Here we go again. That’s all I could think about while reading this chapter where the current Patriarch (in this case Isaac) lies about his relationship with his spouse in the name of “protecting the household” [i.e. himself]. The story is almost identical to the Abraham ruse including the same Philistine players. What’s the point?
Genesis 26:7
When the men of that place asked him about his wife, he said, “She is my sister,” because he was afraid to say, “She is my wife.” He thought, “The men of this place might kill me on account of Rebekah, because she is beautiful.”
In Wikipedia, a “Jewish Encyclopedia” article states that the parallel stories in all likelihood were used to dramatize and accentuate the beauty of the women involved. In other words, the best way to explain a woman’s beauty is through the machinations men go through to possess her or to be near her or to know her.
What is beauty? We all know, it is in the eye of the beholder. What do we go through today to be beautiful?
One of my favorite plays is the Rainmaker by N. Richard Nash in which a charismatic charlatan is able to draw out a young woman’s belief in herself and her personal beauty. If only every woman could see her own beauty and not depend on culture for approval or confirmation.
Meditations from Zion 
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