Then Abimelech asked Abraham, “What prompted you to do this thing?”

Abimelech asked Abraham, “What is the meaning of these seven ewe lambs that you have set apart?”

Laban said to him, “Come, you who are blessed by the Lord! Why are you standing out here when I have prepared the house and a place for the camels?”

“Look,” said Esau, “I’m about to die! What use is the birthright to me?”

Then Laban said to Jacob, “Should you work for me for nothing because you are my relative? Tell me what your wages should be.”

Now I understand that you have gone away because you longed desperately for your father’s house. Yet why did you steal my gods?”

When Joseph reached Shechem, a man found him wandering in the field, so the man asked him, “What are you looking for?”

When Jacob heard there was grain in Egypt, he said to his sons, “Why are you looking at each other?”

Israel said, “Why did you bring this trouble on me by telling the man you had one more brother?”

They answered him, “Why does my lord say such things? Far be it from your servants to do such a thing!

The Israelite foremen went and cried out to Pharaoh, “Why are you treating your servants this way?

When your children ask you, ‘What does this ceremony mean to you?’ –

The Lord said to Moses, “Why do you cry out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on.

Then Moses cried out to the Lord, “What will I do with this people? – a little more and they will stone me!”

So Moses said to them, “Remain here and I will hear what the Lord will command concerning you.”

But Moses said, “Why are you now transgressing the commandment of the Lord? It will not succeed!

They put him in custody, because there was no clear instruction about what should be done to him.

Why have you brought up the Lord’s community into this wilderness? So that we and our cattle should die here?

Nevertheless the Kenite will be consumed. How long will Asshur take you away captive?”

If only we had been satisfied to live on the other side of the Jordan! O Lord, what can I say now that Israel has retreated before its enemies?