Genesis 21:31

Genesis 21:31, in plain English

The place gets named Beersheba—which means "well of the oath" or "well of seven"—because both men swore an oath there.

Why it's here

Naming a place was a way of memorializing an important event. When you named something, you were saying, "This matters, and future generations will remember why." Beersheba becomes a landmark in Abraham's story and in Israel's geography, marked forever by this covenant moment.

Who's speaking

The narrator explaining the origin of the place name

Where it sits in the story

Place names in Scripture often point to spiritual or relational turning points. Beersheba becomes significant territory—it's where Abraham settles and where he encounters God again. The name itself is a permanent witness to a covenant kept.

The scholarly reading

The location receives the name Beersheba—literally 'Well of the Seven'—commemorating both the seven lambs and the oath sworn there.

Language and setting

The etymology (בְאֵר שֶׁבַע) involves wordplay: שֶׁבַע means both 'seven' and 'oath' (from the root שׁבע, swear). This polysemy—what scholars call 'etymological ambiguity'—allows the name to encode both the lambs and the covenant in a single toponym. Place-names in Genesis frequently mark covenant sites where God or humans swear binding oaths, transforming geography into theology. Beersheba would later become one of ancient Israel's most important cultic centers.

Voice

The narrator, providing etymological explanation

Significance

Naming seals covenantal significance onto the landscape. Beersheba becomes a memorial—a physical location bearing witness across generations to what transpired. This follows the pattern established in Genesis 12:8 (Bethel), 13:3, and will be reinforced throughout Genesis and beyond, creating a geography of covenantal sites marking Abraham's pilgrimage through Canaan.

29and Abimelech asked him, “Why have you set apart these seven ewe lambs?”

30He replied, “You are to accept the seven ewe lambs from my hand as my witness that I dug this well.”

31So that place was called Beersheba, because it was there that the two of them swore an oath.

32After they had made the covenant at Beersheba, Abimelech and Phicol the commander of his army got up and returned to the land of the Philistines.

33And Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba, and there he called upon the name of the LORD, the Eternal God.

Read all of Genesis 21 — The promised son arrives — and Sarah laughs again, this time with joy. But the arrival of one son means the departure of another.