Study Desk

Ishmael lived a total of 137 years. He breathed his last and died; then he joined his ancestors.

His descendants settled from Havilah to Shur, which runs next to Egypt all the way to Asshur. They settled away from all their relatives.

Isaac prayed to the Lord on behalf of his wife because she was childless. The Lord answered his prayer, and his wife Rebekah became pregnant.

When his brother came out with his hand clutching Esau's heel, they named him Jacob. Isaac was sixty years old when they were born.

But Jacob said, "Swear an oath to me now." So Esau swore an oath to him and sold his birthright to Jacob.

Then Jacob gave Esau some bread and lentil stew; Esau ate and drank, then got up and went out. So Esau despised his birthright.

When the men of that place asked him about his wife, he replied, "She is my sister." He was afraid to say, "She is my wife," for he thought to himself, "The men of this place will kill me to get Rebekah because she is very beautiful."

After Isaac had been there a long time, Abimelech king of the Philistines happened to look out a window and observed Isaac caressing his wife Rebekah.

So Abimelech commanded all the people, "Whoever touches this man or his wife will surely be put to death."

The man became wealthy. His influence continued to grow until he became very prominent.

So the Philistines took dirt and filled up all the wells that his father's servants had dug back in the days of his father Abraham.

Isaac reopened the wells that had been dug back in the days of his father Abraham, for the Philistines had stopped them up after Abraham died. Isaac gave these wells the same names his father had given them.

His servants dug another well, but they quarreled over it too, so Isaac named it Sitnah.

Then Isaac built an altar there and worshiped the Lord . He pitched his tent there, and his servants dug a well.

Now Abimelech had come to him from Gerar along with Ahuzzah his friend and Phicol the commander of his army.

When Isaac was old and his eyes were so weak that he was almost blind, he called his older son Esau and said to him, "My son!" "Here I am!" Esau replied.

Now Rebekah had been listening while Isaac spoke to his son Esau. When Esau went out to the open fields to hunt down some wild game and bring it back,

"But Esau my brother is a hairy man," Jacob protested to his mother Rebekah, "and I have smooth skin!

So his mother told him, "Any curse against you will fall on me, my son! Just obey me! Go and get them for me!"

So he went and got the goats and brought them to his mother. She prepared some tasty food, just the way his father loved it.