Genesis 12:13

Say, I pray thee, thou art my sister: that it may be well with me for thy sake; and my soul shall live because of thee.

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Word by word — the Hebrew

Word	Hebrew	Strong’s	Meaning
Say	אִמְרִי 'im.ri-	H559	to say (used with great latitude) · verb, qal imperative, 2nd person feminine singular
thee	נָ֖א na'	H4994	'I pray' · interjection
sister	אֲחֹ֣תִי 'a.Cho.ti	H269	a sister (used very widely (like brother) · noun, common feminine singular construct + pronominal suffix
that	לְמַ֙עַן֙ le.Ma.'an	H4616	properly · particle
well	יִֽיטַב yi.tav-	H3190	to be (causative) make well · verb, qal jussive, 3rd person masculine singular
soul	נַפְשִׁ֖י naf.Shi	H5315	properly · noun, common feminine singular construct + pronominal suffix
live	וְחָיְתָ֥ה ve.cha.ye.Tah	H2421	to live · conjunction + verb, qal sequential perfect, 3rd person feminine singular
thee	בִּגְלָלֵֽךְ big.la.Lekh	H1558	a circumstance (as rolled around) · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person feminine singular

Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).

Cross-references

Genesis 26:7 And the men of the place asked him of his wife; and he said, She is my sister: for he feared to say, She is my wife; lest, said he, the men…
Genesis 20:2 And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, She is my sister: and Abimelech king of Gerar sent, and took Sarah.
Genesis 20:12-13 And yet indeed she is my sister; she is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife.
Genesis 20:5 Said he not unto me, She is my sister? and she, even she herself said, He is my brother: in the integrity of my heart and innocency of my ha…
Jeremiah 17:5-8 Thus saith the LORD; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the LORD.
Ezekiel 18:4 Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die.
Genesis 11:29 And Abram and Nahor took them wives: the name of Abram’s wife was Sarai; and the name of Nahor’s wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran, the fa…
Psalms 146:3-5 Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help.

Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).

Commentary

Matthew Henry on Genesis 12:10-13

Here is, I. A famine in the land of Canaan, a grievous famine. That fruitful land was turned into barrenness, not only to punish the iniquity of the Canaanites who dwelt therein, but to exercise the faith of Abram who sojourned therein; and a very sore trial it was; it tried what he would think, 1. Of God that brought him thither, whether he would not be ready to say with his murmuring seed that he was brought forth to be killed with hunger, Exo 16:3. Nothing short of a strong faith could keep up god thoughts of God under such a providence. 2. Of the land of promise, whether he would think the grant of it worth the accepting, and a valuable consideration for the relinquishing of his own coun…

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Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on Genesis 12:11

Sarai's complexion, coming from a mountainous country, would be fresh and fair compared with the faces of Egyptian women which were sallow. The counsel of Abram to her was true in words, but it was a deception, intended to give an impression that she was no more than his sister. His conduct was culpable and inconsistent with his character as a servant of God: it showed a reliance on worldly policy more than a trust in the promise; and he not only sinned himself, but tempted Sarai to sin also.

Adam Clarke on Genesis 12:13

Say, I pray thee, thou art my sister - Abram did not wish his wife to tell a falsehood, but he wished her to suppress a part of the truth. From Gen 20:12, it is evident she was his step-sister, i.e., his sister by his father, but by a different mother. Some suppose Sarai was the daughter of Haran, and consequently the grand-daughter of Terah: this opinion seems to be founded on Gen 11:29, where Iscah is thought to be the same with Sarai, but the supposition has not a sufficiency of probability to support it.

John Gill on Genesis 12:13

Say, I pray thee, that thou art my sister,.... Which though it was not putting a direct lie into her mouth, she being his sister in some sense, as appears from Genesis 20:12 yet it was done to conceal truth, and to deceive the Egyptians, and tended to endanger his wife's chastity, as well as showed great timorousness in him, and distrust of the divine care and protection of him; and upon the whole it must be criminal in him, and shows that the best of men are liable to sin, and the strongest believer to fall, and that a saint may fail in the exercise of that grace for which he is most eminent, as Abram was for his faith, and yet fell into unbelief, and through that into other sins; this he s…

The Church Fathers

Having built an altar there and called upon God, Abraham proceeded thence and dwelt in the desert and was compelled by pressure of famine to go on into Egypt. There he called his wife his sister, and he told no lie. For she was this also, because she was near of blood; just as Lot, on account of the same nearness, being his brother's son, is called his brother. Now he did not deny that she was his wife but held his peace about it, committing to God the defense of his wife's chastity and providing as a man against human wiles. If he had not provided against the danger as much as he could, he would have been tempting God rather than trusting in him. We have said enough about this matter against the calumnies of Faustus the Manichaean. At last what Abraham had expected the Lord to do took place. For Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who had taken her to him as his wife, restored her to her husband when faced with severe plague. And far be it from us to believe that she was defiled by lying with another. It is much more credible that, by these great afflictions, Pharaoh was not permitted to do this.
— Augustine of Hippo, City of God 16.19

The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).

Dictionary and topics

Abraham — Father of a multitude, son of Terah, named (Gen. 11:27) before his older brothers Nahor and Haran, because he was the heir of the promises. Till the age of seventy, Abram sojourned among his kindred…
Lie — An intentional violation of the truth. Lies are emphatically condemned in Scripture (John 8:44; 1 Tim. 1:9, 10; Rev. 21:27; 22:15). Mention is made of the lies told by good men, as by Abraham (Gen.…
Pharaoh — The official title borne by the Egyptian kings down to the time when that country was conquered by the Greeks. (See EGYPT.) The name is a compound, as some think, of the words Ra, the “sun” or…
Abraham · General references — General references
Cowardice · .Abraham, in — .Abraham, in
Deception · .Abraham, in stating that Sarah was his sister — .Abraham, in stating that Sarah was his sister
Doubting · EXEMPLIFIED — EXEMPLIFIED
Egypt · .Abraham lives in — .Abraham lives in
Egyptians · Hospitality of, to Abraham — Hospitality of, to Abraham
Ignorance · .Pharaoh — .Pharaoh
Marriage · Consanguinous, Abraham and Sarah — Consanguinous, Abraham and Sarah
Sarah · .Near of kin to Abraham — .Near of kin to Abraham

Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).

Genesis 12:13

Word by word — the Hebrew

Cross-references

Commentary

Matthew Henry on Genesis 12:10-13

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on Genesis 12:11

Adam Clarke on Genesis 12:13

John Gill on Genesis 12:13

The Church Fathers

Dictionary and topics

Genesis 12:13

Word by word — the Hebrew

Cross-references

Commentary

Matthew Henry on Genesis 12:10-13

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on Genesis 12:11

Adam Clarke on Genesis 12:13

John Gill on Genesis 12:13

The Church Fathers

Dictionary and topics

John Calvin on Genesis 12:12-14

Keil & Delitzsch on Genesis 12:10-14

Tyndale Open Study Notes on Genesis 12:13