Genesis 26:1 - Exposition

And there was a famine in the land (of Canaan), beside the first ( i . e . first recorded) famine that was in the days of Abraham —at least a century previous ( vide Genesis 12:10 ). And Isaac —who, since his father's death, had been residing at Hagar's well in the wilderness of Beersheba ( Genesis 25:11 )— went unto Abimelech king of the Philistines unto Gerar (cf. Genesis 20:1 , Genesis 20:2 ; Genesis 21:22 ). Seventy or eighty years having elapsed since Abraham's sojourn in Gerar, it is scarcely probable that this was the monarch who then reigned.