Isaac's life
Genesis 25:12–35:29
It begins where Abraham's ends, at the grave, and it never leaves the land. A second famine comes and the road his father took is closed to him in as many words — do not go down to Egypt — so he goes the short way to Gerar instead. What he does with the rest of it is dig: his father's wells opened again and given back their old names, three of his own down the Valley of Gerar, and one more at Beersheba the night God meets him there. He dies at Hebron and Esau and Jacob bury him together.
Ishmael's line, and the birth of the twins
Genesis 25:12–34
Twelve princes by their villages and their encampments, settled from Havilah to Shur along the edge of Egypt — the other son's line closed off before the story narrows to this one. Then the twins, and a birthright sold for lentil stew in a tent.
The famine, and Gerar
Genesis 26:1–11
A famine besides the former famine, and the same hill country living on the same rain — but this time the road down to the Nile is shut: dwell in the land of which I shall tell you. Gerar is as far as he goes, and he tells Abimelech the same lie his father told there.
The wells
Genesis 26:12–25
Sent away for being too rich, he moves down the Valley of Gerar opening the wells the Philistines had filled in and giving them back the names his father gave them. Two are quarrelled over and named for the quarrel, Esek and Sitnah; the third is not, and is Rehoboth — room. Then he goes up to Beersheba, and builds the one altar of his life.
- Genesis 26:17Asked to leave a town, and moving as far as the wadi below it
- Genesis 26:20The first well, named for the argument about it
- Genesis 26:21The second well, and the only place in the chapter worth arguing about
- Genesis 26:22The third well, named for nobody coming
- Genesis 26:23Seven words, and the end of the Philistine years
The oath at Beersheba
Genesis 26:26–33
Abimelech comes up from Gerar with his adviser and the commander of his army to swear a pact with the man he drove out. They eat, they exchange oaths at first light, and that same day the well comes in — Shibah, which is why the town is Beersheba.
The blessing taken
Genesis 26:34–27:45
The one stretch of his life that happens indoors. Two Hittite daughters-in-law make life bitter, his eyes go dim, and he blesses the wrong son in the dark. The only ground in the whole scene is in Rebekah's last sentence — flee to Laban my brother, in Haran — and it is five hundred miles and twenty years away.
Sending Jacob to Paddan-aram
Genesis 27:46–28:9
The flight is given a reason a father can bless: no wife from the Canaanite women. Isaac sends Jacob back up the road Rebekah came down, to Bethuel's house in Paddan-aram — and Esau, watching it, marries into Ishmael's line instead.
The death at Mamre, and the burial
Genesis 35:28–29
A hundred and eighty years, counted up in a sentence, and then the end of them at the oaks Abraham had pitched under. He dies old and full of days, and his two sons bury him together, as he and Ishmael had buried Abraham.
Not drawn yet. Read Genesis 35:28–29→