The pattern returns. Pseudo-Jonathan knows it, and expects us to know it too. Abraham had done this twice — in Egypt and in Gerar — saying of Sarah, she is my sister, because he feared the locals would kill him to take her. Now Isaac, in the same Gerar, says the same thing about Rebekah.
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan records his inner reasoning. "He reasoned in his heart, Lest the men of the place should kill me for Rivekah, because she was of beautiful appearance" (Genesis 26:7).
Is Isaac just copying his father?
The sages were not blind to the repetition, and they did not flinch from it. Ma'aseh avot siman l'banim — the deeds of the fathers are a sign for the children. Isaac repeats Abraham's strategy because Isaac's life is meant to echo Abraham's life in key. The echo is not plagiarism. It is inheritance.
But the Targum subtly shifts the emphasis. Where Abraham in Genesis 12 and 20 asked Sarah to say she was his sister, Isaac does not ask Rebekah anything. He simply says it when asked, and reasons in his heart — the fear is internal, private, unspoken. Rebekah, the Targum implies, knows how to play this game without being told.
The moral tension
Jewish tradition does not wrap this story in a bow. The patriarchs are not plaster saints. Pseudo-Jonathan, like the Torah itself, lets the fear stand. The beautiful truth of the covenant is that it runs through men who were afraid, who lied to kings, who stumbled. The stars still multiply over flawed tents.