Bible Location
Meaning: same as Gera · 9 cross references · Modern-day map available
Gerar was an ancient town and district in the south-western region between the Negeb and Philistine territory. It is important because both Abraham and Isaac stayed there and because it appears in stories about treaties, wells, and life on the southern pastoral frontier. First appears in Gen 10:19.1
AI summary: Gerar is one of the major patriarchal southern locations because it appears in both Abraham's and Isaac's lives. The stories there involve danger, deception, treaties, prosperity, and disputes over wells, all of which reveal the tensions of living as outsiders on the margins of settled power. Its setting also helps show how much of patriarchal life unfolded in the southern frontier rather than only in the central land. The cross references present Gerar as a pastoral border region of covenant tension and provision.1
A region; lodging-place, a very ancient town and district in the south border of Palestine, which was ruled over by a king named Abimelech (Gen. 10:19; 20:1, 2). Abraham sojourned here, and perhaps Isaac was born in this place. Both of these patriarchs were guilty of the sin of here denying their wives, and both of them entered into a treaty with the king before they departed to Beersheba (21:23-34; 26). It seems to have been a rich pastoral country (2 Chr. 14:12-18). Isaac here reaped an hundred-fold, and was blessed of God (Gen. 26:12). The “valley of Gerar” (Gen. 26:17) was probably the modern Wady el-Jerdr. 3
| Book | Cross-References |
|---|---|
| Gen | |
| 2Chr |
Figure1: A table of cross references between the selected passage and other passages (Data from Robert Rouse, “Theographic Bible Information,” Theographic-Bible-Metadata, 2020, https://github.com/robertrouse/theographic-bible-metadata.)
AI-assisted summary prepared for ai-BIBLE and stored as page content, based on dictionary material, place metadata, and linked Bible cross references.
Alistair de Blacquiere-Clarkson, “ai-BIBLE Bible Names JSON Factsheet Aggregating Material from Smith’s Bible Dictionary & Hitcocks’s New and Complete Analysis of the Bible.” ai-BIBLE electronic edition, version 1.0.
M.G.Easton, Illustrated Bible Dictionary, ai-BIBLE electronic edition, version 1.0.
Robert Rouse, “Theographic Bible Information,” Theographic-Bible-Metadata, 2020, https://github.com/robertrouse/theographic-bible-metadata.