What Does Genesis 26:7 Mean in the King James?
And the men of the place asked him of his wife; and he said, She is my sister: for he feared to say, She is my wife; lest, said he, the men of the place should kill me for Rebekah; because she was fair to look upon.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
Fear turns a true bond into a cover story before the threatened violence has even happened.
THE MEANING
When fear of another person’s violence takes hold, speech can hide the bond it means to protect. The disguise changes what is said, while the feared violence remains the force shaping the sentence.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that renaming a relationship can remove the danger: the feared violence still governs the words.
THE ROOT
יָרֵא
yārēʾ
GROWS FROM
ירא
y-r-ʾ
To fear or revere; the object determines whether the word carries alarm or awe.
“feared” in this verse is yārēʾ. English “fear” can sound like one interior feeling, but this Hebrew root shifts with its object: toward danger it is fear, and toward God it is awe. Here the object is the men, and the threat of killing makes the fear concrete.
ALSO GROWS
yir'ah: Fear or awe
יִרְאָה
The same root can name alarm before danger or reverence toward God; here the context makes the alarm plain.
nora: Fearsome or awe-inspiring
נוֹרָא
This branch describes what evokes fear or awe, showing that the root can point both to the feeling and to its object.
THE PATTERN
Fear of human consequences can narrow what a person is willing to say before any consequence occurs.
And Abraham said, Because I thought, Surely the fear of God is not in this place; and they will slay me for my wife’s sake.The fear of man bringeth a snare: but whoso putteth his trust in the LORD shall be safe.These words spake his parents, because they feared the Jews: for the Jews had agreed already, that if any man did confess that he was Christ, he should be put out of the synagogue.THE THREAD
And Abraham said, Because I thought, Surely the fear of God is not in this place; and they will slay me for my wife’s sake.The same Hebrew fear-root appears in Abraham’s account of concealing his wife, alongside the same anticipated killing. The echo reveals the fear-driven disguise recurring across these verses: what is compressed into Isaac’s sentence is stated outright in Abraham’s.
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