20:3 But God appeared 1 to Abimelech in a dream at night and said to him, “You are as good as dead 2 because of the woman you have taken, for she is someone else’s wife.” 3
20:6 Then in the dream God replied to him, “Yes, I know that you have done this with a clear conscience. 4 That is why I have kept you 5 from sinning against me and why 6 I did not allow you to touch her.
20:11 Abraham replied, “Because I thought, 7 ‘Surely no one fears God in this place. They will kill me because of 8 my wife.’
20:17 Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech, as well as his wife and female slaves so that they were able to have children.
1 tn Heb “came.”
2 tn Heb “Look, you [are] dead.” The Hebrew construction uses the particle הִנֵּה (hinneh) with a second person pronominal particle הִנֵּה (hinneh) with by the participle. It is a highly rhetorical expression.
3 tn Heb “and she is owned by an owner.” The disjunctive clause is causal or explanatory in this case.
4 tn Heb “with the integrity of your heart.”
5 tn Heb “and I, even I, kept you.”
6 tn Heb “therefore.”
7 tn Heb “Because I said.”
8 tn Heb “over the matter of.”
9 tn The Hebrew verb is plural. This may be a case of grammatical agreement with the name for God, which is plural in form. However, when this plural name refers to the one true God, accompanying predicates are usually singular in form. Perhaps Abraham is accommodating his speech to Abimelech’s polytheistic perspective. (See GKC 463 §145.i.) If so, one should translate, “when the gods made me wander.”
10 tn Heb “This is your loyal deed which you can do for me.”