Genesis 20: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Abraham moves to the Negev region and stays in Gerar, where he says that Sarah is his sister, and King Abimelech has her brought to him. God warns Abimelech in a dream that Sarah is married and that he is a dead man, and Abimelech, who has not gone near her, protests his innocence; God tells him to return her and have Abraham pray for him. Abimelech confronts Abraham, who explains what he feared and that Sarah is his half sister, then gives Abraham livestock, servants, and silver, tells him his land lies open to settle wherever he likes, and returns Sarah. Abraham prays, and God heals Abimelech's household, whose wombs the LORD had closed because of Sarah.

Claim by Claim

1. 20:1
   • Abraham journeyed from there to the land of the Negev, the dry southern region.
   • Abraham settled between Kadesh and Shur.
   • Abraham resided as a foreigner in Gerar.
2. 20:2
   • Abraham said about Sarah his wife, "She is my sister."
   • Abimelech was king of Gerar.
   • Abimelech sent and took Sarah.
3. 20:3
   • God came to Abimelech in a dream at night.
   • God said to Abimelech that he was as good as a dead man.
   • God said this was because of the woman Abimelech had taken.
   • God said the woman was married to a husband.
4. 20:4
   • Abimelech had not come near Sarah.
   • Abimelech asked the Lord whether he would kill a nation even though it was righteous.
5. 20:5
   • Abimelech said that Abraham had told him, "She is my sister."
   • Abimelech said that Sarah herself had said, "He is my brother."
   • Abimelech said he had done this in the integrity of his heart and the innocence of his hands.
6. 20:6
   • God said to Abimelech in the dream that he knew Abimelech had done this in the integrity of his heart.
   • God said he had withheld Abimelech from sinning against him.
   • God said that for that reason he did not allow Abimelech to touch her.
7. 20:7
   • God commanded Abimelech to return the man's wife.
   • God said the man is a prophet.
   • God said the man would pray for Abimelech.
   • God said Abimelech would live.
   • God said that if Abimelech did not return her, Abimelech should know that he would surely die.
   • God said that all who belonged to Abimelech would die as well.
8. 20:8
   • Abimelech rose early in the morning.
   • Abimelech summoned all his servants.
   • Abimelech told them all these things.
   • The men were greatly afraid.
9. 20:9
   • Abimelech called Abraham.
   • Abimelech asked Abraham what he had done to them.
   • Abimelech asked how he had sinned against Abraham.
   • Abimelech said Abraham had brought a great sin on him and on his kingdom.
   • Abimelech said Abraham had done to him deeds that ought not to be done.
10. 20:10
    • Abimelech asked Abraham what he had seen or intended that led him to do this thing.
11. 20:11
    • Abraham said he had thought there was surely no fear of God in that place.
    • Abraham said they would kill him because of his wife.
12. 20:12
    • Abraham said Sarah is indeed his sister.
    • Abraham said she is the daughter of his father.
    • Abraham said she is not the daughter of his mother.
    • Abraham said she became his wife.
13. 20:13
    • Abraham said God caused him to wander from his father's house.
    • Abraham said he told Sarah this was the kindness she should show him.
    • Abraham said he told her that at every place they came to she should say of him, "He is my brother."
14. 20:14
    • Abimelech took sheep and cattle.
    • Abimelech took male servants and female servants.
    • Abimelech gave them to Abraham.
    • Abimelech returned Sarah his wife to Abraham.
15. 20:15
    • Abimelech said his land was before Abraham.
    • Abimelech told Abraham to settle wherever seemed good to him.
16. 20:16
    • Abimelech said to Sarah that he had given a thousand pieces of silver to her brother.
    • Abimelech said the silver is for her a covering of the eyes before all who are with her.
    • Abimelech's closing words are ambiguous: they state either that she is thereby vindicated and cleared in every respect, or that she is reproved.
17. 20:17
    • Abraham prayed to God.
    • God healed Abimelech.
    • God healed Abimelech's wife and his female slaves.
    • They bore children.
18. 20:18
    • The LORD had completely closed every womb of Abimelech's household.
    • The LORD did this because of Sarah, Abraham's wife.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

20:1

The southern region is the Negev, the dry grazing country south of Canaan. Kadesh and Shur lie along its southern edge toward the Sinai desert; Gerar was a town in the coastal plain to the northwest. "Stayed for a time" translates a word meaning to live somewhere as a resident foreigner, a man with no land of his own and no kinsmen nearby, whose safety depended entirely on the goodwill of the local ruler.

