Abraham deceived King Abimelech about Sarah

1Abraham left Mamre and moved southwest to the Negev desert and lived in a place named Gerar, between Kadesh and Shur.

2While he was there, he told people that Sarah was his sister, not his wife. Then King Abimelech of Gerar sent some of his men to Sarah, and they brought her to him to be his wife.

3But God appeared to Abimelech in a dream during the night and said to him, “Listen to me! You are going to die because the woman you took is another man’s wife.”

4But Abimelech had not had sex [EUP] with her, so he said, “God, since the people of my nation and I am innocent; will you kill me?

5He told me, ‘She is my sister,’ and she also said, ‘He is my brother.’ I did this with pure motives and I [SYN] have not done anything wrong yet.”

6God said to him in another dream, “Yes, I know that your motives were pure. That is why I truly prevented you from sinning against me. I did not allow you to have sex [EUP] with her.

7Now, return this man’s wife to her husband, because he is ◄a prophet/a man who receives messages from me►. He will pray for you, and you will ◄remain alive/not die►. But if you do not return her to him, you will certainly die, and all the members of your household will also certainly die.”

8Early the next morning, Abimelech summoned all his officials, and told them everything that had happened. When they heard that [MTY], his men were very afraid that God would punish them.

9Abimelech then summoned Abraham, and said to him, “You should not have done that to us [RHQ]! Did I do something wrong to you, with the result that you are causing me and the people in [MTY] my kingdom to be guilty of committing a great sin [RHQ]? You have done things to me that ◄should not be done/you should not have done►!”

10Abimelech asked Abraham, “What was your reason for doing this?”

11Abraham replied, “I said that because I thought, ‘They certainly do not respect God in this place. If they don’t respect God, they will not respect relationships with others. If I say she is my sister, they will try to pay me a bride price to get her. But if I say she is my wife, they will kill me to get her.’

12Besides, she really can be considered my sister, because she is the daughter of my father, although she is not the daughter of my mother. She is the daughter of another woman, and I married her.

13Later, when God told me to move away from my father’s household, I said to her, ‘This is the way you can show that you love me: Everywhere we go, say about me, “This is my brother.”’”

14So Abimelech brought some sheep and cattle and male and female slaves and gave them to Abraham. And he returned his wife Sarah to him.

15And Abimelech said to him, “Look! All my land is here in front of you. Live in whatever place you like!”

16And he said to Sarah, “Look here, I am giving 1,000 pieces of silver to your brother. This is to insure that no one will bring up this matter again and say that I have done something wrong. [EUP, IDM]”

17Then Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech’s wife and his slave girls so that they could become pregnant.

18This was because Yahweh had caused it to be impossible for any of the women in Abimelech’s household to bear children, because Abimelech had taken Abraham’s wife Sarah.