Genesis 26:10

10 Avimelekh 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!"

Genesis 26:10 Meaning and Commentary

Genesis 26:10

And Abimelech said, what is this thou hast done unto us?
&c.] By entertaining suspicions and jealousies of us as bad men, and by exposing us to the temptation of committing iniquity; why hast thou dealt thus with us, and what have we done, or is in our character, that thou shouldest act after this manner? one of the people might lightly have lien with thy wife;
it is much one or other had not before this time, not looking upon it criminal to have to do with a single woman, when they would not have meddled with another man's wife, Jarchi interprets this of Abimelech himself; and so the Targum of Jonathan, who perhaps had been thinking of taking her to his bed; and was "within a little" F3, as the word for "lightly" may be rendered, of accomplishing his design: and thou shouldest have brought guiltiness upon us:
been the occasion of their committing the sin of adultery, which was heinous in the eyes of Heathens, and of bringing on them the punishment due thereunto.


FOOTNOTES:

F3 (jemk) "parum abfuit", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Schmidt.

Genesis 26:10 In-Context

8 It happened, when he had been there a long time, that Avimelekh king of the Pelishtim looked out at a window, and saw, and, behold, Yitzchak was caressing Rivka, his wife.
9 Avimelekh called Yitzchak, and said, "Behold, surely she is your wife. Why did you say, 'She is my sister?'" Yitzchak said to him, "Because I said, 'Lest I die because of her.'"
10 Avimelekh 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!"
11 Avimelekh charged all the people, saying, "He who touches this man or his wife will surely be put to death."
12 Yitzchak sowed in that land, and reaped in the same year one hundred times what he planted. The LORD blessed him.
The Hebrew Names Version is in the public domain.