20:2

In this world a woman's marriage was arranged by her male relatives. A brother could be negotiated with and paid a bride-price; a husband stood in the way and could simply be got rid of. "Took her" means took her into his household as a wife, and a marriage between a king and a wealthy newcomer's family was a political tie as much as a personal one.

20:3

"As good as a dead man" is a Hebrew way of saying that a death sentence already stands over him, not that he has fallen ill.

20:4

"A nation that has done no wrong" is courtroom language: innocent of the charge. Abimelech assumes what his hearers assumed, that a king's act implicates the people he rules, so the penalty would fall on the whole nation with him.

20:5

"Clean hands" is a standard idiom for being free of guilt for a crime, especially bloodguilt. It has nothing to do with washing.

20:6

"Suffered" in 1611 English means allowed, not endured. "Touch" is a polite way of saying sexual contact, and the point being made carefully here is that the marriage was never consummated.

20:7

"Prophet" translates a Hebrew word for one who speaks on God's behalf. Here the weight falls on the other half of the role: a prophet is someone whose prayer for another person carries authority, a go-between in both directions. "Everyone who belongs to you" means the household as a legal unit, wives, children, servants and dependants, who stood or fell with the head of the house.

20:8

Servants were people who worked for the king. They lived in his house and did his work.

20:9

In legal texts from the surrounding cultures "great sin" is a fixed term for adultery. Abimelech's complaint is that Abraham nearly made him commit that specific offense without knowing it.

20:10

The question is literally "what did you see?", what did you notice, expect or fear in this place that made you act this way?

20:11

"Fear of God" here means restraint before a higher authority: the basic decency that stops people killing a stranger simply because no law or kinsman protects him. Abraham is saying he judged Gerar to be lawless.

20:12

Marriage to a half-sister by the same father was permitted in this period and practiced elsewhere in the ancient Near East; Israel's later law forbade it. The Hebrew word for "sister" can also be used more loosely for a female relative, so the claim is not necessarily as precise as it sounds in English.

20:13

"Kindness" translates hesed, the loyalty owed inside a binding relationship, the faithfulness expected of a wife, a kinsman or an ally. Abraham is invoking a duty, not asking a favor.

20:14

Wealth was counted in livestock and in people. The gift is compensation as much as generosity: by the custom of the time, a payment made openly repaired the injury and closed the dispute.

20:15

A foreigner could not simply settle and graze his flocks where he chose; he needed the ruler's permission. Abimelech is granting Abraham freedom of the whole territory, an unusually large concession.

20:16

There was no coinage yet; silver was weighed out, and a "piece" is a shekel, roughly eleven or twelve grams. A thousand shekels is an enormous sum, later Israelite law values a slave at thirty shekels and sets fifty as the payment owed for a violated woman. "A covering of the eyes" is an obscure phrase found nowhere else in the Bible; it appears to mean that the payment publicly shields Sarah from suspicious looks, standing as proof before witnesses that nothing happened. The closing clause is genuinely ambiguous in Hebrew: the verb can mean "she was cleared, vindicated" or "she was rebuked, put right," and it is not certain whether Abimelech is still speaking or the narrator has taken over.

20:18

"LORD" in capitals represents God's personal name, the four Hebrew letters YHWH, which readers of the Hebrew did not say aloud, substituting the word for "lord." The ordinary "Lord" in verse 4 is the everyday word for a master or superior. This last verse also withholds until now what the danger actually was: the household had been struck with infertility, which is what verse 17 means by healing.