Genesis 26:6-11

4. The Threat to Rebekah's Honor (Genesis 26:6-11). Because Gerar was situated in the Judean foothills south of Gaza and likely controlled the inland caravan route to Egypt, no doubt it was a commercial city. Therefore Isaac's needs during the famine were here supplied. The men of the place were attracted to Rebekah because she was fair to look upon. Isaac, apprehensive of personal danger on account of his wife's beauty, followed the same deceptive course that his father had adopted (Genesis 12:13, Genesis 20:2) of passing his wife off as his sister. At that time Rebekah was at least thirty-five years married and the mother of two fullgrown sons who evidently had been kept in the background, perhaps engaged in pastoral and other field pursuits. But after a considerable lapse of time, Abimelech, king of the Philistines, happened to be looking out at a window and saw, and behold, Isaac was sporting with Rebekah his wife (literally, he was fondling her, and certainly not in the manner by which a brother would show affection for his sister). Whereupon Abimelech constrained Isaac to admit that she was his wife, charged him with the impropriety of his conduct, and commanded his own subjects to refrain from harming either of them on. pain of death. Knobel pronounces this story to be a duplicate account of a similar incident in the life of Abraham. But a close examination will show that the circumstances here detailed are different from those of the earlier transaction. Although the name of the principal personage in both narratives is Abimelech, a royal title, it is highly probable, considering that an interval of about seventy years had elapsed, another king was reigning in Isaac's day: then Rebekah was not taken into the royal harem; and there was a difference also in the way in which her conjugal relation to Isaac was discovered. Altogether the stories are marked by distinctive peculiarities of their own; and though it is striking, it cannot appear improbable that, in the same country and at the same court, where Oriental notions as to the rights of royalty obtained, incidents of such a description should, from time to time, occur. Isaac's conduct, however, in this affair, has been made the subject of severe animadversion by the friends as well as the foes of Revelation, as a compound of selfishness and weakness, as well as of cold indifference to his wife's honor, for which the same apology cannot be made as in the earlier case of Abraham. But Waterland (-Scripture Vindicated-'), after a full and dispassionate examination of the circumstances, gives his verdict, that the patriarch -did right to evade the difficulty so long as it could be lawfully evaded, and to await and see whether Divine Providence might not, in some way or other, interpose before the last extremity.-' His hope was not disappointed (CECD, 191).

Lange (CDHCG, 505-506): In the declaration of Isaac the event here resembles Abraham's experience, both in Egypt and at Gerar, but as to all else, it differs entirely. With regard to the declaration itself, it is true that Rebekah was also related to Isaac, but more distantly than Sarah to Abraham. It is evident from the narrative itself that Isaac is not so seriously threatened as Abraham, although the inquiries of the people at Gerar might have alarmed him. It is not by a punishment inflicted upon a heathen prince, who perhaps might have abducted the wife, but through the intercourse of Isaac with Rebekah that the true relation became known. That the Abimelech mentioned in this narrative is the same person who, eighty years before, received Sarah into his harem, appears plausible to Kurtz and Delitzsch, since it may be taken for granted that as a man gray with hair as he, did not send for Rebekah and take her into his harem. We reject these as superficial grounds. The main point is, that Isaac appears in this narrative as a very cautious man, while the severe edict of Abimelech seems to suppose a solemn remembrance in the king's house of the former experience with Abraham. The oath that follows seems also to show that the new Abimelech avails himself of the policy of his father, as well as Isaac. The windows in old times were latticed openings for the light to enter, as found in the East at the present day.

Finally in this connection, the following: Criticism, with almost complete unanimity (we know only of Koenig as an exception) calls this a later (Isaac) version of the original (Abraham) legend, or else calls chapter 26the original and chapter 20 derivative. Yet the differences, aside from the very plain statements of the text to the same effect, point to two different situations: here a famine, there none; here Rebekah is not molested, there Abimelech took Sarah; here accidental discovery, there divine intervention; here no royal gift, there rich recompense. Of course, criticism usually points to Genesis 12:10 f. as being merely another form of the same incident. Yet at least one aspect of the critical approach can be refuted completely on purely critical grounds. For, as K.C. [Koenig's Kommentar on Genesis] observes, it is unthinkable that J, to whom chapter 12 as well as chapter 26 are attributed, should have preserved two versions of one and the same incident (Leupold, EG, 721).

Review Questions

See Genesis 26:34-35.