One time there was a famine in the land. A famine means that there isn’t enough food. Isaac moved back to Gerar, hoping to find more food there. Gerar was the city where his father Abraham had lived many years before, after Sodom was destroyed.
God talked to Isaac at Gerar and told him to stay for a while. He promised to bless him. So Isaac planted crops. When the grain grew and became ripe, he reaped a hundred times as much as he had planted, because the Lord made it grow so well.
The Lord made Isaac very rich and great and gave him flocks and sheep, herds of cattle, and many servants.
But the Philistines, the people who lived in Gerar, were not pleased to see him so much richer than they were. They envied him and wished they had his flocks and herds. Then the king of the country came and told Isaac to go away.
So, Isaac went away and found another place to live, a valley where there were some wells his father Abraham had dug when he was in Gerar. But the Philistines had filled them with dirt, so he couldn’t get any water from them.
Isaac took out the dirt, and his servants dug a new well too. But the Philistines came along and said the wells belonged to them and took them away from Isaac’s men.
Isaac told his men to dig another well, but the Philistines came and took it too. He tried once more, and this time the Philistines let him have the well.
Later Isaac moved to Beer-Sheba, another place where his father Abraham had once lived. That night the Lord spoke to Isaac and told him not to be afraid of the people living there. They would not harm him, for God would be with him and take care of him and bless him. Then Isaac built an altar and worshipped the Lord.
Soon afterwards the king of the Philistines, who had told Isaac to go away, came from Gerar with two friends visit Isaac. Isaac asked them why they had come, since they hated him and had sent him out of their country.
They said they wanted Isaac to promise never to harm them, for they saw that God was his friend. They knew this because of all the good things God had done for him. Isaac was nice to them and promised never to hurt them, and they promised not to harm him, either.
Isaac’s servants dug a new well at Beer-Sheba and found water. They were glad, because sometimes the water was very deep in the ground, and they had to dig a long time before they found it, and sometimes they couldn’t find water at all.
During this time Isaac’s son Esau had married two wives. Both of them were girls from Canaan. His father and mother were very sorry, because the girls of Canaan worshiped idols.
Questions:
What is a famine?
What did the Philistines do when Isaac built the wells?
What did God tell Isaac in a dream?
What did Isaac and the king of the Philistines promise each other?
Whom did Esau marry?
"Only Life Changes" 