted a tamarisk at Beer-sheba and called there on the name of Yahweh, the God of all time.
34Abraham stayed in the land of the Philistines many days.