Genesis 26:5-7 New English Translation
5 All this will come to pass[a] because Abraham obeyed me[b] and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.”[c] 6 So Isaac settled in Gerar.
7 When the men of that place asked him about his wife, he replied, “She is my sister.”[d] He was afraid to say, “She is my wife,” for he thought to himself,[e] “The men of this place will kill me to get[f] Rebekah because she is very beautiful.”
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- Genesis 26:5 tn The words “All this will come to pass” are not in the Hebrew text, but are supplied for stylistic reasons.
- Genesis 26:5 tn Heb “listened to my voice.”
- Genesis 26:5 sn My charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws. The language of this verse is clearly interpretive, for Abraham did not have all these laws. The terms are legal designations for sections of the Mosaic law and presuppose the existence of the law. Some Rabbinic views actually conclude that Abraham had fulfilled the whole law before it was given (see m. Qiddushin 4:14). Some scholars argue that this story could only have been written after the law was given (C. Westermann, Genesis, 2:424-25). But the simplest explanation is that the narrator (traditionally taken to be Moses the Lawgiver) elaborated on the simple report of Abraham’s obedience by using terms with which the Israelites were familiar. In this way he depicts Abraham as the model of obedience to God’s commands, whose example Israel should follow.
- Genesis 26:7 sn Rebekah, unlike Sarah, was not actually her husband’s sister.
- Genesis 26:7 tn Heb “lest.” The words “for he thought to himself” are supplied because the next clause is written with a first person pronoun, showing that Isaac was saying or thinking this.
- Genesis 26:7 tn Heb “kill me on account of.”
New English Translation (NET)
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