Genesis 20:3

God was not happy that Abimelek was going to marry Sarah, so one night he gave Abimelek a dream, and in that dream, God told him, “You are going to die. You took Sarah to be your wife, but she is already married to Abraham.”

Plain English Version

In The King James Version

But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night, and said to him, Behold, thou art but a dead man, for the woman which thou hast taken; for she is a man’s wife.

In Context

2While Abraham and Sarah were in Gerar, Abraham told everyone that his wife Sarah was his sister, not his wife. The big boss of Gerar was called Abimelek. He believed Abraham, so he sent somebody to get Sarah so that he could marry her.

4Abimelek said, “But God, I haven’t married Sarah yet. I have not slept with her, like a man sleeps with his wife. Me and my people, we haven’t done anything wrong. Will you kill us for nothing?

Read all of Genesis 20

Cross References

Genesis 28:12While Jacob was asleep, he had a dream. In that dream, he saw lots of steps going up from the earth, and those steps went all the way up into the sky. And Jacob saw lots of God’s angel messengers on those steps. Some of those angel messengers were going up the steps towards the sky, and some of them were going down the steps towards the earth.

Genesis 37:5One night, Joseph had a dream. The next day, he told his brothers about his dream, and they hated him even more.

Genesis 40:5One night, that wine-boss and that bread-boss, they were both sleeping in the jail, and they both had dreams. Both those dreams showed things that will happen later on. But those 2 men didn’t understand what those dreams meant. So they felt sad and worried.

Genesis 41:12 years later, Pharaoh, the big boss of Egypt, he had a dream. In his dream, he stood next to the Nile River,

Matthew Henry on Genesis 20:2-3

Abraham's Denial of His Wife. ( b. c. 1898.) 1 And Abraham journeyed from thence toward the south country, and dwelled between Kadesh and Shur, and sojourned in Gerar. 2 And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, She is my sister: and Abimelech king of Gerar sent, and took Sarah. Here is, 1. Abraham's removal from Mamre, where he had lived nearly twenty years, into the country of the Philistines: He sojourned in Gerar, v. 1 . We are not told upon what occasion he removed, whether terrified by the destruction of Sodom, or… Read the whole commentary →

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