Isaac

Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel the Syrian of Paddan Aram, the sister of Laban the Syrian, to be his wife.

Isaac entreated the LORD for his wife, because she was barren. The LORD was entreated by him, and Rebekah his wife conceived.

After that, his brother came out, and his hand had hold on Esau’s heel. He was named Jacob. Isaac was sixty years old when she bore them.

Now Isaac loved Esau, because he ate his venison. Rebekah loved Jacob.

There was a famine in the land, besides the first famine that was in the days of Abraham. Isaac went to Abimelech king of the Philistines, to Gerar.

Isaac lived in Gerar.

When he had been there a long time, Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out at a window, and saw, and, behold, Isaac was caressing Rebekah, his wife.

Abimelech called Isaac, and said, “Behold, surely she is your wife. Why did you say, ‘She is my sister?’” Isaac said to him, “Because I said, ‘Lest I die because of her.’”

Isaac sowed in that land, and reaped in the same year one hundred times what he planted. The LORD blessed him.

Abimelech said to Isaac, “Go from us, for you are much mightier than we.”

Isaac departed from there, encamped in the valley of Gerar, and lived there.

Isaac dug again the wells of water, which they had dug in the days of Abraham his father. For the Philistines had stopped them after the death of Abraham. He called their names after the names by which his father had called them.

Isaac’s servants dug in the valley, and found there a well of springing water.

The herdsmen of Gerar argued with Isaac’s herdsmen, saying, “The water is ours.” He called the name of the well Esek, because they contended with him.

He built an altar there, and called on the LORD’s name, and pitched his tent there. There Isaac’s servants dug a well.

Isaac said to them, “Why have you come to me, since you hate me, and have sent me away from you?”

They rose up some time in the morning, and swore one to another. Isaac sent them away, and they departed from him in peace.

The same day, Isaac’s servants came, and told him concerning the well which they had dug, and said to him, “We have found water.”

They grieved Isaac’s and Rebekah’s spirits.

When Isaac was old, and his eyes were dim, so that he could not see, he called Esau his elder son, and said to him, “My son?” He said to him, “Here I am.”

Rebekah heard when Isaac spoke to Esau his son. Esau went to the field to hunt for venison, and to bring it.

Isaac said to his son, “How is it that you have found it so quickly, my son?” He said, “Because the LORD your God gave me success.”

Isaac said to Jacob, “Please come near, that I may feel you, my son, whether you are really my son Esau or not.”

Jacob went near to Isaac his father. He felt him, and said, “The voice is Jacob’s voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau.”

His father Isaac said to him, “Come near now, and kiss me, my son.”