Genesis 26:11 - Exposition

And Abimelech charged all his (literally, the) people, saying, He that toucheth—in the sense of injureth (cf. Joshua 9:19 ; Psalms 105:15 )— this man or his wife shall surely be put to death. The similarity of this incident to that related in Genesis 20:1-18 . concerning Abraham in Gerar may be explained without resorting to the hypothesis of different authors, The stereotyped character of the manners of antiquity, especially in the East, is sufficient to account for the danger to which Sarah was exposed recurring in the case of Rebekah three quarters of a century later. That Isaac should have resorted to the miserable expedient of his father may have been due simply to a lack of originality on the part of Isaac; or perhaps the recollection of the success which had attended his father's adoption of this wretched subterfuge may have blinded him to its true character. But from whatever cause resulting, the resemblance between the two narratives cannot be held as destroying the credibility of either, and all the more that a careful scrutiny will detect sufficient dissimilarity between them to establish the authenticity of the incidents which they relate.