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In Genesis 26, Abimelech protects Isaac by ordering death for anyone who touches him or his wife. Jubilees 24 echoes this, but having dropped the wife-sister story, forbids touching Isaac or anything that belongs to him.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Genesis 26:11
Hebrew Bible
10 Then Abimelech exclaimed, “What in the world have you done to us? One of the men nearly took your wife to bed, and you would have brought guilt on us!” 11 So Abimelech commanded all the people, “Whoever touches this man or his wife will surely be put to death.” 12 When Isaac planted in that land, he reaped in the same year a hundred times what he had sown, because the Lord blessed him.
Date: 750–400 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
Jubilees 24:13
Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions
12 And he lived in Gerar three weeks of years. 13 And Abimelech gave orders concerning him, and concerning all that was his [2080-2101], saying: 'Any man that shall touch him or anything that is his shall surely die.' 14 And Isaac grew strong among the Philistines, and he got many possessions, oxen and sheep and camels and donkeys and a great household.
Date: 170–125 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
... Verse 13 follows with the next borrowing, this time from Genesis 26:11, so that Genesis 26:7-10 is omitted almost entirely. Those verses tell the story about Isaac’s lie regarding his wife and how he lost her, apparently to King Abimelech of the Philistines, who discovered only later that she was his wife. The writer here omits an episode that places one of the patriarchs in a bad light—a time when Isaac chose the wrong example from his father for imitation. He betrays the fact that he knows the full account by reworking the last verse in it. The references to his wife have been replaced by “everything that belonged to him” and “anything that belongs to him.” ...
James C. VanderKam, Jubilees 2: A Commentary on the Book of Jubilees Chapters 22-50 (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2018), 718.
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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