1 There was a famine in the land, besides athe first famine that was in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went to bAbimelech king of the Philistines, in Gerar.
2 Then the Lord appeared to him and said: a“Do not go down to Egypt; live in bthe land of which I shall tell you.
3aDwell in this land, and bI will be with you and cbless you; for to you and your descendants dI give all these lands, and I will perform ethe oath which I swore to Abraham your father.
4 And aI will make your descendants multiply as the stars of heaven; I will give to your descendants all these lands; band in your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed;
5abecause Abraham obeyed My voice and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws.”
7 And the men of the place asked about his wife. And ahe said, “She is my sister”; for bhe was afraid to say, “Sheis my wife,” becausehethought, “lest the men of the place kill me for Rebekah, because she iscbeautiful to behold.”
8 Now it came to pass, when he had been there a long time, that Abimelech king of the Philistines looked through a window, and saw, and there was Isaac,1 showing endearment to Rebekah his wife.
9 Then Abimelech called Isaac and said, “Quite obviously she is your wife; so how could you say, ‘She is my sister’?” Isaac said to him, “Because I said, ‘Lest I die on account of her.’ ”
10 And Abimelech said, “What is this you have done to us? One of the people might soon have lain with your wife, and ayou would have brought guilt on us.”
11 So Abimelech charged all his people, saying, “He who atouches this man or his wife shall surely be put to death.”
12 Then Isaac sowed in that land, and reaped in the same year aa hundredfold; and the Lordbblessed him.
13 The man abegan to prosper, and continued prospering until he became very prosperous;
14 for he had possessions of flocks and possessions of herds and a great number of servants. So the Philistines aenvied him.
15 Now the Philistines had stopped up all the wells awhich his father’s servants had dug in the days of Abraham his father, and they had filled them with earth.
16 And Abimelech said to Isaac, “Go away from us, for ayou are much mightier than we.”
17 Then Isaac departed from there and1 pitched his tent in the Valley of Gerar, and dwelt there.
18 And Isaac dug again the wells of water which they had dug in the days of Abraham his father, for the Philistines had stopped them up after the death of Abraham. aHe called them by the names which his father had called them.
19 Also Isaac’s servants dug in the valley, and found a well of running water there.
20 But the herdsmen of Gerar aquarreled with Isaac’s herdsmen, saying, “The water is ours.” So he called the name of the well1 Esek, because they quarreled with him.
21 Then they dug another well, and they quarreled over that one also. So he called its name1 Sitnah.
22 And he moved from there and dug another well, and they did not quarrel over it. So he called its name1 Rehoboth, because he said, “For now the Lord has made room for us, and we shall abe fruitful in the land.”
24 And the Lordaappeared to him the same night and said, b“I am the God of your father Abraham; cdo not fear, for dI am with you. I will bless you and multiply your descendants for My servant Abraham’s sake.”
25 So he abuilt an altar there and bcalled on the name of the Lord, and he pitched his tent there; and there Isaac’s servants dug a well.
26 Then Abimelech came to him from Gerar with Ahuzzath, one of his friends, aand Phichol the commander of his army.
27 And Isaac said to them, “Why have you come to me, asince you hate me and have bsent me away from you?”
28 But they said, “We have certainly seen that the Lordais with you. So we said, ‘Let there now be an oath between us, between you and us; and let us make a1 covenant with you,
29 that you will do us no harm, since we have not touched you, and since we have done nothing to you but good and have sent you away in peace. aYou are now the blessed of the Lord.’ ”
GENESIS, the book of the origin or production of all things, consists of two parts: the first, comprehended in the first through eleventh chapters, gives a general history; the second, contained in the subsequent chapters, gives a special history. The two parts are essentially connected; the one, which sets out with an account of the descent of the human race from a single pair, the introduction of sin into the world, and the announcement of the scheme of divine mercy for repairing the ruins of the fall, was necessary to pave the way for relating the other, namely, the call of Abraham, and the selection of his posterity for carrying out the gracious purpose of God. An evident unity of method, therefore, pervades this book, and the information contained in it was of the greatest importance to the Hebrew people, as without it they could not have understood the frequent references made in their law to the purposes and promises of God regarding themselves. The arguments that have been already adduced as establishing the Mosaic origin of the Pentateuch prove of course that Moses was the author of Genesis. The few passages on which the rationalists grounded their assertions that it was the composition of a later age have been successfully shown to warrant no such conclusion; the use of Egyptian words and the minute acquaintance with Egyptian life and manners, displayed in the history of Joseph, harmonize with the education of Moses, and whether he received his information by immediate revelation, from tradition, or from written documents, it comes to us as the authentic work of an author who wrote as he was inspired by the Holy Ghost (II Peter 1:21).
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