Chapter Twenty

Abraham and Sarah settle in Gerar

Genesis 20:1. And Abraham journeyed from there toward the south When dwelling in the Mamre valley became inconvenient, probably because of the heavy, suffocating gases emanating from the neighboring Siddim basin after the terrible catastrophe that befell it (chapter 19), the patriarch Abraham, with all his herds, moves up from it and travels toward the “south,” or, as expressed in the Hebrew text, to the land of “Negev,” as the southern, steppe region of Palestine was called. and dwelt between Kadesh and Shur; Kadesh, later renamed Mishpat, lay in the southeast corner of Syria and was one of the final points of Chedorlaomer’s expedition (Gen 14:7; Num 34:4). The wilderness of Shur was situated almost opposite, in the southwest corner, and is now called Jifar. These were evidently the boundaries of the land of Negev. and sojourned in Gerar. Gerar, together with Gaza, formed the southern boundary of Canaanite territory (Gen 10:19) and served as the capital of the Philistines (Gen 26:1). It was situated twenty-five miles from the city of Eleuthereopolis, three hours northeast of Gaza, at the site of the modern ruins of Umm el-Gerár and Kirbat el-Gerár.

Abimelech, king of Gerar, takes Sarah into his house

Genesis 20:2. And Abraham said of Sarah his wife: she is my sister. [For he feared to say, “She is my wife,” thinking “lest the men of the place should kill me for her sake.”] This agreement, as we know, had been made by Abraham with Sarah even before leaving Ur of the Chaldeans, was repeated once in Egypt, and is now repeated again (Gen 12:11). The words of this verse, standing in brackets, are not found in the Hebrew Bible; but their appropriateness in the Greek and Slavonic Bibles is justified by the preceding context (Gen 12:11-12). And Abimelech, king of Gerar, sent and took Sarah. The name “Abimelech” is of Semitic origin and literally means “my father, king” or “king-father.” It served as a common title of the Philistine kings, much as “pharaoh” did for the Egyptians, “padshah” for the ancient Persians and modern Turks, and so on. It seems strange what could have attracted Abimelech in a ninety-year-old Sarah (Gen 17:17). To this it is suggested that either Sarah, having received from God the power to bear children, also received the physical strength necessary for this, and consequently, so to speak, bloomed again anew (John Chrysostom and others), or that Abimelech thus wished to begin a friendship and alliance with her supposed brother, the wealthy and mighty patriarch Abraham.

God appears to Abimelech in a dream and threatens him with death for this

Genesis 20:3. And God came to Abimelech in a dream of the night Protecting the purity of the future mother of the promised son, God appears to Abimelech and instructs him. He is named here “Elohim,” that is, the very name by which He was dimly known even among the pagan Semites, though mixed with various errors. The appearance of the Creator at night and in a dream was a customary form of His revelation to the heathen, for example, to the Pharaoh (Gen 41:1) or to Nebuchadnezzar (Dan 4:5). and said to him: behold, you will die because of the woman whom you have taken, for she has a husband. Based on the subsequent context (Gen 20:17), one can suppose that Abimelech at that time was gravely ill, and therefore such a threat was particularly effective.

Genesis 20:4. But Abimelech had not approached her; and he said: Lord! will You slay a nation that is [not knowing this] and innocent? In this case, both this very address to God (“Adonai”) and the confession of His Justice, which recalls similar words of Abraham (Gen 18:23-25), give clear evidence that traces of true knowledge of God had not entirely disappeared from the memory of the best representatives of the Canaanite peoples, one of whom in this case is the Abimelech of Gerar.

Genesis 20:5. Did not he himself say to me, “She is my sister”? And she herself said, “He is my brother.” I did this in the integrity of my heart and the innocence of my hands. In justifying his action, Abimelech says that he did it not through an abuse of the right of the strong, but through ignorance, being deceived; in reality, neither in the internal (integrity of heart) nor in the external (innocence of hands) sense did his action contain anything criminal. Thus Abimelech reasoned from the perspective of his Canaanite morality, where the taking of an unmarried woman into the king’s harem was considered an honor, not a shame for her.

Genesis 20:6. And God said to him in the dream: yes, I know that you did this in the integrity of your heart, and it was I who kept you from sinning against me; therefore I did not let you touch her; The content of this verse contains a whole series of profound truths: first, it reveals divine omniscience, which penetrates the depths of our thoughts and feelings; second, it unfolds that exalted property of Divine Justice by which it judges and evaluates people’s actions not by external facts but by their inner motives and the moral disposition of the guilty; finally, from this also flows the conception of God as the supreme protector of the sanctity and purity of the marriage union.

