Chapter 20
Drafted by Grok 4.7 on 8 October 2026. First draft. Not independently reviewed. Leningrad Codex, through the Open Scriptures Westminster Leningrad Codex. The written consonants are printed. A Masoretic reading is footnoted when it differs. No Dead Sea reading was substituted unless it was read from a fragment. The Samaritan Pentateuch and the Greek, Syriac, and Latin versions are witnesses, not the default.
1Abraham traveled from there to the land of the Negev and lived between Kadesh and Shur, and he stayed in Gerar.
2Abraham said of Sarah his wife, “She is my sister.” Abimelech king of Gerar sent and took Sarah.
3God came to Abimelech in a dream by night and said to him, “Look, you are a dead man because of the woman you have taken, for she is a man’s wife.”
4Abimelech had not come near her. He said, “My Lord, will you kill even a just nation?
5Did he not say to me, ‘She is my sister’? And she, even she, said, ‘He is my brother.’ In the integrity of my heart and the innocence of my hands I have done this.”
6God said to him in the dream, “Yes, I know that in the integrity of your heart you did this, and I also kept you from sinning against me. Therefore I did not let you touch her.
7Now return the man’s wife, for he is a prophet, and he will pray for you, and you will live. If you do not return her, know that you will die, you and all who are yours.”
8Abimelech rose early in the morning, called all his servants, and spoke all these words in their hearing. The men were very afraid.
9Abimelech 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? Deeds that should not be done you have done to me.”
10Abimelech said to Abraham, “What did you see, that you did this thing?”
11Abraham said, “Because I said, ‘There is surely no fear of God in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife.’
12And besides, she really is my sister, my father’s daughter, though not my mother’s daughter, and she became my wife.
13When God made me wander from my father’s house, I said to her, ‘This is the loyalty you shall do for me: in every place we come to, say of me, He is my brother.’”
14Abimelech took sheep and cattle, servants and female servants, and gave them to Abraham, and he returned Sarah his wife to him.
15Abimelech said, “Look, my land is before you. Live wherever it is good in your eyes.”
16To Sarah he said, “Look, I have given your brother a thousand pieces of silver. Look, it is a covering of the eyes for you, for all who are with you, and before everyone you are set right.”
Notes (1)Hide notes
- Translation
“A covering of the eyes” is the Hebrew phrase. It is not explained further in the copy. A payment that closes the matter is the sense printed. The exact legal picture is uncertain.
17Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech, and his wife, and his female servants, and they bore children,
18for Yahweh had shut every womb of the house of Abimelech because of Sarah, Abraham’s wife.