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Context No. 706 of 4322 · Genesis

Context · Reflection

Genesis 26:6-10: in context

6Isaac lived in Gerar. 7The men of the place asked him about his wife. He said, “She is my sister,” for he was afraid to say, “My wife”, lest, he thought, “the men of the place might kill me for Rebekah, because she is beautiful to look at.” 8When he had been there a long time, Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out at a window, and saw, and, behold, Isaac was caressing Rebekah, his wife. 9Abimelech called Isaac, and said, “Behold, surely she is your wife. Why did you say, ‘She is my sister’?” Isaac said to him, “Because I said, ‘Lest I die because of her.’” 10Abimelech said, “What is this you have done to us? One of the people might easily have lain with your wife, and you would have brought guilt on us!”

A famine has driven Isaac to Gerar, in Philistine country, and there he does a strangely familiar thing. Afraid that the local men will kill him to take his beautiful wife, he tells them Rebekah is his sister. It is his father's trick exactly. Abraham had done it twice, once with Pharaoh and once with a king of this very place named Abimelech, passing off Sarah as his sister out of the same fear. The son has inherited the lie whole, down to the town and the king.

Time passes, and the ruse comes undone by a window. Abimelech looks out and sees Isaac caressing Rebekah, plainly no brother and sister, and the Hebrew hides a joke in it: Isaac's name means he laughs, and the word for what the king catches him doing with his wife is built from the same root. He is exposed by his own name. Abimelech calls him in and, of all things, takes the higher ground. Why did you tell us she was your sister? One of my people might have slept with her, and you would have brought guilt on us. The pagan king is more careful about wrong than the patriarch, and the patriarch is only repeating his father's fear.

Isaac reached for his father's lie without seeming to think twice. Which of my parents' fears do I find myself repeating, word for word, as if it were my own idea?

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