The Philistinians and the Hebrews

(1) There was a famine in the land—aside from the previous famine that had occurred in the days of Abraham—and Isaac went to Abimelech, king of the Philistines, in Gerar. (2) ה׳ had appeared to him and said, “Do not go down to Egypt; stay in the land which I point out to you. (3) Reside in this land, and I will be with you and bless you; I will assign all these lands to you and to your heirs, fulfilling the oath that I swore to your father Abraham. (4) I will make your heirs as numerous as the stars of heaven, and assign to your heirs all these lands, so that all the nations of the earth shall bless themselves by your heirs— (5) inasmuch as Abraham obeyed Me and kept My charge: My commandments, My laws, and My teachings.”

(6) So Isaac stayed in Gerar. (7) When the local leaders asked him about his wife, he said, “She is my sister,” for he was afraid to say “my wife,” thinking, “The local leaders might kill me on account of Rebekah, for she is beautiful.” (8) When some time had passed, Abimelech king of the Philistines, looking out of the window, saw Isaac fondling his wife Rebekah.

(9) Abimelech sent for Isaac and said, “So she is your wife! Why then did you say: ‘She is my sister’?” Isaac said to him, “Because I thought I might lose my life on account of her.”

(10) Abimelech said, “What have you done to us! One of the men might have lain with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us.” (11) Abimelech then charged all the people, saying, “Anyone who molests this man or his wife shall be put to death.”

(12) Isaac sowed in that land and reaped a hundredfold the same year. ה׳ blessed him, (13) and the man grew richer and richer until he was very wealthy: (14) he acquired flocks and herds, and a large household, so that the Philistines envied him.

(15) And the Philistines stopped up all the wells which his father’s servants had dug in the days of his father Abraham, filling them with earth. (16) And Abimelech said to Isaac, “Go away from us, for you have become far too big for us.” (17) So Isaac departed from there and encamped in the wadi of Gerar, where he settled. (18) Isaac dug anew the wells which had been dug in the days of his father Abraham and which the Philistines had stopped up after Abraham’s death; and he gave them the same names that his father had given them.

So that it is known that which were his father's wells and his inheritance, for if he were to change their names to that which others told him they would be thought of as theirs and not your father's

(27) Isaac said to them, “Why have you come to me, seeing that you have been hostile to me and have driven me away from you?” (28) And they said, “We now see plainly that ה׳ has been with you, and we thought: Let there be a sworn treaty between our two parties, between you and us. Let us make a pact with you (29) that you will not do us harm, just as we have not molested you but have always dealt kindly with you and sent you away in peace. From now on, be you blessed of יהוה!” (30) Then he made for them a feast, and they ate and drank. (31) Early in the morning, they exchanged oaths. Isaac then bade them farewell, and they departed from him in peace. (32) That same day Isaac’s servants came and told him about the well they had dug, and said to him, “We have found water!” (33) He named it Shibah;*Shibah As though “oath.” therefore the name of the city is Beer-sheba to this day.

(1) Abraham journeyed from there to the region of the Negeb and settled between Kadesh and Shur. While he was sojourning in Gerar, (2) Abraham said of Sarah his wife, “She is my sister.” So King Abimelech of Gerar had Sarah brought to him. (3) But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night and said to him, “You are to die because of the woman that you have taken, for she is a married woman.” (4) Now Abimelech had not approached her. He said, “O lord, will You slay people even though innocent? (5) He himself said to me, ‘She is my sister’! And she also said, ‘He is my brother.’ When I did this, my heart was blameless and my hands were clean.” (6) And God said to him in the dream, “I knew that you did this with a blameless heart, and so I kept you from sinning against Me. That was why I did not let you touch her. (7) Therefore, restore the man’s wife—since he is a prophet, he will intercede for you—to save your life. If you fail to restore her, know that you shall die, you and all that are yours.” (8) Early next morning, Abimelech called his servants and told them all that had happened; and they were greatly frightened. (9) Then Abimelech summoned Abraham and said to him, “What have you done to us? What wrong have I done that you should bring so great a guilt upon me and my kingdom? You have done to me things that ought not to be done. (10) What, then,” Abimelech demanded of Abraham, “was your purpose in doing this thing?” (11) “I thought,” said Abraham, “surely there is no fear of God in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife. (12) And besides, she is in truth my sister, my father’s daughter though not my mother’s; and she became my wife. (13) So when God made me wander from my father’s house, I said to her, ‘Let this be the kindness that you shall do me: whatever place we come to, say there of me: He is my brother.’” (14) Abimelech took sheep and oxen, and male and female slaves, and gave them to Abraham; and he restored his wife Sarah to him. (15) And Abimelech said, “Here, my land is before you; settle wherever you please.” (16) And to Sarah he said, “I herewith give your brother a thousand pieces of silver; this will serve you as vindication before all who are with you, and you are cleared before everyone.” (17) Abraham then prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech and his wife and his slave girls, so that they bore children; (18) for ה׳ had closed fast every womb of the household of Abimelech because of Sarah, the wife of Abraham.

(13) And Mizraim begot the Ludim, the Anamim, the Lehabim, the Naphtuhim, (14) the Pathrusim, the Casluhim, and the Caphtorim,*Caphtorim (the Cretans) whence the Philistines came forth. (15) Canaan begot Sidon, his first-born, and Heth; (16) and the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Girgashites, (17) the Hivites, the Arkites, the Sinites, (18) the Arvadites, the Zemarites, and the Hamathites. Afterward the clans of the Canaanites spread out. (19) (The [original] Canaanite territory extended from Sidon as far as Gerar, near Gaza, and as far as Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, near Lasha.)

Our forefathers made two covenants, one made by Abraham, as the verse states (Genesis 21:23), 'Now swear to me here by God that you will not deal falsely with me or with my offspring or with my posterity, but according to the kindness that I have done to you, you will do to me and to the land where you have sojourned.' And so they made a covenant. When the Philistines came to enter the land, they said to them, 'You are not the seed of Abraham, and you do not observe the commandments of the covenant that Abraham made with Abimelech.' They said to them, 'We do observe them,' [but you are not the Philistines] and the Philistines went away.

(7) To Me, O Israelites, you are
Just like the Cushitesb
—declares GOD.
True, I brought Israel up
From the land of Egypt,
But also the Philistines from Caphtor
And the Arameans from Kir.

The direction of the "sea road" near the Mediterranean coast is the military road of the Egyptians, which they used in their journeys to the north. The middle was the direction towards Be'er Sheva and the Negev, which leads to the heart of the land of Canaan through the land of the Philistines, not the Philistines who settled in the southern lowlands in the 12th century BC, but those tribes, who are closely related by race, who probably preceded them and settled in and around Gerar...