Genesis 20

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. 'He journeyed from there' (vayyissa' misham) — the narrative transitions directly from the destruction of Sodom and the aftermath in the cave of Zoar. Abraham moves south, away from the smoldering ruins of the Cities of the Plain. The verb nasa' ('to pull up stakes, to journey') implies breaking camp entirely.
2. 'The Negev' (hannegev) — the arid southern region of Canaan. Abraham's movement southward toward the edge of the promised land, settling near the border with Egypt (between Kadesh and Shur), places him in a liminal zone where the patterns of chapter 12 threaten to repeat.
3. 'He sojourned in Gerar' (vayyagar biGrar) — the verb gur ('to sojourn') marks Abraham as a resident alien without permanent rights. Gerar was a Philistine city (cf. 26:1), situated in the western Negev. Abraham's sojourner status makes him vulnerable and sets the stage for the wife-sister deception that follows.

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. 'She is my sister' (achoti hi) — the identical deception Abraham employed in Egypt (12:13). That he repeats it after all that has transpired — the covenant, the promise of a son, the destruction of Sodom — is staggering. Sarah, now promised to bear Isaac within the year (18:10), is placed in jeopardy by the very man entrusted with the covenant promise. The patriarch's faith, so recently displayed in his intercession for Sodom, falters in a far more personal test.
2. 'Abimelech king of Gerar sent and took Sarah' — the verb laqach ('to take') is the same used of Pharaoh in 12:15. The repetition of the entire pattern — journey to foreign land, declaration of sisterhood, royal appropriation — creates a literary echo that invites the reader to compare the two episodes. Notably, Sarah is now approximately ninety years old (17:17), which some commentators find remarkable; others note that her renewed beauty may be connected to the divine rejuvenation implied by the promise of a son.
3. 'Abimelech' (avimelekh) — meaning 'my father is king.' This appears to be a royal title or dynastic name among the rulers of Gerar rather than a personal name, since a king of Gerar bears the same name in Isaac's time (26:1).

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. 'God came to Abimelech in a dream by night' (vayyavo Elohim el-Avimelekh bachalom hallaylah) — this is remarkable: God communicates directly with a pagan king. The text uses Elohim (the universal name for God) rather than YHWH (the covenant name), fitting the context of divine address to a non-Israelite. God's intervention demonstrates His sovereignty over all nations and His commitment to protecting Sarah and the covenant promise, even when Abraham fails to do so.
2. 'You are a dead man' (hinnekha met) — the declaration is blunt and terrifying. The participle met ('dead') functions almost as a death sentence already pronounced. Abimelech stands under divine judgment not for a deliberate sin but for an action taken in ignorance — yet the objective reality of taking another man's wife carries lethal consequences regardless of intent.
3. 'She is married to a husband' (ve'hi be'ulat ba'al) — literally 'she is owned by an owner' or 'mastered by a master.' The term be'ulah comes from ba'al ('lord, husband, owner'), indicating that Sarah belongs to another man in the fullest covenantal sense. The emphatic phrasing underscores that the marriage bond is inviolable.

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. 'Abimelech had not come near her' (vaAvimelekh lo qarav eleiha) — the narrator inserts this crucial fact before Abimelech's defense, confirming that the marriage was never consummated. The verb qarav ('to draw near, to approach') is used euphemistically for sexual relations. God's intervention preceded any violation of Sarah.
2. 'Lord, will You slay even a righteous nation?' (Adonai, hagoy gam-tsaddiq taharog) — the echo of Abraham's intercession for Sodom (18:23–25) is unmistakable. Abraham asked, 'Will You indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?' Now Abimelech — a Gentile king — employs strikingly similar reasoning before God. The word tsaddiq ('righteous') and the appeal to divine justice connect the two episodes. The irony is sharp: the one who argued for Sodom's righteous is now the cause of an innocent king's peril.
3. The term goy ('nation') here likely refers to Abimelech's household and people who would suffer along with him, not merely to himself. His concern extends beyond personal survival to the welfare of his entire kingdom — a mark of royal responsibility.

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. Abimelech's defense is thorough and compelling. He establishes that both Abraham and Sarah participated in the deception — 'he said to me' and 'she also said.' The emphatic 'she herself also' (vehi-gam-hi) stresses that Sarah was complicit, not merely a passive victim. Both husband and wife bore responsibility for misleading Abimelech.
2. 'In the integrity of my heart and in the innocence of my hands' (betom-levavi uvniqyon kappai) — this is one of the most striking moral declarations in Genesis, and it comes from a pagan king. Tom ('integrity, completeness, wholeness') describes an undivided heart without guile. Niqayon ('innocence, cleanness') describes hands unstained by wrongdoing. The combination of heart (intention) and hands (action) constitutes a comprehensive claim of moral blamelessness — language later echoed in Psalm 26:6 and Psalm 73:13.
3. The irony of this chapter is reaching its peak: the 'father of many nations' is the deceiver, while the Gentile king stands before God with clean hands and an upright heart.

