It appears, at least to me, that, once the famine had come to an end, Isaac returned from the territory of the Philistines to Beersheba, the southern tip of the Land of Canaan. Once the Jews had entered Canaan and took it for themselves, the Promised Land extended from Dan in the north to Beersheba in the south (Judges 20:1; 1Chronicles 21:2). It received its name from the treaty Abraham made with Abimelech (Genesis 21:31). Abimelech wanted Abraham to swear to him that he wouldn’t do the Philistines harm, because he knew that God was with him, so Abraham agreed (Genesis 21:22-24). However, when he did, Abraham brought to Abimelech’s attention that his men had taken away the well his servants had dug. Abimelech pleaded ignorance (Genesis 21:25-26), so Abraham took seven ewe lambs and gave them to Abimelech as witnesses to the fact that he had dug the well, and he caused him to swear that was true. Thus, the name of the place was called Beersheba (“well of the oath” or “well of seven”).
The name is taken either from the seven lambs or from the fact that there are seven wells at the place where the oath was made. According to Smith’s Bible Dictionary, there are, presently, seven wells at the place referred to as Beersheba, “two principal wells and five smaller ones.” All seven wells are located in the Wadi es-Seba, and the curbing that surrounds the mouths of the wells have deep grooves in them, worn down over the centuries by the constant use of ropes to pull the wells’ water to the surface for use. It seems that Isaac retreated here, where his father, Abraham, had made the treaty with Abimelech (Genesis 21:22-26), who had filled these wells with dirt (Genesis 26:15, 18), because even these wells had to be opened up, because they had been filled in (cp. Genesis 26:32).
So, after Isaac had arrived in Beersheba, the Lord appeared to him that same night, and he confirmed the promises he had made to Abraham, saying he would perform them through Isaac, Abraham’s son (Genesis 26:23-24). Interestingly, the Lord told Isaac he would multiply his seed, which may imply that Esau and Jacob had not yet been born, putting their births after the famine. If this is true, then the famine that brought Isaac to Gerar (Genesis 26:1) would have been some 55 to 60 years after the famine that brought his father, Abraham, into Egypt (Genesis 12:10).[1]
Whether Isaac had intended to settle in Beersheba, or he settled there because the Lord appeared to him in that place, isn’t clear. Nevertheless, we are told that Isaac had been dwelling in the “south country,” when he and Rebecah were married (Genesis 24:62), and continued there even after Abraham had died (Genesis 25:11). Specifically, the place where Isaac had dwelt was at the well of Lahairoi, or Beer-lahai-roi. This was the well, where the Angel of the Lord appeared to Hagar, when she fled from Sarah, who had been abusing her (cp. Genesis 16:7-14). Beersheba was on the way to Beer-lahai-roi, so it may be Isaac decided to settle in Beersheba, because the Lord appeared to him and confirmed the blessings to him (Genesis 26:23-24). Therefore, it was here that he built an altar to the Lord, and his servants dug out one of Abraham’s wells that had been filled in with earth (Genesis 26:25), implying that Isaac had kept the treaty his father had made with Abimelech, and didn’t use violence against him or his descendants (Genesis 21:22-24). However, Abimelech didn’t return the faithfulness to the treaty that Isaac had done, because Abimelech had filled in the wells Abraham had dug, once Abraham had died (Genesis 26:15, 18), thus breaking the treaty that was to extend to their descendants.
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[1] See my earlier study: God’s Promise to Isaac.
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