Study Desk

"My master made me swear, saying, 'You shall not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, in whose land I live;

but you shall go to my father's house and to my relatives, and take a wife for my son.'

"And he said to me, 'The LORD, before whom I have walked, will send His angel with you to make your journey successful, and you will take a wife for my son from my relatives and from my father's house;

behold, I am standing by the spring, and may it be that the young unmarried woman who comes out to draw water, and to whom I say, "Please let me drink a little water from your jar";

But her brother and her mother said, "Let the young woman stay with us a few days, say ten; afterward she may go."

Now Isaac had come back from a journey to Beer-lahai-roi; for he was living in the Negev.

Abraham breathed his last and died at a good old age, an old man and satisfied with life; and he was gathered to his people.

Now the first came out red, all over like a hairy garment; and they named him Esau.

When the boys grew up, Esau became a skillful hunter, a man of the field; but Jacob was a civilized man, living in tents.

Now Isaac loved Esau because he had a taste for game; but Rebekah loved Jacob.

When Jacob had cooked a stew one day, Esau came in from the field and he was exhausted;

and Esau said to Jacob, "Please let me have a mouthful of that red stuff there, for I am exhausted." Therefore he was called Edom by name.

Now there was a famine in the land, besides the previous famine that had occurred in the days of Abraham. So Isaac went to Gerar, to Abimelech king of the Philistines.

"Live for a time in this land and I will be with you and bless you, for to you and to your descendants I will give all these lands, and I will establish the oath which I swore to your father Abraham.

Now it came about, when he had been there a long time, that Abimelech king of the Philistines looked down through a window, and saw them, and behold, Isaac was caressing his wife Rebekah.

Now Isaac sowed in that land and reaped in the same year a hundred times as much. And the LORD blessed him,

for he had possessions of flocks and herds, and a great household, so that the Philistines envied him.

But when Isaac's servants dug in the valley and found there a well of flowing water,

So he built an altar there and called upon the name of the LORD, and pitched his tent there; and there Isaac's servants dug a well.

They said, "We have seen plainly that the LORD has been with you; so we said, 'An oath must now be taken by us,' that is, by you and us. So let us make a covenant with you,