“Won’t they come and destroy any new well?” Esau asked as they rode out together to see the progress being made on the digging.
“They may, but we will always leave some of our men to guard it. Only when we have the wells to supply us with the water we need will we be freed from the fear of famine.”
Isaac’s family and servants had moved back into their tents beside the brook Besor. The brook had now gone from a sizable stream to a slow, sluggish trickle of water. The springs that fed it had dried up and the irrigation ditches that Isaac’s men had dug in the past were dry and parched.
“My father often told us that in Ur they could not depend on the rain,” Isaac said. “They had to dig ditches and channel water if they wanted to grow anything. There is water in the earth and it is water that enables the seeds to sprout.”
On this day in the early fall, they were again riding out to inspect the progress on the new well. As they came near the place where the men were digging, they could hear the rhythmic chanting that encouraged the diggers. They could see the tripod with the rope of strong twined camel’s hair and hemp that reached down into the hole where two of the men were digging. The chanting and singing urged the diggers along as they sent up baskets of earth. The digging was so arduous that periodically the men in the pit would be hauled up and two others sent down in their place.
The ground was blistered and dry and their progress was slow. “Each day the shepherds of Abimelech come riding to see what progress we have made,” the men reported. “‘Just as we filled the wells of your father with sand,’ they always chant, ‘so we will fill this when you are finished.’”
“And do they try to stop the digging?” Isaac asked.
“No, they just laugh and joke and ride around letting their mules kick up the sand. Some of them even throw stones down in the well at the diggers before they ride off.”
Isaac was disturbed, but he hoped that when they saw they could not stop his men from digging, they would give up and leave them alone.
This was not to happen. They would not be so easily discouraged. However, it was a full two weeks later that they felt the full force of Abimelech’s anger.
The diggers had finally handed up the last basket of sand and were actually standing in water up to their ankles, before they were hauled up amidst great rejoicing. “It will take time, but now we can again dig the channels for water and plant the seed,” they shouted.
Their joy was short-lived, for when Abimelech heard Isaac’s men had actually dared to dig a new well and had found a plentiful supply of water, he became terribly angry. He immediately ordered his men to close the well. “It’s unnatural,” he said. “It is Baal that waters the land. We are not to rob him of his work. We must entreat Anat to persuade Baal to send rain, not dig in the earth.”
When word reached Isaac that at the new well there had been fighting between his men and Abimelech’s, he was greatly troubled.
“They claim the water,” one of his servants reported. “They say the land is theirs and the water is theirs. Every day they come and we fight them off.”
“I understand their concern,” Isaac said. “They know that any man who digs a well can also claim the land. We must not fight them. Instead we will move to a new site farther away from them and dig another well.”
“But it is so difficult. We already have the ditches dug and some of the seeds planted,” they complained.
“We’ll call the well Esek, or contention, because there has been strife over it, but we will move on and dig another well.”
Once again, at Isaac’s insistence, they began to dig another well. For a time Abimelech’s herdsmen only came by to harass and torment the well diggers. They did not claim the well until it was dug and the men were celebrating. Then with a force of armed spearmen, they descended upon them, drove them off, and claimed the well as their own. They had no need for the irrigation ditches and so trampled them down.
“We will call this well Sitnah, or hatred,” Isaac said, “for it is evident they hate us.”
Isaac now began to look for a place that would not be disturbed or claimed by Abimelech. He wanted no more trouble. The next day they broke camp and traveled to a small oasis outside the area Abimelech’s men usually patrolled. It was a small oasis with palm trees that was no longer visited by caravans and so was empty of any inhabitants. “Here we will dig again,” Isaac said, “and this time we will have peace.”
It happened as Isaac had predicted. They found plenty of water and Abimelech’s men no longer bothered them. “We will call this place Rehoboth,” Isaac said, “for the Lord Himself has made room for us.”