Gerar

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Gerar - meaning lodging-place - was a Philistine town and district in what is today south-central Israel. Archaeological evidence points to the town having come into existence with the arrival of the Philistines at around 1200 BCE and having been little more than a village until 800-700 BCE.

Biblically, the town features in two of the three wife-sister narratives in Genesis. The Bible records that Abraham and Isaac each stayed at Gerar, and that each passed their wife off as their sister, leading to romantic complications involving Gerar's king, Abimelech (Genesis 20-21, and 26). (Most estimates place this near 2000 BCE.) The biblical valley of Gerar (Gen. 26:17) is probably the modern Wadi el-Jerdr.