Genesis 26

Now there was a famine in the land, aside from the first famine in Abraham’s days,
So Isaac went to Abimelech, king of the Philistines, to Gerar where he stayed.
The Lord appeared to Isaac and said, “Do not go down to Egypt; continue to dwell
In the land that I tell you of, sojourn in this land, and all things for you will go well.
I will be with you and bless you, to you and your offspring I will give all of these lands,
And I will fulfill the sworn-oath that I swore long ago to your father Abraham.
I will make your seed many, like the stars of heaven, all these lands I give to your seed.
All the nations of earth shall be blessed through them– all because Abraham paid my voice heed.
He kept My charge: My commandments, My laws, My teachings.” And so Isaac stayed in Gerar.
When the men of the place asked him about his wife, he said of her, “She is my sister,”
Because he was afraid to say “she’s my wife”, since he had thought to himself, “Otherwise,
The men of this place will kill me due to Rebekah, so fair to behold in one’s eyes.”
When some time had passed, the Philistines’ king Abimelech looked out a window and saw
Isaac laughing and loving with his wife Rebekah. Abimelech called him, said, “Ah!
So she is your wife! Why then did you say before, ‘She is my sister?’” Isaac replied,
“I thought to myself, otherwise on account of her and her beauty, I might have died.”
Abimelech said, “What have you done to us! One of the men might have lain with your wife,
And then you would have brought guilt upon us.” Abimelech then charged his people, “The life
Of any person who touches this man or his wife shall end in a manner quite grim.”

Isaac sowed in that land, and reaped one hundredfold in that same year. The Lord had blessed him.
The man grew rich, and kept on increasing his weath, until Isaac possessed a ton of it:
He had flocks of sheep and herds of oxen, and a large house every Philistine did covet.
So the Philistines, angry with envy, stopped up the wells which had been dug in the days
Of his father Abraham by his father’s servants, and filled them up with earth and clay.
Abimelech said to Isaac, “Go far from us, you’ve become too many to abide.”
So Isaac went from there, and encamped in the wadi of Gerar, and there did reside.
Isaac dug anew all of the wells which had been dug in his father Abraham’s time,
And which the Philistines had stopped up after Abraham’s death in their envious crime.
Isaac gave the wells all of the same names that his father had given to them before.
But when Isaac’s servants, digging in the wadi, found a well with a fresh water store,
Then the herdsmen of Gerar did quarrel with Isaac’s herdsmen, saying, “This water’s ours.”
So he named the well “Esek” (“contention”), because they had quarreled with him and been sour.
They dug another well, and they quarreled again, so he named it “Sitnah” (“Animosity”).
He moved on from there and dug one more well, but this time of quarreling there was a paucity,
So he named it “Rehoboth” (or “space”), and said, “Now, the Lord has made space for us believers,
So that we may bear fruit and increase in the land.” Isaac went up from there to Beersheva.

That night, the Lord appeared to him and said, “I am the God of your father Abraham.
Do not fear, for I am with you. I will bless you and make your seed many in the land,
For the sake of Abraham My servant.” He built there an altar, and called the Lord’s name.
Isaac pitched his tent there, and his servants began digging a well, all in that place same.
Abimelech went to him from Gerar, with Ahuzzath his aide, and Phicol, troop chief.
Isaac said to them, “Why have you come to me, since you hate me and have caused me much grief?
You have sent me away from you.” They said, “But now we see that the Lord has been with you,
So we say, let there be an oath treaty between us, and also a covenant too:
That you’ll do us no harm, just as we have not harmed you, and have dealt with you at our best,
Always kindly and fairly, and sent you away in peace. Now by the Lord are you blessed.”
Then he made them a feast, and they ate and drank. Next morning, they swore oaths to one another.
Isaac bade them farewell, and they left him in peace. That same day, Isaac’s servants discovered
The well that they’d been digging had water. They said to Isaac, “We have found water! Yay!”
So he named it “Sheva” (or “Oath”), therefore the city is named Beersheva to this day.