Abimelech, and a prophet's prayer
1 Abraham traveled from there toward the land of the South, and lived between Kadesh and Shur. He lived as a foreigner in Gerar. 2 Abraham said about Sarah his wife, “She is my sister.” Abimelech king of Gerar sent, and took Sarah. 3 But God came to Abimelech in a dream of the night, and said to him, “Behold, you are a dead man, because of the woman whom you have taken; for she is a man’s wife.” 4 Now Abimelech had not come near her. He said, “Lord, will you kill even a righteous nation? 5 Didn’t he tell me, ‘She is my sister’? She, even she herself, said, ‘He is my brother.’ I have done this in the integrity of my heart and the innocence of my hands.” 6 God said to him in the dream, “Yes, I know that in the integrity of your heart you have done this, and I also withheld you from sinning against me. Therefore I didn’t allow you to touch her. 7 Now therefore, restore the man’s wife. For he is a prophet, and he will pray for you, and you will live. If you don’t restore her, know for sure that you will die, you, and all who are yours.” 8 Abimelech rose early in the morning, and called all his servants, and told all these things in their ear. The men were very scared. 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 on me and on my kingdom a great sin? You have done deeds to me that ought not to be done!” 10 Abimelech said to Abraham, “What did you see, that you have done this thing?” 11 Abraham said, “Because I thought, ‘Surely the fear of God is not in this place. They will kill me for my wife’s sake.’ 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 When God caused me to wander from my father’s house, I said to her, ‘This is your kindness which you shall show to me. Everywhere that we go, say of me, “He is my brother.”’” 14 Abimelech took sheep and cattle, male servants and female servants, and gave them to Abraham, and restored Sarah, his wife, to him. 15 Abimelech said, “Behold, my land is before you. Dwell where it pleases you.” 16 To Sarah he said, “Behold, I have given your brother a thousand pieces of silver. Behold, it is for you a covering of the eyes to all that are with you. In front of all you are vindicated.” 17 Abraham prayed to God. So God healed Abimelech, his wife, and his female servants, and they bore children. 18 For Yahweh had closed up tight all the wombs of the house of Abimelech, because of Sarah, Abraham’s wife.
Abraham repeats the lie that failed in Egypt, is rebuked by a pagan king with a clean conscience, and is then told to pray for him.
Abraham said about Sarah his wife, "She is my sister." It is the same arrangement as in Egypt, made in a different country, decades later, by a man who has since been given a covenant, a new name and a son by promise. Genesis records the repetition and says nothing about it, and the repetition is the verdict.
The timing makes it worse than the first time. Sarah has been promised a son within the year Genesis 18:10, and she is in another man's house.
God intervenes in a dream, and the sentence is blunt: you are a dead man, because of the woman whom you have taken. What follows is a defense from Abimelech that Scripture does not dismiss. He protests his integrity, points out that both parties told him the same story, and asks a question that echoes Abraham's own from two chapters earlier: Lord, will you kill even a righteous nation?
And God concedes the point in full: Yes, I know that in the integrity of your heart you have done this, and I also withheld you from sinning against me. The man's conscience is clear, God says so, and God also says that the clean conscience was partly his own doing — a striking admission that God restrains people from wrongs they were on course to commit without knowing it.
Then the strangest word in the chapter: For he is a prophet, and he will pray for you, and you will live.
It is the first occurrence of the word prophet in Scripture, and it is applied to the man in the wrong, to his advantage, in the hearing of the man he wronged. God's protection of his own chosen person does not depend on that person's conduct in the episode, and the passage makes no attempt to reconcile the two facts.
The morning confrontation is the third time a foreign ruler has to explain ethics to Abraham, and Abimelech's questions are harder than Pharaoh's: What have you done to us? How have I sinned against you, that you have brought on me and on my kingdom a great sin?
Abraham's answer is the only extended self-defense he offers anywhere, and every part of it fails. I thought, "Surely the fear of God is not in this place" — an assumption the chapter has just disproved, since the king had more scruple than he did. She is indeed my sister — true, and beside the point. And then the worst of it: this was not a decision taken under pressure at the border, but a standing policy agreed with Sarah at the very beginning, when God caused me to wander from my father's house. The deception has been running for twenty-five years.
Abimelech's response is to be generous — livestock, servants, a thousand pieces of silver, and the freedom of his land — and to say one thing to Sarah that quietly restores what the arrangement had cost her: In front of all you are vindicated.
And the chapter ends with Abraham praying for the household he endangered, and God healing them.
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