When the Philistines try to erase Abraham's memory, the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan tells us what Isaac does. He digs. Again. "And Izhak digged again the wells of water which the servants of his father had digged in the days of Abraham his father, and which the Philistaee had stopped after Abraham was dead" (Genesis 26:18).
And he did more than dig. He named each well by the old name. Every shaft that Abraham had drilled, Isaac reopened and called by Abraham's word.
Why is this so important?
In the ancient Near East, a name was a claim. When the Philistines stopped up Abraham's wells with earth after he died, they were trying to erase his footprint from the land — to make it as if he had never been there. When Isaac reopens each well and restores each original name, he is not just getting water. He is insisting that Abraham's life mattered and that the covenant was not a footnote.
The rabbis compared this to what every generation must do. The Talmud in Berakhot teaches that Torah study is the reopening of wells. Each generation must dig again through the dirt that has settled on the words of the generation before.
The takeaway
The enemies of a holy life do not always come with swords. Sometimes they come with shovels, filling in what was built. Pseudo-Jonathan's Isaac is the model of response: dig again. Use the old names. Let the water flow where your father's servants once struck it. The covenant is stored in wells, and wells need tending.