In Genesis 20 two men face the immediate possibility of losing what is most important to them. It’s double jeopardy, not in our current legal sense of prosecuting one person for the same offense twice, but because two persons are at risk in one story. One is a king, one is a prophet. Both are saved by God’s providential and gracious intervention.

I’m always curious about why certain things are included in the Bible at all. It’s not skepticism, it is contextualism. Moses had a lot of things going on, and writing materials may not have come easy. Why did he include this? Sometimes he skips thirteen years between verses. Even when he describes a twenty-four hour period, as he did in chapters 18 and 19, he didn’t include everything. So why this, why now? It’s a question for both authors, Moses and God.

It doesn’t seem that we would miss much if we jumped from the end of chapter 19 to the beginning of chapter 21. The LORD just promised to return to visit Sarah (18:1-15), then He revealed His intention to punish Sodom to Abraham (18:16-33), He punished Sodom (19:1-29), and Lot survived with two compromised daughters (19:30-38). Chapter 21 opens with Sarah giving birth, a miraculous fulfillment of the divine promise and a contrast with the immoral fruit of human perversity. What is chapter 20 doing in between?

In chapter 20 we learn that God’s chosen people do not always act like it, but God is always faithful to His chosen people. We learn that sin is sin even if someone is ignorant about the standard or the specifics. We learn that God is able to, and does at times, restrain sin for His own purposes. We learn that God wants the world to see that His people are blessed, not that His people are great. And we learn that God fulfills His promises because He is gracious, so we ought to learn to be humble before Him.

There are three scenes in the chapter: God protects His prophet (1-7), God exposes His prophet (8-13), and God answers His prophet (14-18).

God Protects His Prophet (verses 1-7)

The two main characters in chapter 20 are Abraham—who we’ve been following since the end of chapter 11, and Abimelech—a king we meet now for the first time. Abimelech becomes a threat to Abraham, not in the way Abraham imagined, but in the way Abraham should have considered.

From there Abraham journeyed ties this scene with Sodom and Mamre in the previous chapter; the there assumes we know the context. After the destruction of the cities of the plain Abraham headed south toward the territory of the Negeb and lived between Kadesh and Shur; and he sojourned in Gerar. Earlier, in chapter 12:10-20, Abraham also sojourned southward through the Negeb to Egypt. He left then because of severe famine. No reason for the move is given here. Perhaps the smoke and smell of sulphur were too strong.

Gerar, though, is not Egypt, it’s Philistia, at the southern border of Canaan. This time Abraham stayed closer to the promised land. But like last time, he let his wife be taken by the king because he said, ”She is my sister.”

Here we go again. It didn’t fix anything when Abraham tried it with Pharaoh. Apart from God’s protection, Abraham would have been dead for lying to Pharaoh about his wife in order to avoid being killed by Pharaoh to get his wife. But by this point, he’s been following the LORD for more than twenty-five years. The LORD has proved Himself many times, and Abraham still waffles. So Abimelech king of Gerar sent and took Sarah into his harem. She’s almost 90. Abraham and his wife are separated again. How will he get her back? She is now king’s property. What will the king do with her?

What happens next is a dream dialogue, not between God and Abraham but between God and Abimelech. It starts with a jolt: ”Behold, you are a dead man”. This can’t be a good way to be woken up in the middle of the night no matter who you are. The reason for immanent death? because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is a man’s wife. Abimelech is committing adultery and adultery is unacceptable.

Abimelech had no question about which woman God was talking about, nor did he have a question about the wrong of adultery. But he did have a question about whether the charge was right. Why is he responsible when both Abraham and Sarah lied to him? He didn’t know! Besides, he had not approached her up to this point, meaning that they had no physical consummation. That’s why he asked, ”Lord, will you kill an innocent people?” Abimelech knew that there were corporate consequences for a king’s behavior. But he had done nothing wrong to his knowledge; his defense was a clear conscience. ”In the integrity of my heart and the innocence of my hands I have done this.” And he was right. And he was still responsible.

God affirmed his innocence of the charge. ”Yes, I know that you have done this in the integrity of your heart. God is omniscient. He knew what Abimelech knew. God knew even more than that. And it was I who kept you from sinning against me. Therefore I did not let you touch her.” God restrained the king. “The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; he turns it wherever he will” (Proverbs 21:1). God is omnipotent, even as He uses the desires of men’s hearts to accomplish His purpose. In this case, God kept Abimelech’s desires and opportunities from going any further.

Why go through the “charade” then? It was to teach Abimelech about God’s power and to teach Abraham about God’s protection.

Adultery was wrong. Even though Abimelech was unaware, he was responsible. Had he touched Sarah, it would have been worse even though he didn’t know it at the time. She wasn’t his. God’s standard doesn’t change baed on whether men know it or not. Judgment will be worse for those who know, but ignorance is not a savior. Now Abimelech does know, and he needed to act immediately or the consequence was death for himself and all who are yours. He is in great jeopardy.

