Genesis 20:14 Commentary and Bible Study

Abimelech prepares a great gift for Abraham, and restores Sarah his wife to him. Then, even more precious, he tells him, ‘Behold, my land is before thee: dwell where it pleaseth thee.’ Abimelech is a God fearer. He does not run Abraham out of the land, as Pharaoh did twenty years before, when in shame and disgust he told Abraham to leave Egypt altogether. He gives him liberty to dwell anywhere in the land. God had prepared this home for Abraham beforehand. The king says to Sarah, who is also reproved for being party to the deception, ‘Behold, I have given thy brother a thousand pieces of silver. That is included in the gift in verse 14, but it is a lot of money. Some people say it would have bought 30 slaves – not that Abraham would have wanted to do that; others say it would have bought 300: so nobody seems to know the exact value, but it is a lot of money. ‘Behold, he is to thee a covering of the eyes, unto all that are with thee and with all other: thus she was reproved.’ So it is his way of telling Sarah she should have refused him or resisted.Why does all this happen? Because Abraham's faith needs to be increased. Abraham needs to be purified of perhaps this one remaining serious matter: his readiness to not believe that God would preserve him. This has got to be dealt with before the great instrumentality comes to him, and Isaac is conceived and born.‘Behold, he is to thee a covering of the eyes unto all that are with thee.’ In other words, the fact that Abimelech would give a very valuable gifts to Abraham and Sarah, gifts of people, servants, cattle, sheep, money: the whole intention of the gift was that nobody would ever think for one moment that Sarah had been rejected by him. When the word went round that Sarah had been taken into Abimelech's household, and now she is out of it. So that nobody would draw the wrong conclusions and there would be any shame for her, he lavished gifts upon her. Abimelech is therefore a sterling character, and that is the extent of the guidance of God in bringing Abraham to that place, and that would be his home for a while.