“He planted a tamarisk in Beersheba, and he proclaimed there the name of the Lord, God of the universe” (Genesis 21:33). “He planted a tamarisk [eshel] in Beersheba” – Rabbi Yehuda and Rabbi Neḥemya, Rabbi Yehuda said: Eshel is an orchard. [It means:] Request [she’al] whatever you would like to request – figs, grapes, and pomegranates. Rabbi Neḥemya said: Eshel is an inn. [It means:] Request [she’al] whatever you would like to request; a loaf of bread, meat, wine, eggs.
Rabbi Azarya in the name of Rabbi Yehuda bar Simon: Eshel is Sanhedrin,23Abraham set up a Sanhedrin in Beersheba. just as it says: “Saul was sitting [in judgment] in Giva under the tamarisk [eshel] in Rama” (I Samuel 22:6). According to the opinion of Rabbi Neḥemya, who said eshel is an inn, Abraham would receive passersby. After they had eaten and drunk, he would say to them: ‘Say a blessing.’ They would say to him: ‘What shall we say?’
He would say to them: ‘Blessed is the God of the universe, whose food we have eaten.’ That is what is written: “He proclaimed there the name of the Lord, God of the universe.” “Abraham resided in the land of the Philistines many years” (Genesis 21:34). “Abraham resided in the land of the Philistines many years” – more years than he stayed in Hebron.
In Hebron he stayed twenty-five years,24He was seventy-five years old when he arrived in the land of Canaan (Genesis 12:4), and settled in Hebron (Genesis 13:18). Up until the time of the upheaval of Sodom, when he was one hundred years old, the Torah does not mention anything about him moving away from there. and here he stayed twenty-six years.25Since our verse states that he resided “many years” in the land of the Philistines, the implication is that he lived there for longer than his twenty-five-year stay in Hebron.
Since the verse does not specify how many years more, the assumption is that he was there just one year more than he resided in Hebron.