You might say that Gen. 20 is a rerun, including the same fearful behavior of Abraham, having his wife say she is his sister. But here in this chapter we learn this is not a bald-face lie, Sarah is in fact the daughter of Terah, though not the daughter of Abraham’s mother. The problem however is this is at best a half-truth, because though Sarah may be Abraham’s half sister, she is also his sole wife. Once again, we see an important Biblical figure who is blessed by God behaving in a dishonest manner. Again we should not expect even the positive characters in the OT story to behave like a Christian, or even like a good Hebrew all the time. They too are sinners.
In this case, we are told that Abraham once again left the Hebron area and journey towards the Negev, this time going to Gerar a Canaanite city state in the western part of the Negev ruled by a king named Abimelek, which literally means ‘my father the king’. There is no explanation as to why Abraham goes there, unlike the earlier Egypt story where we hear they went to Egypt due to famine. In this case, Abimelek is sent a night dream by God warning him not to touch Sarah. In fact there is a strong threat ‘you are a dead man if you touch Sarah because she’s another man’s wife.’ One wonders why King David didn’t get a similar threat when he summoned Bathsheba. Fortunately, he had not touched her, and in a sense he question’s God’s justice saying would you destroy an innocent people? He even says that with a pure heart and clean hands he has taken Sarah, only after hearing she is Abraham’s sister. God says he has kept Abimelek from offending, and at the end of the story we learn how–namely he shut up all the wombs in that city-state, presumably including Sarah’s. The story ends positively with God healing all those wombs and even the wombs of the slaves (which may suggest Abimelek had slave concubines). God tells Abimelek send back Sarah to Abraham because he is a prophet who will intercede for you. A prophet who is not entirely honest, but nevertheless, these are the people God has to work with, people with fears.
Quite properly Abimelek assembles the people and Abraham the next morning and tells his people about the threat against their very existence, and then quite rightly berates Abraham saying “what have I done that you should bring upon this kingdom so great an offense? Things that should not have been done, you did. And then Abraham explains once again about his fears. Now we might have expected at this juncture the king might just banish Abraham, but presumably because he is a prophet he is instead honored. Perhaps Abraham feared that since Gerar was a pagan city it would be seriously immoral like Sodom, but it is not. Abimelek is a man of integrity. Alter notes the special pleading of Abraham on the basis of a technical detail in the Hebrew– ‘but in point of fact, she is my father’s daughter’. So by later Israelite standards, this is an incestuous marriage.
So instead of banishing Abraham, he gives him livestock and slaves, he tells him to settle wherever he likes in the Gerar region, and to Sarah he says ‘I’m also giving 1,000 pieces of silver to protect you from censorious eyes and you are now publicly vindicated. At this juncture Abraham interceded with God, who then reopened the wombs of Abimelek’s family and kin group. Perhaps, they had previously suffered from impotence. In any case the opening of the wombs here, prepares us for the climactic story in Gen. 21 when finally Sarah’s womb is open for business and she becomes pregnant.
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