Chronological Plan

¹Abraham had taken another wife, whose name was Keturah,

²and she bore him Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shuah.

³Jokshan fathered Sheba and Dedan. Dedan’s sons were the Asshurim, Letushim, and Leummim.

⁴And Midian’s sons were Ephah, Epher, Hanoch, Abida, and Eldaah. All these were sons of Keturah.

⁵Abraham gave everything he owned to Isaac.

⁶But Abraham gave gifts to the sons of his concubines, and while he was still alive he sent them eastward, away from his son Isaac, to the land of the East.

⁷This is the length of Abraham’s life: 175 years.

⁸He took his last breath and died at a good old age, old and contented, and he was gathered to his people.

⁹His sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah near Mamre, in the field of Ephron son of Zohar the Hethite.

¹⁰This was the field that Abraham bought from the Hethites. Abraham was buried there with his wife Sarah.

¹¹After Abraham’s death, God blessed his son Isaac, who lived near Beer-lahai-roi.

¹²These are the family records of Abraham’s son Ishmael, whom Hagar the Egyptian, Sarah’s slave, bore to Abraham.

¹³These are the names of Ishmael’s sons; their names according to the family records are Nebaioth, Ishmael’s firstborn, then Kedar, Adbeel, Mibsam,

¹⁴Mishma, Dumah, Massa,

¹⁵Hadad, Tema, Jetur, Naphish, and Kedemah.

¹⁶These are Ishmael’s sons, and these are their names by their settlements and encampments: twelve leaders of their clans.

¹⁷This is the length of Ishmael’s life: 137 years. He took his last breath and died, and was gathered to his people.

¹⁸And they settled from Havilah to Shur, which is opposite Egypt as you go toward Asshur. He stayed near all his relatives.

¹⁹These are the family records of Isaac son of Abraham. Abraham fathered Isaac.

²⁰Isaac was forty years old when he took as his wife Rebekah daughter of Bethuel the Aramean from Paddan-aram and sister of Laban the Aramean.

²¹Isaac prayed to the LORD on behalf of his wife because she was childless. The LORD was receptive to his prayer, and his wife Rebekah conceived.

²²But the children inside her struggled with each other, and she said, “Why is this happening to me?” So she went to inquire of the LORD.

²³And the LORD said to her: Two nations are in your womb; two peoples will come from you and be separated. One people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger.

²⁴When her time came to give birth, there were indeed twins in her womb.

²⁵The first one came out red-looking, covered with hair like a fur coat, and they named him Esau.

²⁶After this, his brother came out grasping Esau’s heel with his hand. So he was named Jacob. Isaac was sixty years old when they were born.

²⁷When the boys grew up, Esau became an expert hunter, an outdoorsman, but Jacob was a quiet man who stayed at home.

²⁸Isaac loved Esau because he had a taste for wild game, but Rebekah loved Jacob.

²⁹Once when Jacob was cooking a stew, Esau came in from the field exhausted.

³⁰He said to Jacob, “Let me eat some of that red stuff, because I’m exhausted.” That is why he was also named Edom.

³¹Jacob replied, “First sell me your birthright.”

³²“Look,” said Esau, “I’m about to die, so what good is a birthright to me?”

³³Jacob said, “Swear to me first.” So he swore to Jacob and sold his birthright to him.

³⁴Then Jacob gave bread and lentil stew to Esau; he ate, drank, got up, and went away. So Esau despised his birthright.

¹There was another famine in the land in addition to the one that had occurred in Abraham’s time. And Isaac went to Abimelech, king of the Philistines, at Gerar.

²The LORD appeared to him and said, “Do not go down to Egypt. Live in the land that I tell you about;

³stay in this land as an alien, and I will be with you and bless you. For I will give all these lands to you and your offspring, and I will confirm the oath that I swore to your father Abraham.

⁴I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of the sky, I will give your offspring all these lands, and all the nations of the earth will be blessed by your offspring,

⁵because Abraham listened to me and kept my mandate, my commands, my statutes, and my instructions.”

⁶So Isaac settled in Gerar.

⁷When the men of the place asked about his wife, he said, “She is my sister,” for he was afraid to say “my wife,” thinking, “The men of the place will kill me on account of Rebekah, for she is a beautiful woman.”

⁸When Isaac had been there for some time, Abimelech king of the Philistines looked down from the window and was surprised to see Isaac caressing his wife Rebekah.

⁹Abimelech sent for Isaac and said, “So she is really your wife! How could you say, ‘She is my sister’?” Isaac answered him, “Because I thought I might die on account of her.”

¹⁰Then Abimelech said, “What is this you’ve done to us? One of the people could easily have slept with your wife, and you would have brought guilt on us.”

¹¹So Abimelech warned all the people, “Whoever harms this man or his wife will certainly be put to death.”

¹²Isaac sowed seed in that land, and in that year he reaped a hundred times what was sown. The LORD blessed him,

¹³and the man became rich and kept getting richer until he was very wealthy.

¹⁴He had flocks of sheep, herds of cattle, and many slaves, and the Philistines were envious of him.

¹⁵Philistines stopped up all the wells that his father’s servants had dug in the days of his father Abraham, filling them with dirt.

¹⁶And Abimelech said to Isaac, “Leave us, for you are much too powerful for us.”

¹⁷So Isaac left there, camped in the Gerar Valley, and lived there.

¹⁸Isaac reopened the wells that had been dug in the days of his father Abraham and that the Philistines had stopped up after Abraham died. He gave them the same names his father had given them.

¹⁹Then Isaac’s servants dug in the valley and found a well of spring water there.

²⁰But the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with Isaac’s herdsmen and said, “The water is ours!” So he named the well Esek because they argued with him.

²¹Then they dug another well and quarreled over that one also, so he named it Sitnah.

²²He moved from there and dug another, and they did not quarrel over it. He named it Rehoboth and said, “For now the LORD has made space for us, and we will be fruitful in the land.”

²³From there he went up to Beer-sheba,

²⁴and the LORD appeared to him that night and said, “I am the God of your father Abraham. Do not be afraid, for I am with you. I will bless you and multiply your offspring because of my servant Abraham.”

²⁵So he built an altar there, called on the name of the LORD, and pitched his tent there. Isaac’s servants also dug a well there.

²⁶Now Abimelech 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? You hated me and sent me away from you.”

²⁸They replied, “We have clearly seen how the LORD has been with you. We think there should be an oath between two parties — between us and you. Let us make a covenant with you:

²⁹You will not harm us, just as we have not harmed you but have done only what was good to you, sending you away in peace. You are now blessed by the LORD.”

³⁰So he prepared a banquet for them, and they ate and drank.

³¹They got up early in the morning and swore an oath to each other. Isaac sent them on their way, and they left him in peace.

³²On that same day Isaac’s servants came to tell him about the well they had dug, saying to him, “We have found water!”

³³He called it Sheba. Therefore the name of the city is still Beer-sheba today.

³⁴When Esau was forty years old, he took as his wives Judith daughter of Beeri the Hethite, and Basemath daughter of Elon the Hethite.

³⁵They made life bitter for Isaac and Rebekah.