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Genesis 20:17 Darby English Bible (DARBY)

17 And Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech, and his wife and his handmaids, and they bore [children].

Cross Reference

James 5:16 DARBY

Confess therefore your offences to one another, and pray for one another, that ye may be healed. [The] fervent supplication of the righteous [man] has much power.

Philippians 4:6 DARBY

Be careful about nothing; but in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God;

Genesis 20:7 DARBY

And now, restore the man's wife; for he is a prophet, and will pray for thee, that thou mayest live. And if thou do not restore [her], know that thou shalt certainly die, thou and all that is thine.

Genesis 29:31 DARBY

And when Jehovah saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb; but Rachel was barren.

1 Samuel 5:11-12 DARBY

And they sent and gathered all the lords of the Philistines, and said, Send away the ark of the God of Israel, and let it go again to its own place, that it kill us not, and our people. For there was deadly alarm throughout the city: the hand of God was very heavy there; and the men that died not were smitten with the hemorrhoids; and the cry of the city went up to heaven.

Ezra 6:10 DARBY

that they may present sweet odours to the God of the heavens, and pray for the life of the king and of his sons.

Job 42:9-10 DARBY

Then Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite, went and did according as Jehovah had said unto them; and Jehovah accepted Job. And Jehovah turned the captivity of Job, when he had prayed for his friends; and Jehovah gave Job twice as much as he had before.

Proverbs 15:8 DARBY

The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to Jehovah; but the prayer of the upright is his delight.

Proverbs 15:29 DARBY

Jehovah is far from the wicked; but he heareth the prayer of the righteous.

Isaiah 45:11 DARBY

Thus saith Jehovah, the Holy One of Israel, and his Maker: Ask me of the things to come; concerning my sons, and concerning the work of my hands, command ye me.

Matthew 7:7 DARBY

Ask, and it shall be given to you. Seek, and ye shall find. Knock, and it shall be opened to you.

Matthew 21:22 DARBY

And all things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.

1 Thessalonians 5:25 DARBY

Brethren, pray for us.

Acts 3:24 DARBY

And indeed all the prophets from Samuel and those in succession after [him], as many as have spoken, have announced also these days.

Commentary on Genesis 20 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible


CHAPTER 20

Ge 20:1-18. Abraham's Denial of His Wife.

1. Abraham journeyed from thence … and dwelled between Kadesh and Shur—Leaving the encampment, he migrated to the southern border of Canaan. In the neighborhood of Gerar was a very rich and well-watered pasture land.

2. Abraham said of Sarah his wife, She is my sister—Fear of the people among whom he was, tempted him to equivocate. His conduct was highly culpable. It was deceit, deliberate and premeditated—there was no sudden pressure upon him—it was the second offense of the kind [see on Ge 12:13]—it was a distrust of God every way surprising, and it was calculated to produce injurious effects on the heathen around. Its mischievous tendency was not long in being developed.

Abimelech (father-king) … sent and took Sarah—to be one of his wives, in the exercise of a privilege claimed by Eastern sovereigns, already explained (see on Ge 12:15).

3. But God came to Abimelech in a dream—In early times a dream was often made the medium of communicating important truths; and this method was adopted for the preservation of Sarah.

9. Then Abimelech called Abraham, and said … What hast thou done?—In what a humiliating plight does the patriarch now appear—he, a servant of the true God, rebuked by a heathen prince. Who would not rather be in the place of Abimelech than of the honored but sadly offending patriarch! What a dignified attitude is that of the king—calmly and justly reproving the sin of the patriarch, but respecting his person and heaping coals of fire on his head by the liberal presents made to him.

11. And Abraham said … I thought, Surely the fear of God is not in this place—From the horrible vices of Sodom he seems to have taken up the impression that all other cities of Canaan were equally corrupt. There might have been few or none who feared God, but what a sad thing when men of the world show a higher sense of honor and a greater abhorrence of crimes than a true worshipper!

12. yet indeed she is my sister—(See on Ge 11:31). What a poor defense Abraham made. The statement absolved him from the charge of direct and absolute falsehood, but he had told a moral untruth because there was an intention to deceive (compare Ge 12:11-13). "Honesty is always the best policy." Abraham's life would have been as well protected without the fraud as with it: and what shame to himself, what distrust to God, what dishonor to religion might have been prevented! "Let us speak truth every man to his neighbor" [Zec 8:16; Eph 4:25].