Genesis 20:7. Now therefore return the woman; for he is a prophet, and he will pray for you, that you may live; Here in the Hebrew original the term “nabi” is used for the first time, serving as the technical designation of a special ministry in the Old Testament. Based on the testimony of the Book of Kings (1 Sam 9:9), some say that this term is of comparatively later origin, to which the term “roeh” (seer) preceded in the period of the judges; from this some conclude that even all the Pentateuch is a work of a later era. But a deeper analysis of the Pentateuch and a more complete history of the term “nabi” testify to the opposite. It is certain that the term “nabi” is of very ancient, pre-Mosaic origin; but initially it had no technical sense, but corresponding to the meaning of its root (“naba”—to speak), it indicated a man with whom God spoke or who himself spoke with God, in general—who stood in closer, more immediate relations with Him, proclaimed His will and interceded before Him for others (Exod 7:1; Num 11:29; Deut 13:1; Judg 6:8; 1 Sam 9:9; 1 Sam 22:7 and others). Over time, such people received the special name “roeh”—seers or those who see, from the more tangible property of theirs—to foretell the future; this was predominantly in the period of the judges. But in the period of kings, when the Pentateuch began to be carefully studied, the ancient name of prophets—“nabi”—was restored again, as more fully expressing the idea of their mediatorial service between God and people.

Genesis 20:8–9. So Abimelech rose early in the morning, and called all his servants, and told them all these things; and the men were very much afraid. And Abimelech called Abraham, and said to him: what have you done to us? How have I sinned against you, that you have brought such great guilt upon me and my kingdom? You have done to me things that ought not to be done. All this solemnity and publicity of the investigation of the matter testifies to its extreme importance in Abimelech’s eyes and to his high sense of justice.

Genesis 20:10. And Abimelech said to Abraham: what were you thinking of that you did this thing? By what motives were you guided in placing us in such a deception, which could have cost us our lives, or, at least, threatened us with the loss of offspring?

Genesis 20:11–12. Abraham said: I thought, there is no fear of God in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife; moreover, she is indeed my sister, the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife; Abraham justified his behavior, first, by the sense of self-preservation, which suggested to him this means out of fear that the impious Philistines might kill him in order to possess his wife; second, by reference to the fact that Sarah is indeed his sister, only not a full sister but a half-sister.

Genesis 20:13. And when God caused me to wander from my father’s house, I said to her: this is the kindness that you must do me: at every place to which we come, say of me, “He is my brother. Abraham’s third justification is the voluntary agreement he made with Sarah even before leaving Ur of the Chaldeans, and consequently not aimed at the person of Abimelech. Remarkable here is Abraham’s profoundly religious view of all his wandering life as direct guidance by God.

Abimelech returns Sarah

Genesis 20:14. Then Abimelech took sheep and oxen, and male and female slaves, and gave them to Abraham; and he returned to him Sarah, his wife. Just as the Egyptian Pharaoh once rewarded Abraham in return for the attempt on his wife (Gen 12:20), so too, in expiation of his unintentional guilt, Abimelech of Gerar acted now. The chronicler’s remark about a thousand shekels was evidently inserted from the context (Gen 20:16) by the Seventy.

Genesis 20:15. And Abimelech said [to Abraham]: behold, my land is before you; dwell wherever it pleases you. Whereas the Egyptian Pharaoh, once in a similar situation, hastened to remove Abraham as quickly as possible, Abimelech, by contrast, now tries to keep Abraham in his country and establish a friendly alliance with him; from this one may conclude that quite different motives guided them in their preceding action—the taking of Sarah.

Genesis 20:16. And to Sarah he said: behold, I have given your brother a thousand shekels of silver; it is for you a covering of the eyes before all who are with you; and before all you are vindicated. Such a sum appears twice more in the Bible (2 Sam 18:12; Isa 7:23); reckoning each shekel at eighty kopecks, it equaled more than eight hundred rubles in silver. As for the covering given by Abimelech to Sarah as a witness to her innocence, the meaning of this gift is not sufficiently clear to us: most likely it was based on some local custom unknown to us, and in any case it achieved its purpose.

Abimelech is healed by Abraham’s prayer

Genesis 20:17. Then Abraham prayed to God; and God healed Abimelech, and also healed his wife and female slaves so that they bore children; Here is another example of the power and effectiveness of the righteous person’s prayer (Gen 19:29; cf. Jas 5:20).

Genesis 20:18. for the Lord had closed all the wombs of the house of Abimelech because of Sarah, the wife of Abraham. Barrenness in Holy Scripture is considered a punishment for sin (Gen 16:2; Exod 23:26; Deut 7:14; Lev 20:20; Isa 66:9 and others); it was chosen as the most painful punishment for the child-loving Philistines.