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10 What did you have in mind,” Abimelech asked him, “that you would do such a thing?” 11 Abraham answered, “I thought there would be no fear of God[a] in this place, and so they would kill me on account of my wife. 12 Besides, she really is my sister,[b] but only my father’s daughter, not my mother’s; and so she became my wife.

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Footnotes

  1. 20:11 Fear of God is the traditional though unsatisfactory rendering of Hebrew yir’at YHWH, literally, “revering Yahweh.” The phrase refers neither to the emotion of fear nor to religious reverence of a general kind. Rather it refers to adherence to a single deity (in a polytheistic culture), honoring that deity with prayers, rituals, and obedience. The phrase occurs again in 26:24; 43:23; and 50:19. It is very common in the wisdom literature of the Bible.
  2. 20:12 My sister: marrying one’s half sister was prohibited later in Israel’s history.