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Translator Notes

1. God's response to Abimelech is remarkable in its generosity. He does not merely tolerate the pagan king's defense — He affirms it: 'I know that in the integrity of your heart you did this.' The God of Abraham validates the moral sincerity of a Gentile ruler. This stands as a powerful witness that God judges the heart impartially (cf. 1 Samuel 16:7).
2. 'I also kept you from sinning against Me' (va'echsokh gam-anokhi otkha mechato-li) — the verb chasakh ('to withhold, to restrain, to spare') reveals that God was actively intervening behind the scenes to prevent the consummation. The sin would have been 'against Me' (li) — not merely against Abraham or Sarah, but against God Himself, because the covenant promise of a son through Sarah was at stake. God's sovereign protection of the promised seed operates even when the patriarch's faith fails.
3. 'I did not allow you to touch her' (lo netattikha lingo'a eleiha) — literally 'I did not give you to touch her.' The verb natan ('to give, to permit') with the infinitive construct expresses divine restraint. God governed the situation so completely that Abimelech never had the opportunity to consummate the union. The protection of Sarah — and by extension, the promised son — is entirely God's doing.

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. 'He is a prophet' (ki navi hu) — this is the first occurrence of the word navi ('prophet') in the Bible, and it is applied to Abraham. The designation is significant: a navi is one who speaks to God on behalf of others, an intercessor. Here the prophetic role is defined not primarily as foretelling the future but as mediating between God and man through prayer. Abraham, despite his failure in this episode, retains his calling as God's chosen intercessor.
2. 'He will pray for you and you shall live' (veyitpallel ba'adekha vecheye) — the verb hitpallel ('to pray,' reflexive of palal) suggests intercession, pleading another's cause. Abimelech's healing depends on Abraham's prayer — a humbling irony, since Abraham is the one who caused the crisis. Yet God's design places the remedy in the hands of His prophet, not because Abraham deserves the role, but because God's gifts and calling are irrevocable.
3. 'You shall surely die' (mot tamut) — the infinitive absolute construction (mot tamut) intensifies the threat to absolute certainty. This is the same grammatical form God used in the garden: 'you shall surely die' (2:17). The threat extends to 'all who are yours' — Abimelech's entire household stands under this judgment, as verse 18 will confirm.

Translator Notes

1. 'Abimelech rose early in the morning' (vayyashkem Avimelekh babboqer) — the verb hishkim ('to rise early') conveys urgency and diligence. The same verb is used of Abraham in key moments of obedience (19:27; 21:14; 22:3). Abimelech responds to the divine warning with the same alacrity that characterizes the patriarch at his best.
2. 'The men were very afraid' (vayyir'u ha'anashim me'od) — Abimelech's servants respond with appropriate fear. Their reaction confirms that the dream was understood as a genuine divine communication. In a polytheistic culture, a warning from a deity — even a foreign one — commanded serious attention. The entire household recognizes the gravity of the situation.

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. 'What have you done to us?' (meh-asita lanu) — the identical accusation Pharaoh leveled at Abraham in 12:18. The repetition is devastating. Twice now, a foreign ruler has rebuked the patriarch for the same deception. The man called to be a blessing to the nations has instead brought a curse upon them.
2. 'A great sin' (chata'ah gedolah) — the phrase 'great sin' in the ancient Near East was a technical term for adultery, attested in Egyptian and other texts. Abimelech uses precisely the right moral vocabulary: Abraham's deception nearly caused what the entire ancient world recognized as a grave offense against the social and divine order.
3. 'Things that ought not to be done' (ma'asim asher lo ye'asu) — literally 'deeds which are not done.' This phrase denotes actions that violate the recognized moral order — things so wrong that they are simply 'not done' in civilized society (cf. 34:7; 2 Samuel 13:12). The pagan king appeals to a moral standard he assumes Abraham shares. The rebuke carries added force because it comes from someone outside the covenant community — even Gentiles know this is wrong.

