Revised Standard Version treats verse 15 as a comment or explanation in anticipation of the information that will come in verse 18. Because this comment is relative to a verse that still lies ahead, Revised Standard Version places it between parentheses. However, other versions such as Speiser, Good News Translation, New International Version, take verse 15 as part of the present story line, an action of the people of Gerar resulting from their jealousy of Isaac’s prosperity. These versions all begin the verse with “So….” Some translations in other languages join the first part of this verse to the last part of the previous verse in the same sentence; for example, “Those Philistine people were jealous of him, and they filled in all the wells….”

Stopped and filled with earth all the wells: stopped renders a verb meaning to stop up or close up by filling in (with dirt). The verb is used in 2 Kgs 3.19, 25 of stopping up springs of water. And filled with earth tells how they stopped up the wells. For an alternate way of expressing this, see Good News Translation. For wells see discussion of 21.19.

Which his father … his father: this may need to be expressed differently to avoid some repetition; for example, “which his father’s servants had dug when Abraham was still alive.” It may be desirable to rearrange verse 15 so that the events follow each other in the order they happened. For example, “When his father Abraham was still alive, Abraham’s servants had dug some wells, but later the Philistines had filled them in” or “Before, in the time when his father Abraham was living, his father’s workers had dug wells there, but now because of their jealousy the Philistines went and filled them in again.”

Quoted with permission from Reyburn, William D. and Fry, Euan McG. A Handbook on Genesis. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .