Genesis 26
26
CHAPTER 26
1Forsooth for hunger rose on the land, after that barrenness that befelled in the days of Abraham, Isaac went forth to Abimelech, king of Palestines, in Gerar.
2And the Lord appeared to him, and said, Go not down into Egypt, but rest thou in the land which I shall say to thee,
3and be thou a pilgrim therein; and I shall be with thee, and I shall bless thee; for I shall give all these countries to thee, and to thy seed, and I shall [ful] fill the oath which I promised to Abraham, thy father.
4And I shall multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven, and I shall give all these countries to thine heirs, and all folks of the earth shall be blessed in thy seed,
5for Abraham obeyed to my voice, and kept my behests, and my commandments, and my ceremonies, and my laws.
6And so Isaac dwelled in Gerar.
7And when he was asked of [the] men of that place of his wife, he answered, She is my sister; for he dreaded to acknowledge that she was fellowshipped to him in matrimony, and he guessed lest peradventure they would slay him for the fairness of her.
8And when full many days were passed, and he dwelled there, Abimelech, king of Palestines, beheld by a window, and saw him playing with Rebecca, his wife.
9And when Isaac was called, the king said, It is open, that she is thy wife; why saidest thou, that she was thy sister? Isaac answered, For I dreaded, lest I should die for her.
10And Abimelech said, Why hast thou deceived us? Some man of the people might do lechery with thy wife, and thou haddest brought in grievous sin on us.
11And the king commanded to all the people, and said, He that toucheth the wife of this man shall die by death.
12Forsooth Isaac sowed in that land, and he found an hundredfold increase in that year; and the Lord blessed him.
13And the man was made rich, and he went profiting and increasing, till he was made full great.
14Also he had possessions of sheep and of great beasts, and full much of menials. For this thing Palestines had envy to him,
15and they stopped in that time and filled with earth all the pits or wells which the servants of Abraham his father had digged,
16in so much that Abimelech himself said to Isaac, Go thou away from us, for thou art made greatly mightier than we.
17And he went away, that he should come to the strand of Gerar, and dwelled there.
18And he digged again other wells, which the servants of Abraham his father had digged, and which the Philistines had stopped sometime, when Abraham was dead; and he called those pits by the same names, by which his father had called before.
19They digged in the strand, and they found quick, or welling up, water.
20But also strife of [the] shepherds of Gerar was there against the shep-herds of Isaac, and they said, The water is ours; wherefore of that strife that befelled, Isaac called the name of that well False Challenge, or Esek, or Quarrel.
21And they digged another well, and they strived also for that, and Isaac called that well Enmities, or Sitnah, or Enmity.
22And he went forth from thence, and digged another pit, for which they strived not, [and] therefore he called the name of that well Breadth, either Largeness; and said, Now God hath alarged us, and hath made us to increase on [the] earth.
23Isaac forsooth went up from that place into Beersheba,
24where the Lord appeared to him in that night; and said, I am [the] God of Abraham, thy father; do not thou dread, for I am with thee, and I shall bless thee, and I shall multiply thy seed for my servant Abraham.
25And so Isaac builded there an altar to the Lord; and when the name of the Lord was inwardly called, he stretched forth a tabernacle; and he commanded his servants that they should dig pits.
26And when Abimelech, and Ahuzzath, one of his friends, and Phicol, [the] duke of knights, had come from Gerar to that place,
27Isaac spake to them, What came ye to me, a man whom ye have hated, and putted away from you?
28Which answered, We saw that God is with thee, and therefore we said now, An oath be betwixt us, and make we a covenant of peace,
29that thou do not any [thing of] evil to us, as we touched nothing of thine, neither did that that hurted thee, but with peace we let go thee increased by the blessings of the Lord.
30Therefore Isaac made them a feast; and after meat and drink,
31they rose early, and swore each to other; and Isaac let go them peaceably into their place.
32Lo! forsooth in that day the servants of Isaac came, telling to him of the pit which they had digged, and said, We have found water.
33Wherefore Isaac called that pit Abundance or Shebah; and the name of the city was set Beersheba till into this present day.
34Esau forsooth forty years eld [or old] wedded two wives, Judith#26:34 She is also known as Oholibamah or Aholibamah., the daughter of Beeri Hittite, and Bashemath#26:34 She is also known as Adah., the daughter of Elon, of the same place;
35which both offended the soul of Isaac and of Rebecca.