Translator Notes

1. 'What were you thinking?' (mah ra'ita) — literally 'What did you see?' The verb ra'ah ('to see') here means 'to perceive, to consider, to have in view.' Abimelech is asking what calculation, what perceived threat, what reasoning led Abraham to this deception. The question pierces to the heart of Abraham's motivation: what did he see — or fail to see — that justified such an action?
2. The question is devastatingly simple. After the elaborate rebuke of verse 9, Abimelech reduces everything to one pointed inquiry. He does not understand why a man of God would resort to deception, and he asks Abraham to explain himself. The patriarch's answer in the following verses will be revealing — and not entirely to his credit.

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. 'There is no fear of God in this place' (ein yir'at Elohim bamaqom hazzeh) — Abraham's first justification. Yir'at Elohim ('the fear of God') is the foundational moral concept in the Hebrew Bible — the reverent awe of God that produces ethical behavior (cf. Proverbs 1:7; 9:10). Abraham assumed that without this fear, no moral restraint would operate, and his life would be forfeit. The assumption was wrong: Abimelech demonstrated precisely the moral integrity Abraham denied him.
2. The irony is painful. Abraham, the man who walked with God and received the covenant promises, assumed the worst about a people he did not know — while he himself was the one acting without moral integrity. The 'fear of God' Abraham found lacking in Gerar was more conspicuously absent in his own conduct.
3. 'They will kill me on account of my wife' (vaharguniy al-devar ishti) — Abraham's fear, however misguided, was not irrational by ancient Near Eastern standards. A beautiful woman with a living husband posed a problem; a beautiful widow was available. The calculus of self-preservation is understandable, but it reveals a failure to trust the God who had promised him descendants.

Translator Notes

1. 'She is indeed my sister, the daughter of my father though not the daughter of my mother' (vegam-omnah achoti vat-avi hi, akh lo vat-immi) — Abraham's second justification: the claim was technically true. Sarah was his half-sister, sharing the same father (Terah) but having a different mother. Marriage between half-siblings was not prohibited in the patriarchal period (the Levitical prohibition comes later, Leviticus 18:9; 20:17). Abraham's defense rests on a half-truth — factually accurate but deliberately misleading, designed to conceal the more important fact that she was his wife.
2. The particle omnah ('indeed, truly') is emphatic — Abraham insists on the literal truth of his claim. But a half-truth deployed to deceive is a whole lie in its moral effect. Abraham traded on a technicality to save his skin, and the text offers no commendation for this reasoning.
3. 'And she became my wife' (vattehi-li le'ishah) — stated almost as an afterthought, as if the marriage were secondary to the sibling relationship. The syntax mirrors Abraham's deceptive strategy: he foregrounded the sisterhood and buried the marriage.

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. 'When God caused me to wander from my father's house' (ka'asher hit'u oti Elohim mibbeit avi) — Abraham's third justification, and the most theologically startling. The verb hit'u is the Hiphil plural of ta'ah ('to wander, to stray, to err'), and the subject Elohim takes a plural verb here — a grammatical oddity that has generated much discussion. Some read it as a genuine plural ('gods caused me to wander'), reflecting Abraham's pre-monotheistic idiom when speaking to a pagan; others see it as a pluralis majestatis or an anomalous construction. The rendering preserves the standard translation 'God caused me to wander,' but the Hebrew is unusual.
2. 'This is the kindness you must show me' (zeh chasdekh asher ta'asi immadi) — Abraham characterizes Sarah's participation in the deception as chesed — covenant loyalty, steadfast love, kindness. The word chesed normally describes the highest form of relational faithfulness, and Abraham applies it to a systematic pattern of half-truth. He asked Sarah to make this her permanent practice — at every place they would go.
3. The revelation that this deception was a standing arrangement — not a momentary lapse in Egypt or Gerar but a policy adopted at the outset of their journey — casts Abraham's entire pilgrimage in a different light. The man of faith has carried this contingency plan from the beginning, a hedge against the very God who called him.

Translator Notes

1. Abimelech's response to Abraham's deception is astonishing generosity rather than punishment. Where Pharaoh expelled Abraham from Egypt (12:20), Abimelech gives gifts and invites him to stay (v. 15). The sheep, oxen, and servants constitute substantial wealth — a gesture of goodwill that goes far beyond what the situation required.
2. 'He restored to him Sarah his wife' (vayyashev lo et Sarah ishto) — the verb hashiv ('to restore, to return') fulfills God's command in verse 7. The narrative pointedly identifies Sarah as 'his wife' (ishto), the fact Abraham had labored to conceal. What Abraham hid, the text declares openly.
3. The parallel with the Egyptian episode (12:16) is instructive: there too Abraham received sheep, oxen, and servants, but in Egypt the gifts were the bride-price for Sarah's supposed availability. Here the gifts accompany her return — they are reparation, not acquisition.

