Abraham and Abimelech: The Night God Spoke to a Pagan King (Genesis 20)
Passage: Genesis 20:1–18
In this passage: AbimelechAbrahamSarahGerarKadesh-barnea
Day thirty-six of a walk through the whole Bible to know the God who speaks. In Gerar Abraham calls Sarah his sister again, and God comes to a foreign king in a dream. Genesis 20, and the first time the Bible says the word prophet.
Abraham moves south again, into the dry country of the Negev, and stays for a while in Gerar. There he says of his wife what he said in Egypt years before: "She is my sister" (Genesis 20:2). So the king of Gerar, Abimelech, has Sarah brought into his house.
The timing is the hard part. God has told Abraham more than once that Sarah will bear him a son. "Your wife Sarah will indeed bear you a son, and you are to name him Isaac" (Genesis 17:19). "I will surely return to you at this time next year, and your wife Sarah will have a son!" (Genesis 18:10). The year is already running, and the mother of the promise is in another man's house because Abraham was afraid.
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What happens in Genesis 20?
God warns Abimelech in a dream to give Sarah back, Abimelech obeys, and Abraham prays for the king's household. First God speaks, and He speaks to the king. "One night, however, God came to Abimelech in a dream" (Genesis 20:3) and told him, "You are as good as dead because of the woman you have taken, for she is a married woman."
Abimelech argues back, which is more than most of us manage with a dream. He had not gone near her, and both of them had told him they were siblings. God answers him: "Yes, I know that you did this with a clear conscience, and so I have kept you from sinning against Me" (Genesis 20:6).
A king outside God's covenant hears Him, talks with Him, and acts on what he heard before the sun is fully up. "Early the next morning Abimelech got up and summoned all his servants; and when he described to them all that had happened, the men were terrified" (Genesis 20:8).
Then he calls Abraham in, and Abraham explains himself. "Surely there is no fear of God in this place. They will kill me on account of my wife" (Genesis 20:11). He had it backwards. A room full of frightened servants had just heard what God said in the night. The one man in Gerar acting without the fear of God was Abraham, who held God's promise about Sarah and gave her away to keep himself safe.
Why does God call Abraham a prophet?
God calls Abraham a prophet because of the job He gives him: Abraham is the one who will pray for Abimelech's household so that it can be healed. In the same dream God tells Abimelech, "Now return the man's wife, for he is a prophet; he will pray for you and you will live" (Genesis 20:7). It is the first time the word prophet appears in the Bible, and God gives it to Abraham at the moment he looks least like one.
So Abraham prays, "and God healed Abimelech and his wife and his maidservants" (Genesis 20:17), and the closed wombs of the royal household open again. The next chapter begins, "Now the LORD attended to Sarah as He had said" (Genesis 21:1). God guarded the promise while the man carrying it had stopped trusting it.
How does Genesis 20 connect to Jesus?
Genesis 20 connects to Jesus through Abraham's prayer for Abimelech's house, because Jesus is the greater prophet who prays for His people without end. Abraham prayed for a household he had put in danger himself, and God still answered him. Jesus is the prophet who put no one at risk to save Himself, and the letter to the Hebrews says He "always lives to intercede for them" (Hebrews 7:25).
God knew Abraham at his worst, kept His word to him, and still called him a prophet. Being known by a God like that is the reason we keep what He says close enough to remember when we are afraid.
Abraham made his plan in private. "I thought to myself," he tells the king (Genesis 20:11), and nobody heard the reasoning until it had already gone wrong. Abimelech told his whole household what God had said before breakfast. When you catch yourself working out how to stay safe, say out loud what God has already said to you. If it is not written down with the date, record it today in the Doxa app, where it keeps its date, and read it before the plan goes any further.
What has God already told you that you are quietly planning around this week?
Deeper study today in the Doxa Deeper Dive: what the Bible's first prophet was for, and the phrase Israel heard again at Sinai. Read it here.
Download Doxa, the app for recording, weighing and remembering prophetic encouragement.
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