20:1-7
20:1 From there Abraham journeyed toward the region of the Negeb, and settled between Kadesh and Shur. While residing in Gerar as an alien, 2 Abraham said of his wife Sarah, “She is my sister.” And King Abimelech of Gerar sent and took Sarah. 3 But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night, and said to him, “You are about to die because of the woman whom you have taken; for she is a married woman.” 4 Now Abimelech had not approached her; so he said, “Lord, will you destroy an innocent people? 5 Did he not 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.” 6 Then God said to him in the dream, “Yes, I know that you did this in the integrity of your heart; furthermore it was I who kept you from sinning against me. Therefore I did not let you touch her. 7 Now then, return the man’s wife; for he is a prophet, and he will pray for you and you shall live. But if you do not restore her, know that you shall surely die, you and all that are yours.”
Abraham traveled south, following his usual practice of going where the conditions for his livestock are best. He stopped in the vicinity of the city of Gerar, which is c city on the southern border of Canaan, near Gaza (Gen. 10:19). Here repeated the trick he had used in Egypt in an earlier chapter, passing Sarah off as his sister, when she was both a half-sister and his wife. This stunt would later be pulled also by his son Isaac, who in the same way endangered his wife Rebekah (Gen. 26).
The story is told extremely briefly, so that we are not told anything about how Sarah came to the king's attention and what about her attracted him. King Abimelech "sent and took" Sarah, the text using the same language that is later used of King David, who "sent and took" Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite (2 Sam 11). It reflects the power that a king could wield, although in this case the king is later shown to have acted without malice and in innocence of Sarah's married state. In fact, God says as much (v. 6).
Because God knew that Abimelech did not intend anything wrong, he warned him not to sleep with Sarah (vv. 3-4), lest he die. But we learn in vv. 17-18 that before God appeared to Abimelech in a dream, he had already prevented all the women of the city from becoming pregnant. In the dream, Abimelech defended himself, protesting his ignorance of Sarah's status, blaming Abraham for misleading him (v. 5). God conceded the point (v. 6) and merely advised him to return Sarah to her husband (v. 7), adding that Abraham was a prophet and could pray for his life to be spared. This may seem strange to us, since, if God admitted the truth of Abimelech's story, he knew that this "prophet" was the real culprit, and that there was no need for any prayer to protect the innocent king from dying.
20:8-18
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. 9 Then 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 on me and my kingdom? You have done things to me that ought not to be done.” 10 And Abimelech said to Abraham, “What were you thinking of, that you did this thing?” 11 Abraham said, “I did it because I thought, There is no fear of God at all in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife. 12 Besides, she is indeed my sister, the daughter of my father but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife. 13 And when God caused me to wander from my father’s house, I said to her, ‘This is the kindness you must do me: at every place to which we come, say of me, He is my brother.’” 14 Then Abimelech took sheep and oxen, and male and female slaves, and gave them to Abraham, and restored his wife Sarah to him. 15 Abimelech said, “My land is before you; settle where it pleases you.” 16 To Sarah he said, “Look, I have given your brother a thousand pieces of silver; it is your exoneration before all who are with you; you are completely vindicated.” 17 Then Abraham prayed to God; and God healed Abimelech, and also healed his wife and female slaves so that they bore children. 18 For the LORD had closed fast all the wombs of the house of Abimelech because of Sarah, Abraham’s wife.
But later, in vv. 17-18 we see that Abraham's prayers were needed to undo King Abimelech's own illness (sterility?) and the barrenness with which God had afflicted the women of the city. I see this as an act of extreme mercy by God toward Abraham, for in forcing him to pray for the undoing of the harm to the women of Gerar that Abraham knew he himself had caused by his lie, it was a kind of penance, or (if you will) therapy. But God would also permit Abimelech himself to shame Abraham with questions which would bring out the shallow and false thinking that Abraham was guilty of (vv. 8-9). Abraham, who had so nobly pled with God in Genesis 18:16-33 to protect the innocent who might be in the city of Sodom, had condemned out of hand and without any evidence the menfolk of Gerar, assuming that they were all capable of murdering him in order to take his wife (v. 11)! And as if that were not enough, God had shown him before, in Egypt (12:10-20), that the only way Sarah would be taken by another man was if he—her husband—used such a lie to protect his own skin!
In all of this, King Abimelech shows himself to be a man of utmost integrity and generosity. He even pays Sarah a great deal of money—1,000 pieces of silver—as a sign of apology for the embarrassment and shame that she suffered through her husband's duplicity (v. 16)!
What are we to learn from this strange tale? For one thing, it shows that even the best of God's servants can do incredibly stupid and immoral things and be forgiven. Secondly, it shows that God wishes to rehabilitate his servants, not just cast them off when they fail him. And thirdly, it warns all of us not to make rash judgments about others before we really get to know them. Who are the Abimelechs in your life? Someone you know at work or in your neighborhood or even in your church? Maybe you should try to get to know these individuals better—take the initiative to open the lines of communication and understand them better. Perhaps your initial judgment will prove wrong. But even if it proves correct, you will have taken the wise course of action that honors God and your neighbor.
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