Genesis 26:3-13

3 Live here, and I will be with you and bless you. I am going to give all this territory to you and to your descendants. I will keep the promise I made to your father Abraham. ¹

4 I will give you as many descendants as there are stars in the sky, and I will give them all this territory. All the nations will ask me to bless them as I have blessed your descendants.

5 I will bless you, because Abraham obeyed me and kept all my laws and commands."

6 So Isaac lived at Gerar.

7 When the men there asked about his wife, he said that she was his sister. He would not admit that she was his wife, because he was afraid that the men there would kill him to get Rebecca, who was very beautiful. ²

8 When Isaac had been there for some time, King Abimelech looked down from his window and saw Isaac and Rebecca making love.

9 Abimelech sent for Isaac and said, "So she is your wife! Why did you say she was your sister?" He answered, "I thought I would be killed if I said she was my wife."

10 "What have you done to us?" Abimelech said. "One of my men might easily have slept with your wife, and you would have been responsible for our guilt."

11 Abimelech warned all the people: "Anyone who mistreats this man or his wife will be put to death."

12 Isaac sowed crops in that land, and that year he harvested a hundred times as much as he had sown, because the Lord blessed him.

13 He continued to prosper and became a very rich man.

Genesis 26:3-13 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO GENESIS 26

This chapter treats of Isaac's removal to Gerar, occasioned by a famine, Ge 26:1; of the Lord's appearance to him there, advising him to sojourn in that place, and not go down to Egypt; renewing the covenant he had made with Abraham, concerning giving that country to him and his seed, Ge 26:2-6; of what happened unto him at Gerar on account of his wife, Ge 26:7-11; of Isaac's great prosperity and success, which drew the envy of the Philistines upon him, Ge 26:12-15; of his departure from hence to the valley of Gerar, at the instance of Abimelech; and of the contentions between his herdsmen, and those of Gerar, about wells of water, which caused him to remove to Beersheba, Ge 26:16-23; of the Lord's appearance to him there, renewing the above promise to him, where he built an altar, pitched his tent, and his servants dug a well, Ge 26:24,25; of Abimelech's coming to him thither, and making a covenant with him, Ge 26:26-31; which place had its name from the oath then made, and the well there dug, Ge 26:32,33; and lastly, of the marriage of Esau, which was a great grief to Isaac and Rebekah, Ge 26:34,35.

Cross References

• 1. 26.3, 4Genesis 22.16-18.
• 2. 26.7Genesis 12.13; 20.2.