(intensively) to constitute · conjunction + verb, piel sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
people
הָעָ֖םha.'Am
H5971
a people (as a congregated unit) · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
saying
לֵאמֹ֑רle.Mor
H559
to say (used with great latitude) · preposition + verb, qal infinitive construct
toucheth
הַנֹּגֵ֜עַha.no.Ge.a'
H5060
properly · definite article + verb, qal active participle, masculine singular absolute
man
בָּאִ֥ישׁba.'Ish
H376
a man as an individual or a male person · preposition with the article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
wife
וּבְאִשְׁתּ֖וֹu.ve.'ish.To
H802
a woman · conjunction + preposition + noun, common feminine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
surely
מ֥וֹתMot
H4191
to die (literally or figuratively) · verb, qal infinitive absolute
death
יוּמָֽתyu.Mat
H4191
to die (literally or figuratively) · verb, hophal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Psalms 105:15 Saying, Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm.
Genesis 20:6 And God said unto him in a dream, Yea, I know that thou didst this in the integrity of thy heart; for I also withheld thee from sinning agai…
Proverbs 6:29 So he that goeth in to his neighbour’s wife; whosoever toucheth her shall not be innocent.
Zechariah 2:8 For thus saith the LORD of hosts; After the glory hath he sent me unto the nations which spoiled you: for he that toucheth you toucheth the…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Genesis 26:6-11
Isaac had now laid aside all thoughts of going to Egypt, and, in obedience to the heavenly vision, sets up his staff in Gerar, the country in which he was born (Gen 26:6), yet there he enters into temptation, the same temptation that his good father had been once and again surprised and overcome by, namely, to deny his wife, and to give out that she was his sister. Observe,
I. How he sinned, Gen 26:7. Because his wife was handsome, he fancied the Philistines would find some way or other to take him off, that some of them might marry her; and therefore she must pass for his sister. It is an unaccountable thing that both these great and good men should be guilty of so strange a piece of dissim…
He that toucheth - He who injures Isaac or defiles Rebekah shall certainly die for it. Death was the punishment for adultery among the Canaanites, Philistines, and Hebrews. See Gen 38:24.
John Gill on Genesis 26:11
And Abimelech charged all his people,.... All his subjects throughout his kingdom, and particularly the inhabitants of Gerar, and more especially his courtiers and servants about him:
saying, he that toucheth this man or his wife; that does any injury to one either by words or deeds, or behaves immodestly to the other, or attempts to ravish her; this being sometimes used as a modest expression carnal knowledge of a woman; or that does either of them any harm or hurt in any respect whatever:
shall surely be put to death; this severe edict he published, in order to deter his subjects from using them ill, to which they might be provoked by Isaac's dissimulation, and by his evil suspicions of…
And Abimelech charged all his people. In denouncing capital punishment against any who should do injury to this stranger, we may suppose him to have issued this edict as a special privilege; for it isnot customary thus rigidly to avenge every kind of injury. Whence, then, arose this disposition on the part of the king to prefer Isaac to all the native inhabitants of the country, and almost to treat him as an equal, except that some portion of the divine majesty shone forth in him, which secured to him this degree of reverence? God, also, to assist the infirmity of his servant, inclined the mind of the heathen king, in every way, to show him favor. And there is no doubt that his general modes…
The Church Fathers
See God's providence; see his ineffable care. The One who had said, "Don't go down into Egypt; stay in this land, and I will be with you," was the one arranging all this and putting the good man in such a safe position. I mean, notice the king going to such trouble to ensure that he could live in peace and be free from all concern. After all, Abimelech threatened them all with death, the text says, "if anyone laid a hand on him or his wife." You see, since it was the fear—of death, I mean—that shook Isaac's resolve, consequently the loving Lord caused him to be rid of it and from then on to live in complete security. See the strange and remarkable thing in the way God, who is creative and wise and transforms everything according to his own wish and finds means where there are none, brings about in every way the security of his servants.Whence was it, after all … that this king showed such care for the good man, as if proclaiming his merits to all the inhabitants of the city and presenting him as a famous person and much admired by himself? In this way too Nebuchadnezzar, after casting the three children in the furnace and learning by experience the invincible power of the young men's virtue, began then to sing their praises and in every way to render them famous by his own tongue. This, after all, is a particular index of the abundance of God's power, when he causes his servants to be celebrated by their enemies. The man who with relish had the furnace lit and then saw that, on account of help from on high, the children's virtue survived even the fire's heat, was all at once changed, and he cried out, "Servants of God the most high."
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Abimelech — My father a king, or father of a king, a common name of the Philistine kings, as “Pharaoh” was of the Egyptian kings. (1.) The Philistine king of Gerar in the time of Abraham (Gen. 20:1-18). By an…
Conscience · .Of Abimelech, when he took — .Of Abimelech, when he took
Integrity · his household was actually Abraham’s wife — his household was actually Abraham’s wife
Isaac · .Lives in Gerar — .Lives in Gerar
Rebekah (Rebecca) · Passes as — Passes as
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Protection of Rebekah at Gerar. - As Abraham had declared his wife to be his sister both in Egypt and at Gerar, so did Isaac also in the latter place. But the manner in which God protected Rebekah was very different from that in which Sarah was preserved in both instances. Before any one had touched Rebekah, the Philistine king discovered the untruthfulness of Isaac's statement, having seen Isaac "sporting with Rebekah," sc., in a manner to show that she was his wife; whereupon he reproved Isaac for what he had said, and forbade any of his people to touch Rebekah on pain of death. Whether this was the same Abimelech as the one mentioned in Gen 20 cannot be decided with certainty. The name pr…
Isaac, like his father, was rebuked by Abimelech (see study note on 20:1-18). This legal wording would remind Israel of how important it was to preserve marital purity. Abimelech recognized the danger to his own people. Though his decree preserved his own society, it was also a word from God that preserved the sanctity of Isaac’s and Israel’s marriages. If Isaac’s marriage had ended here, there would have been no Israelite society.
Rashi on Genesis 26:10
והבאת עלינו אשם AND YOU WOULD HAVE BROUGHT GUILT UPON US — If he had lain with her already, YOU WOULD HAVE BROUGHT GUILT UPON US.
