2 and Abraham saith concerning Sarah his wife, `She is my sister;' and Abimelech king of Gerar sendeth and taketh Sarah.
and princes of Pharaoh see her, and praise her unto Pharaoh, and the woman is taken `to' Pharaoh's house;
and men of the place ask him of his wife, and he saith, `She `is' my sister:' for he hath been afraid to say, `My wife -- lest the men of the place kill me for Rebekah, for she `is' of good appearance.'
and it cometh to pass as he hath drawn near to enter Egypt, that he saith unto Sarai his wife, `Lo, I pray thee, I have known that thou `art' a woman of beautiful appearance; and it hath come to pass that the Egyptians see thee, and they have said, `This `is' his wife,' and they have slain me, and thee they keep alive: say, I pray thee, thou `art' my sister, so that it is well with me because of thee, and my soul hath lived for thy sake.'
and also, truly she is my sister, daughter of my father, only not daughter of my mother, and she becometh my wife;
And there is a famine in the land, besides the first famine which was in the days of Abraham, and Isaac goeth unto Abimelech king of the Philistines, to Gerar.
and go out unto his presence doth Jehu son of Hanani, the seer, and saith unto king Jehoshaphat, `To give help to the wicked, and to those hating Jehovah, dost thou love? and for this against thee `is' wrath from before Jehovah,
and prophesy doth Eliezer son of Dodavah, of Mareshah, against Jehoshaphat, saying, `For thy joining thyself with Ahaziah, Jehovah hath broken up thy works;' and the ships are broken, and have not retained `power' to go unto Tarshish.
For seven `times' doth the righteous fall and rise, And the wicked stumble in evil.
Because there is not a righteous man on earth that doth good and sinneth not.
And when Peter came to Antioch, to the face I stood up against him, because he was blameworthy, for before the coming of certain from James, with the nations he was eating, and when they came, he was withdrawing and separating himself, fearing those of the circumcision,
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible » Commentary on Genesis 20
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].