Testimonia — Early Christian Bible Commentary
Genesis 20 · World English Bible
1Abraham traveled from there toward the land of the South, and lived between Kadesh and Shur. He lived as a foreigner in Gerar.
2Abraham said about Sarah his wife, “She is my sister.” Abimelech king of Gerar sent, and took Sarah.
3But 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.”
4Now Abimelech had not come near her. He said, “Lord, will you kill even a righteous nation?
5Didn’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.”
6God 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.
7Now 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.”
8Abimelech rose early in the morning, and called all his servants, and told all these things in their ear. The men were very scared.
9Then 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!”
10Abimelech said to Abraham, “What did you see, that you have done this thing?”
11Abraham said, “Because I thought, ‘Surely the fear of God is not in this place. They will kill me for my wife’s sake.’
12Besides, she is indeed my sister, the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife.
13When 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.”’”
14Abimelech took sheep and cattle, male servants and female servants, and gave them to Abraham, and restored Sarah, his wife, to him.
15Abimelech said, “Behold, my land is before you. Dwell where it pleases you.”
16To 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.”
17Abraham prayed to God. So God healed Abimelech, his wife, and his female servants, and they bore children.
18For the LORD had closed up tight all the wombs of the house of Abimelech, because of Sarah, Abraham’s wife.
World English Bible · World English Bible; source eBible.org.
Notes on Genesis 20
1869 (English edition) | Historical editor/translator (individual note author unspecified)
The reading of the text has, “not of the same mother, much less of the same father,” which contradicts Gen. xx. 12, and has been therefore amended as above.
Editorial footnote · The Stromata (Miscellanies), THE WRITINGS OF CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA. / BOOK VI. / CHAPTER XII. HUMAN NATURE POSSESSES AN ADAPTATION FOR PERFECTION; THE GNOSTIC ALONE ATTAINS IT., editorial note Footnote_1070 · Original source
1869 (English edition) | Historical editor/translator (individual note author unspecified)
Gen. xx. 12.
Editorial footnote · The Stromata (Miscellanies), THE WRITINGS OF CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA. / BOOK II. / CHAPTER XXIII. ON MARRIAGE., editorial note Footnote_252 · Original source
1887 (historical English edition; transcription printing date uncertain) | Historical editor/translator (individual note author unspecified)
Gen. xx. 2, 12
Editorial footnote · Against Lying, Chapter uncertain; original source section: Section 23, editorial note cite_note-2 · Original source
Date uncertain | Ambrose of Milan
42. Let the chaste learn not to dread calumny. For she who preferred chastity to life did not suffer the loss of life, and retained the glory of chastity. So, too, Abraham, once bidden to go to foreign lands, and not being held back either by the danger to his wife’s modesty, nor by the fear of death before him, preserved both his own life and his wife’s chastity. So no one has ever repented of trusting God, and chastity increased devotion in Sarah, and devotion chastity.
Source passage · edition’s verse reference · On the Holy Spirit, Chapter VI., source paragraph 10 · Original source
Date uncertain | Augustine of Hippo
After this promise Lot was delivered out of Sodom, and a fiery rain from heaven turned into ashes that whole region of the impious city, where custom had made sodomy as prevalent as laws have elsewhere made other kinds of wickedness. But this punishment of theirs was a specimen of the divine judgment to come. For what is meant by the angels forbidding those who were delivered to look back, but that we are not to look back in heart to the old life which, being regenerated through grace, we have put off, if we think to escape the last judgment? Lot's wife, indeed, when she looked back, remained, and, being turned into salt, furnished to believing men a condiment by which to savour somewhat the warning to be drawn from that example. Then Abraham did again at Gerar, with Abimelech the king of that city, what he had done in Egypt about his wife, and received her back untouched in the same way. On this occasion, when the king rebuked Abraham for not saying she was his wife, and calling her his sister, he explained what he had been afraid of, and added this further, "And yet indeed she is my sister by the father's side, but not by the mother's;" for she was Abraham's sister by his own father, and so near of kin. But her beauty was so great, that even at that advanced age she could be fallen in love with.
Source passage · edition’s verse reference · The City of God, THE CITY OF GOD. / BOOK SIXTEENTH. / ARGUMENT., source paragraph 248 · Original source
Date uncertain | Clement of Alexandria
We ask if we ought to marry; which is one of the points, which are said to be relative. For some must marry, and a man must be in some condition, and he must marry some one in some condition. For every one is not to marry, nor always. But there is a time in which it is suitable, and a person for whom it is suitable, and an age up to which it is suitable. Neither ought every one to take a wife, nor is it every woman one is to take, nor always, nor in every way, nor inconsiderately. But only he who is in certain circumstances, and such an one and at such time as is requisite, and for the sake of children, and one who is in every respect similar, and who does not by force or compulsion love the husband who loves her. Hence Abraham, regarding his wife as a sister, says, “She is my sister by my father, but not by my mother; and she became my wife,” teaching us that children of the same mothers ought not to enter into matrimony. Let us briefly follow the history. Plato ranks marriage among outward good things, providing for the perpetuity of our race, and handing down as a torch a certain perpetuity to children’s children. Democritus repudiates marriage and the procreation of children, on account of the many annoyances thence arising, and abstractions from more necessary things. Epicurus agrees, and those who place good in pleasure, and in the absence of trouble and pain. According to the opinion of the Stoics, marriage and the rearing of children are a thing indifferent; and according to the Peripatetics, a good. In a word, these, following out their dogmas in words, became enslaved to pleasures; some using concubines, some mistresses, and the most youths. And that wise quaternion in the garden with a mistress, honoured pleasure by their acts. Those, then, will not escape the curse of yoking an ass with an ox, who, judging certain things not to suit them, command others to do them, or the reverse. This Scripture has briefly showed, when it says, “What thou hatest, thou shalt not do to another.”
Source passage · edition’s verse reference · The Stromata (Miscellanies), THE WRITINGS OF CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA. / BOOK II. / CHAPTER XXIII. ON MARRIAGE., source paragraph 124 · Original source
Date uncertain | Clement of Alexandria
And did not Abraham, when he was in danger on account of Sarah’s beauty, with the king of Egypt, properly call her sister, being of the same father, but not of the same mother?
Source passage · edition’s verse reference · The Stromata (Miscellanies), THE WRITINGS OF CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA. / BOOK VI. / CHAPTER XII. HUMAN NATURE POSSESSES AN ADAPTATION FOR PERFECTION; THE GNOSTIC ALONE ATTAINS IT., source paragraph 785 · Original source