Translator Notes

1. 'My land is before you' (hinneh artsi lefaneiykha) — Abimelech opens his entire territory to Abraham, granting him the freedom to settle wherever he wishes. This stands in sharp contrast to Pharaoh's terse 'take her and go' (12:19). The offer of land is especially significant given Abraham's status as a landless sojourner whom God has promised all of Canaan.
2. 'Settle wherever it pleases you' (battov be'eineiykha shev) — literally 'in the good in your eyes, dwell.' Abimelech places the choice entirely in Abraham's hands. The generosity of a pagan king toward the man who deceived him becomes another testimony to the integrity God affirmed in Abimelech (v. 6). Abraham, who feared there was 'no fear of God in this place,' receives from that place an offer of radical hospitality.

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. 'A thousand pieces of silver' (elef kesef) — an enormous sum. For comparison, the price of a slave was approximately thirty shekels of silver (Exodus 21:32). A thousand pieces represents extraordinary wealth, intended to make unmistakably clear that no offense was committed and that Sarah's honor is fully intact.
2. 'A covering of the eyes' (kesut einayim) — one of the most debated phrases in Genesis. Interpretations include: (1) a legal payment that 'covers' or settles any perceived wrong, vindicating Sarah publicly; (2) a gift so large it causes onlookers to 'close their eyes' to any suspicion; (3) a veil of respectability that demonstrates Sarah was not dishonored. The rendering 'covering of the eyes' preserves the metaphor. The essential meaning is public vindication — the silver serves as proof that Sarah's honor remains unblemished.
3. 'Your brother' (achikh) — Abimelech uses Abraham's own terminology, perhaps with a note of irony. He addresses the relationship as Abraham presented it, even as he rectifies the situation that the deception created.
4. 'You are vindicated' (venokhachat) — the final word is difficult. It may derive from yakach ('to reprove, to decide, to vindicate') and can mean either 'you are reproved' (as KJV renders) or 'you are set right, vindicated.' The context of generous reparation favors the sense of vindication: Sarah's reputation is publicly cleared.

Translator Notes

1. 'Abraham prayed to God' (vayyitpallel Avraham el-haElohim) — Abraham fulfills the prophetic role God assigned him in verse 7. The man who caused the crisis now mediates its resolution through intercessory prayer. The verb hitpallel ('to pray, to intercede') is the same used in verse 7, completing the divine instruction. Despite Abraham's failure, God still uses him as the channel of blessing — the intercessor through whom healing comes.
2. 'God healed Abimelech and his wife and his female servants, and they bore children' (vayyirpa Elohim et-Avimelekh ve'et-ishto ve'amhotav vayyeledu) — the healing is comprehensive: Abimelech himself, his wife, and his female servants are all restored. The verb rapha ('to heal') indicates that a physical affliction had been imposed — the nature of which is explained in verse 18. The result — 'they bore children' — reveals that the plague was specifically a closure of the womb, preventing all reproduction in Abimelech's household.
3. The irony reaches its climax: Abraham, who cannot yet produce the promised heir through Sarah, prays for the fertility of another man's household — and God answers. The prophet who deceived now intercedes; the barren patriarch prays for the barren household of the man he wronged, and God opens their wombs even as Isaac's conception draws near.

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. 'The LORD had completely closed every womb' (ki-atsor atsar YHWH be'ad kol-rechem) — the chapter's final verse shifts from Elohim to YHWH, the covenant name. Throughout the chapter, God has been referred to as Elohim in His dealings with Abimelech, the appropriate name for divine interaction with those outside the covenant. But here, in the narrator's explanatory comment, the name YHWH appears — because the ultimate purpose behind these events is the protection of the covenant. It is YHWH, the covenant God, who was at work all along.
2. 'Completely closed' (atsor atsar) — the infinitive absolute construction (atsor atsar) emphasizes the totality of the closure. Every womb — wife, servants, all — was shut. The verb atsar ('to restrain, to close, to shut up') describes divine intervention in the most intimate sphere of human life. God made the consequences of taking Sarah unmistakable and universal within Abimelech's household.
3. 'On account of Sarah, Abraham's wife' (al-devar Sarah eshet Avraham) — the chapter ends as it must, with the full identification that Abraham tried to suppress. Sarah is 'Abraham's wife' — not his sister, not an unattached woman, but the covenant wife through whom the promised son will come. God's fierce protection of Sarah is ultimately protection of the promise, and every event in this chapter — the dream, the rebuke, the plague, the healing — serves that single covenantal purpose.