Return the man’s wife, for he is a prophet, so that he will pray for you, and you shall live. As if God said, “You will need the prophet to intercede for you or your sickness will not improve.”

Abraham put God’s promise of a son from he and Sarah in jeopardy. Now Abimelech’s life and posterity are in jeopardy. God protects both men from the consequences of Abraham’s foolishness.

God Exposes and Rebukes His Prophet (verses 8-13)

Would that we all obeyed as quickly as Abimelech. He rose early in the morning and called his servants and told them these things. His servants may have been more like his officers; he summoned them for an emergency cabinet meeting. Abimelech wasn’t trying to hide; it was actually very humble. And they as well were very much afraid. So much for Abraham fearing that these people had no fear of God (see verse 11).

Like Pharaoh, the king called Abraham to account. Abraham comes again holding his hat of weak excuses in his hand. Abimelech asked, ”What have you done to us? And how have I sinned against you, that you have brought on me and my kingdom a great sin? … What did you see, that you did this thing?” This last question could be translated, “Deeds that are not done you have done…why?” Abimelech had more concern for what was right than Abraham.

Abraham had only asked himself ‘What will this do for me?’, stifling the reflections ‘What will it do to them?’ ‘What do they deserve?’ and ‘What are the facts?’ (Kidner)

Abraham’s (selfish and wrong) assumptions put himself, his wife, and his hosts in jeopardy. Abraham’s sin offended God, and the king, and the king’s household. Abraham’s foolish lack of faith had consequences for more people than Abraham himself. Individual sin causes grief like an single rock causes an avalanche.

Unlike Pharaoh, King Abimelech allows Abraham to give an account. I wonder if Abraham wished this could be stricken from the transcript. He admits that he made unflattering assumptions (the Gerar-ites are godless), he admits that he didn’t trust God, and he admits that he conspired with Sarah to deceive wherever they went.

He also shows that his self-excusing streak was strong. He didn’t even want to acknowledge the intent to deceive: ”Besides, she is indeed my sister, the daughter of my father though not the daughter of my mother”. Even if that was true—which hasn’t been explained previously; Sarah wasn’t said to be a daughter of Terah—it still doesn’t deal with the issue. Is she your wife or not? The question wasn’t about where she grew up, or where they met, but what is your relationship to her now? The relevance of verse 12 is to show that Abraham’s faith was not yet finished.

He almost sounds bitter, or he’s backpedaling, in verse 13 as he said, ”God caused me to wander from my father’s house.”

Instead of feeling sympathy for Abraham, the reader feels sympathy for Abimelech. God’s prophet is the problem. This “pagan” king has more fear of God than Abraham shows.

God Answers the Prayer of His Prophet (verses 14-18)

It wasn’t a great explanation from Abraham, but that’s not what motivated Abimelech. Abimelech was obeying God.

He took sheep and oxen, male servants and female servants, and gave them to Abraham, and returned Sarah his wife to him. Pharaoh also gave many gifts to Abraham, but that was before he found out that Sarah was his wife. Abimelech gives gifts after. Abimelech also does not kick Abraham out: ”Behold, my land is before you; dwell where it pleases you.”

Then he said to Sarah, ”Behold, I have given your brother a thousand pieces of silver.” The sarcasm is thick when Abimelech calls Abraham Sarah’s brother. A thousand pieces of silver, 1,000 “shekels,” would have taken the typical Babylonian laborer 167 years to earn at the wage of half a shekel a month (Waltke). In Deuteronomy 22:29 only 50 shekels were required as bride money (Wenham). Abimelech gave so much as a sign of your innocence in the eyes of all who are with you, and before everyone you are vindicated. The money was a covering, not to hide, but to prove that no wrong had been done.

Abimelech needed Abraham to pray for him, as God said in verse 7. The king threatened the prophet’s wife, but the prophet’s wife put the king’s own household in jeopardy. Now we learn more about what was happening: barren wombs.

Then Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech, and also healed his wife and female slaves so that they bore children. For the LORD had closed all the wombs of the house of Abimelech because of Sarah, Abraham’s wife. God protected Abraham, though Abraham was unfaithful, so that Abraham could pray for Abimelech. And Abraham prayed successfully in God’s providence for the very thing Abraham had not successfully prayed for his own wife.

Conclusion

Abraham needed protection for sake of his wife and his promise, Abimelech needed protection for sake of his life and his posterity.

God restrained Abimelech from sinning. Why didn’t God restrain Abraham from sinning in the first place? What purpose does the story in chapter 20 serve?

Both men were in jeopardy, both were humbled, and both learned about God’s providence and God’s grace. God used this episode to extend more blessing to the nations through Abraham, but in a way that Abimelech could see that Abraham was blessed by God, not that Abraham himself was great.

This chapter instructs us that God takes adultery seriously, that those who doubt God shouldn’t, that God extends blessing to others through our lives and prayers, and that God graciously protects the fulfillment of His promises.