Matthew Henry on Genesis 20:8-13
Abimelech, being thus warned of God in a dream, takes the warning, and, as one truly afraid of sin and its consequences, he rises early to obey the directions given him.
I. He has a caution for his servants, Gen 20:8. Abraham himself could not be more careful than he was to command his household in this matter. Note, Those whom God has convinced of sin and danger ought to tell others what God has done for their souls, that they also may be awakened and brought to a like holy fear.
II. He has a chiding for Abraham. Observe,
1. The serious reproof which Abimelech gave to Abraham, Gen 20:9, Gen 20:10. His reasoning with Abraham upon this occasion was very strong, and yet very mild. Nothing coul…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Genesis 20:12
yet indeed she is my sister--(See on Gen 11:31). What a poor defense Abraham made. The statement absolved him from the charge of direct and absolute falsehood, but he had told a moral untruth because there was an intention to deceive (compare Gen 12:11-13). "Honesty is always the best policy." Abraham's life would have been as well protected without the fraud as with it: and what shame to himself, what distrust to God, what dishonor to religion might have been prevented! "Let us speak truth every man to his neighbor" [Zac 8:16; Eph 4:25].
Next: Genesis Chapter 21
Adam Clarke on Genesis 20:13
When God caused me to wander - Here the word אלהים Elohim is used with a plural verb, (התעו hithu, caused me to wander), which is not very usual in the Hebrew language, as this plural noun is generally joined with verbs in the singular number. Because there is a departure from the general mode in this instance, some have contended that the word Elohim signifies princes in this place, and suppose it to refer to those in Chaldea, who expelled Abraham because he would not worship the fire; but the best critics, and with them the Jews, allow that Elohim here signifies the true God. Abraham probably refers to his first call.
John Gill on Genesis 20:13
And it came to pass, when God caused me to wander from my father's house,.... In Ur of the Chaldees, from whence God called him to go forth; which laid him under an obligation to depart from thence, and move from place to place, and go he knew not where, as in Hebrews 11:8; or "the Gods", as it is in the plural number, and so the verb in construction with it; not the idol gods, the gods of the Gentiles, as the Targum of Jonathan, who interprets the words thus,"and it was when the worshippers of idols sought to cause men to err, and I went from my father's house;''but the true God, as Jarchi, Aben Ezra, and Ben Melech acknowledge, and is by many Christian interpreters understood of the three…
