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.
1There was a famine in the land, besides the first famine that was in the days of Abraham. Isaac went to Abimelech, king of the Philistines, at Gerar.
2Yahweh appeared to him and said, “Do not go down to Egypt. Settle in the land I tell you about.
3Sojourn in this land, and I will be with you and bless you, for to you and to your offspring I will give all these lands. I will establish the oath that I swore to Abraham your father.
4I will make your offspring as many as the stars of the sky, and I will give your offspring all these lands, and all the nations of the earth will be blessed through your offspring,
5because Abraham listened to my voice and kept my charge, my commands, my decrees, and my instructions.”
6So Isaac settled in Gerar.
7The men of the place asked about his wife, and he said, “She is my sister,” because he was afraid to say, “My wife.” He thought, “The men of the place might kill me because of Rebekah, for she is beautiful to look at.”
8When he had been there a long time, Abimelech king of the Philistines looked down through a window and saw Isaac laughing with Rebekah his wife.
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The verb is the same family as the name Isaac. It can mean laugh, play, or caress. What Abimelech saw is enough for him to know she is Isaac’s wife. “Laughing with” is printed, and the more intimate sense is not ruled out.
9Abimelech called Isaac and said, “She is surely your wife. How could you say, ‘She is my sister’?” Isaac said to him, “Because I thought I might die because of her.”
10Abimelech 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.”
11Abimelech commanded all the people, “Whoever touches this man or his wife will certainly be put to death.”
12Isaac sowed in that land and reaped a hundredfold in that year, and Yahweh blessed him.
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The Hebrew says a hundred shearim. The word can mean measures. “A hundredfold” is the sense printed.
13The man became great, and he went on becoming greater until he was very great.
14He had flocks of sheep and herds of cattle and a large household, and the Philistines envied him.
15All the wells that his father’s servants had dug in the days of Abraham his father, the Philistines stopped up and filled with dirt.
16Abimelech said to Isaac, “Go away from us, for you are much too powerful for us.”
17Isaac went from there, camped in the wadi of Gerar, and settled there.
18Isaac dug again the wells of water that had been dug in the days of Abraham his father and that the Philistines had stopped up after Abraham’s death. He called them by the same names his father had called them.
19Isaac’s servants dug in the wadi and found there a well of fresh water.
20The herders of Gerar quarreled with Isaac’s herders, saying, “The water is ours.” He named the well Esek, because they contended with him.
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Esek sounds like the verb “they contended.”
21They dug another well, and they quarreled over that one too, so he named it Sitnah.
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Sitnah is “accusation,” the same family of words as an accuser.
22He moved on from there and dug another well, and they did not quarrel over it. He named it Rehoboth and said, “Now Yahweh has made room for us, and we will be fruitful in the land.”
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Rehoboth means “wide places,” room to live.
23From there he went up to Beer-sheba.
24Yahweh appeared to him that night and said, “I am the God of Abraham your father. Do not be afraid, for I am with you. I will bless you and multiply your offspring for the sake of Abraham my servant.”
25He built an altar there and called on the name of Yahweh, and he pitched his tent there. Isaac’s servants dug a well there.
26Abimelech came to him from Gerar, with Ahuzzath his adviser and Phicol the commander of his army.
27Isaac said to them, “Why have you come to me, when you hated me and sent me away from you?”
28They said, “We have seen clearly that Yahweh has been with you, so we said, let there be a sworn agreement between us, between us and you. Let us cut a covenant with you:
29you will do us no harm, just as we did not touch you and did you only good and sent you away in peace. You are now blessed by Yahweh.”
30He made them a feast, and they ate and drank.
31They rose early in the morning and swore to one another. Isaac sent them off, and they left him in peace.
32That same day Isaac’s servants came and told him about the well they had dug. They said to him, “We have found water.”
33He called it Shibah. Therefore the name of the city is Beer-sheba to this day.
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Shibah is “oath” or “seven,” the same play already in the name Beer-sheba. See 21:31.
34When Esau was forty years old he took as wives Judith daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Basemath daughter of Elon the Hittite.
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This copy gives Esau’s wives here as Judith daughter of Beeri and Basemath daughter of Elon. At 28:9 he also takes Mahalath daughter of Ishmael. At 36:2–3 the wives are Adah daughter of Elon, Oholibamah daughter of Anah, and Basemath daughter of Ishmael. Each list is printed where it stands. The names are not harmonized.
35They brought bitterness of spirit to Isaac and to Rebekah.