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Genesis 26: WBMS
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Wycliffe’s Bible with Modern Spelling ©2017
Wycliffe’s Apocrypha ©2013, 2015
Wycliffe’s Bible © 2012, 2015
Wycliffe’s New Testament ©2001, 2011
Wycliffe’s Old Testament ©2001, 2010
Genesis 26
26
1There was a famine in the country—not the one that happened before in Abraham's time, but a later one. So Isaac moved to Gerar in the territory of Abimelech, king of the Philistines.
2The Lord appeared to Isaac and told him, “Don't go to Egypt—live in the country that I tell you to. 3Stay here in this country. I will be with you and I will bless you, because I'm going to give you and your descendants all these lands. I will keep the solemn promise that I swore to Abraham your father. 4I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars of heaven and I will give them all these lands. All the nations of the earth will be blessed by your descendants, 5because Abraham did what I told him, and kept my requirements, my commands, my regulations, and my laws.”
6So Isaac stayed in Gerar. 7When the men there asked him about his wife, he told them, “She's my sister,” because he was afraid. He said to himself, “If I say she's my wife, the men here will kill me to get Rebekah, because she's so beautiful.” 8But later on, after he'd been there a while, Abimelech, king of the Philistines, happened to look out the window and saw Isaac lovingly fondling his wife Rebekah.
9Abimelech sent for Isaac and complained. “From what I saw she's clearly your wife!” he said. “Why on earth did you say, ‘She's my sister’?”
“Because I thought I'd be killed because of her,” Isaac replied.
10“Why would you do this to us?” Abimelech asked. “One of the men here might have slept with your wife, and you would have made us all guilty!”
11Abimelech issued orders to all the people, warning them, “Anyone who touches this man or his wife will be executed.”
12Isaac sowed grain that year, and the Lord blessed him with a harvest that was a hundred times what he planted. 13He became a rich man, and his wealth steadily increased until he was very rich. 14He owned many flocks of sheep and herds of cattle, as well as many slaves. He had so much that the Philistines became jealous of him. 15So the Philistines used dirt to block up all the wells his father Abraham's servants had dug.
16Then Abimelech told Isaac, “You have to leave our country, because you've become much too powerful for us.”
17So Isaac moved away and set up his tents in the Gerar Valley where he settled down. 18He unblocked the wells that had been dug in his father Abraham's time—the ones the Philistines had blocked after the death of Abraham. He gave them the same names his father had.
19Isaac's servants also dug a new well in the valley and found spring water. 20But the herdsmen from Gerar argued with Isaac's herdsmen, claiming, “That's our water!” So Isaac named the well, “Argument,” because they argued with him. 21He had another well dug, and they argued over that one too. He named the well, “Opposition.”#26:21. “Opposition”: The word is in fact the female form of the word, “satan,” meaning opponent or adversary. 22So they moved on from there and he had another well dug. This time there was no argument so he named the well, “Freedom,”#26:22. “Freedom”: literally, “wide/open space,” which is often used in Hebrew as a synonym for freedom, since people are then given room to move around. See for example Job 36:16; Psalms 118:5. saying, “Now the Lord has given us freedom to expand and be successful in this land.”
23From there he moved on to Beersheba. 24That night the Lord appeared to him and said, “I am the God of Abraham your father. Don't be afraid, for I am with you. I will bless you and give you many descendants for the sake of my servant Abraham.” 25Isaac built an altar and worshiped the Lord. He also set up his tent, and his servants dug a well there.
26Sometime later Abimelech came from Gerar to see Isaac, along with Ahuzzath his advisor, and Phicol the commander of his army.#26:26. See 21:22. In view of the length of time between these events it is unlikely that they are the same individuals. These were probably official titles rather than personal names. 27“Why have you come to see me?” Isaac asked them. “Previously you hated me and told me to leave!”
28“Now we realize that the Lord is with you,” they replied. “So we agreed that we should make a sworn agreement with you. 29You'll promise not to harm us in the same way we've never hurt you. You'll agree that we've always treated you well, and when we asked you to leave we did so kindly. Now look at how the Lord is blessing you!”
30So Isaac had a special meal prepared to celebrate the agreement. They ate and drank, 31and got up early in the morning and they each swore oaths to one other. Then Isaac sent them on their way, and they left in peace.
32It was that very day when Isaac's servants who'd been digging a well came and told him, “We've found water!” 33So Isaac named the well, “Oath,” and that's why the name of the town is “Well of the Oath” (Beersheba) to this day.
34When Esau was 40, he married Judith, daughter of Beeri the Hittite, as well as Basemath, daughter of Elon the Hittite. 35They caused Isaac and Rebekah a great deal of grief.
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Dr. Jonathan Gallagher. Released under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 Unported License. Version 4.3. For corrections send email to jonathangallagherfbv@gmail.com