Catholic Commentary
The Disputes Over the Wells
17Isaac departed from there, encamped in the valley of Gerar, and lived there.18Isaac dug again the wells of water, which they had dug in the days of Abraham his father, for the Philistines had stopped them after the death of Abraham. He called their names after the names by which his father had called them.19Isaac’s servants dug in the valley, and found there a well of flowing water.20The herdsmen of Gerar argued with Isaac’s herdsmen, saying, “The water is ours.” So he called the name of the well Esek, because they contended with him.21They dug another well, and they argued over that, also. So he called its name Sitnah.22He left that place, and dug another well. They didn’t argue over that one. So he called it Rehoboth. He said, “For now Yahweh has made room for us, and we will be fruitful in the land.”
Genesis 26:17–22 describes Isaac's settlement in the valley of Gerar, where he re-opens his father Abraham's wells and digs new ones, encountering repeated disputes with Philistine herdsmen over water rights. After two conflicts over wells named Esek and Sitnah, Isaac digs a third well at Rehoboth where there is no dispute, prompting him to declare that God has made room for him to flourish in the land.
Meekness is not weakness—it's the power to keep digging after injustice stops your well, because God's vindication outlasts human hostility.
Commentary
Genesis 26:17 — Encampment in the Valley of Gerar. Isaac's departure is not a rout but a strategic, obedient withdrawal. The Philistine king Abimelech had asked him to leave (v. 16) because Isaac's blessing had become a source of envy. Yet Isaac does not flee far; he camps in the nahal Gerar — the wadi or valley of Gerar — remaining in the general territory where God had just instructed him to stay (v. 2–3). He is simultaneously obedient to the human authority that expelled him and faithful to the divine command that bound him to the land. This tension between earthly displacement and covenantal rootedness defines the entire passage.
Genesis 26:18 — Re-digging Abraham's Wells. Isaac's first act is memorial and restorative: he unblocks the wells his father Abraham had dug, which the Philistines had deliberately stopped with earth after Abraham's death — a calculated act of erasure meant to nullify Abraham's claim to the land. Isaac restores their original names, an act of profound significance in the ancient Near East where naming a well was tantamount to asserting ownership. He is not merely repairing infrastructure; he is performing an act of covenantal memory, re-inscribing his father's legacy onto the landscape. The wells of Abraham are the wells of promise; to re-open them is to re-open the covenant.
Genesis 26:19 — The Well of Living Water. Isaac's servants discover a well of mayim ḥayyim — literally "living waters," that is, spring-fed, flowing water as opposed to stagnant cistern water. This detail is not incidental: living water was the most prized water in the ancient world, marking a well of exceptional value. The Philistines had stopped the older wells, but God now gives Isaac something new — something that surpasses mere restoration. Even in the place of conflict, there is gift.
Genesis 26:20 — Esek: The Well of Contention. The Philistine herdsmen immediately dispute ownership: "The water is ours." Isaac's response is striking for what he does not do — he does not fight, does not appeal to prior right, does not invoke the covenant. He names the well Esek ("contention" or "dispute") and moves on. The name is an act of truthful witness, not bitterness. Isaac records the injustice without being consumed by it.
Genesis 26:21 — Sitnah: The Well of Enmity. The same pattern repeats: a second well dug, a second dispute. Isaac names this one Sitnah, from a root meaning "hostility" or "accusation" — the same root from which Satan (the adversary, the accuser) derives. The doubling is significant: this is not bad luck but a systematic pattern of dispossession. Isaac is being tested to see whether he will abandon patience.
Genesis 26:22 — Rehoboth: The Well of Open Spaces. The third time, there is no dispute. Isaac names the well Reḥovot — "broad places" or "open spaces" — and his declaration is a theology compressed into a single sentence: "For now Yahweh has made room for us, and we will be fruitful in the land." The passive construction is deliberate: God is the one who makes room; Isaac is the one who receives. The promise given to Abraham (Gen 17:6, "I will make you exceedingly fruitful") now begins to take spatial, material form for Isaac. Fruitfulness is not seized; it is given. The narrative arc — Contention, Enmity, Open Spaces — traces the interior journey from conflict to trust to abundance.
Typological Sense. The three wells trace a spiritual itinerary: the soul contested, the soul persecuted, the soul finally expanded by God. The Fathers, especially Origen (see below), read the wells as figures of Scripture itself — stopped up by literalism, re-opened by Christ, yielding living water to those who seek. The mayim ḥayyim of verse 19 anticipates Jesus's discourse on living water in John 4, where He offers water that becomes "a spring welling up to eternal life."
Catholic Commentary
Catholic tradition has read this passage on multiple levels, none more richly than in the patristic allegorical tradition. Origen of Alexandria, in his Homilies on Genesis (Homily XIII), offers the most sustained Catholic reading of the wells. He identifies the stopped-up wells as the Hebrew Scriptures obscured by the letter: "The Philistines filled them with earth — that is, those who have an earthly understanding have filled and closed up those Scriptures." Isaac re-opening the wells is Christ and the Church re-opening the meaning of the Old Testament through spiritual interpretation. The well of living water (v. 19) Origen identifies directly with the Gospel: it is fresh, inexhaustible, and contested precisely because it is precious. St. Ambrose similarly develops the well imagery in De Isaac et Anima, reading Isaac's patient withdrawal as the soul's non-attachment to earthly goods, a necessary condition for receiving deeper spiritual gifts.
From a doctrinal standpoint, the passage illustrates what the Catechism of the Catholic Church calls the "pedagogy of God" (CCC §53) — the way divine providence works through trial, deferral, and displacement to form the character of faith. Isaac does not receive Rehoboth immediately; he receives it after Esek and Sitnah. The Catechism also teaches that the covenant with the patriarchs is progressive in nature (CCC §762), and this passage shows the covenant being enacted through struggle, not simply bestowed. The covenantal promise of land, descendants, and blessing is reaffirmed not by force but by God's sovereign provision — "Yahweh has made room" — prefiguring the theological principle that the Kingdom is received, not conquered (CCC §2816).
St. John Paul II, in Centesimus Annus (§30), draws on the patrimony of the patriarchs to speak about just claims to resources and the virtue of restraint in the face of injustice — a theme directly relevant to Isaac's non-retaliatory response to Philistine dispossession.
For Today
Isaac's three wells offer a concrete map for the Catholic facing systematic frustration — in the workplace, in family conflict, in the Church itself. The temptation at "Esek" and "Sitnah" is not primarily to fight back; it is to define yourself by the opposition. Isaac resists this: he names the injustice truthfully, refuses to be absorbed by it, and moves on. This is not passivity — it is the active virtue of meekness that Jesus places at the heart of the Beatitudes ("the meek shall inherit the land," Matt 5:5, itself an echo of Isaac's story).
Practically: when a door closes — a career opportunity taken, a relationship soured, a ministry blocked — the Christian is invited to dig again rather than litigate endlessly. The practice of "naming" our Eseqs and Sitnahs (journaling, honest prayer, spiritual direction) without being enslaved to them is spiritually crucial. And the promise of Rehoboth — "God has made room" — is not a guarantee of immediate resolution but a declaration that God's faithfulness outlasts human hostility. The question Isaac poses implicitly to every reader is: Can you keep digging after the second stopped well?
Cross-References