Genesis20chapter 20

This chapter is heard inside the fourth portion of the annual cycle, in the same sitting as the visit at the oaks and the binding of Isaac (src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts). Abimelech, the dream in the night and the healing of his household are read between the overthrow of Sodom and the birth of Isaac. The card above carries the portion and the prophetic reading set beside it.

Rashi is quoted here from the public domain Rosenbaum and Silbermann edition, and Radak from the CC-BY translation of Eliyahu Munk, HaChut Hameshulash.

Both ask why Abraham moved. Radak notes that the text gives no reason, and rules out famine, since none is recorded in that region at that time (Radak on Genesis 20:1:1). Rashi gives two answers from the Midrash. The cities were destroyed and travellers no longer passed that way, and Lot had gained an evil name through his daughters (Rashi on Genesis 20:1:1, citing Genesis Rabbah 52:3 to 52:4). Rashi adds that this time Abraham did not ask Sarah's consent before saying she was his sister, because of what had happened in Egypt (Rashi on Genesis 20:2:1, citing Genesis Rabbah 52:4).

Radak reads the dream as an honour paid to the righteous rather than to the king. God warned Laban about Jacob in the same way, and Pharaoh was given plagues instead of a dream. A visitation of that kind comes "as a mark of honour for the righteous people who are the subject of such a visitation" (Radak on Genesis 20:3:1). He reads the early rising of the eighth verse as fear, since the king rose before the hour kings rise (Radak on Genesis 20:8:1). On the tenth verse he takes the question of Abimelech as a fair one, on why Abraham had not protested (Radak on Genesis 20:10:1).

Rashi reads the answer of Abraham in the eleventh verse through a question the rabbis asked. A city that asks a newcomer about his wife rather than about his food and drink has shown what it is (Rashi on Genesis 20:11:1, citing Bava Kamma 92a). He reads the twelfth verse as a true statement of the law as it then stood, and he notes the objection about her descent from Terah (Rashi on Genesis 20:12:1).

Ibn Ezra carries one comment on this chapter that the corpus holds by reference alone, at Ibn Ezra on Genesis 20:3:1.

Rashi carries four sayings of the rabbis on this chapter, and each stands here as what they taught.

The first is on the argument Abimelech put to God. Rashi reports him asking whether God destroys nations without cause, and naming the generation of the flood and the generation of the dispersion as cases (Rashi on Genesis 20:4:2, citing Genesis Rabbah 52:6). The second is on the word for also in the fifth verse. Rashi reports that it takes in the servants, the camel drivers and the ass drivers, all of whom had said the same thing (Rashi on Genesis 20:5:1, citing Genesis Rabbah 52:6).

The third is the answer. Rashi reports that God held the king back, and that his own will had little to do with it. His heart had meant no sin, and his hands were still unclean (Rashi on Genesis 20:6:1 and 20:6:2, citing Genesis Rabbah 52:6 and 52:7). An angel is named as what kept him from her (Rashi on Genesis 20:4:1).

The fourth is on the plague itself. Rashi reports that every opening of the body was closed in that household. The healing of the seventeenth verse is the opening of them again (Rashi on Genesis 20:9:1 and 20:17:1, citing Bava Kamma 92a). He sets Abimelech beside Pharaoh once more, since this king offered Abraham his land and Pharaoh sent him away (Rashi on Genesis 20:15:1).

The corpus records forty places where the Midrash and the Talmud cite this chapter, thirty three under Midrash and seven under Talmud, with the locator for each one and no text. Bereshit Rabbah reads the first verse at 52:1, the second at 39:9, the third at 52:5 and the fourth at 52:6. It reads the sixth verse at 52:7, the eighth at 52:9, the tenth at 52:10, the eleventh at 52:11 and the twelfth at 18:5. It reads the fourteenth verse at 52:12 and the twentieth at 17:4.

Aggadat Bereshit reads the first verse at 25:1 and 25:2, the third at 67:1, the seventh at 50:2 and 56:1, and the fifteenth at 26:1 and 51:1. It reads the sixteenth verse at 34:1, the seventeenth at 28:1 and 28:2, and the eighteenth at 29:1 and 29:3. Midrash Lekach Tov reads the second, fifth, eighth, ninth and tenth verses at the locators of the same names, and Bereshit Rabbati reads the fourteenth at Parashat Vayera 18.

The Talmud is cited at Bava Kamma 92a:9 on the fourth verse, Makkot 9a:10 on the sixth and Bava Kamma 93a:5 on the sixteenth. The Jerusalem Talmud reads the twelfth verse at Kiddushin 1:1:13 and the thirteenth at Megillah 1:9:17. Avot DeRabbi Natan reads the second verse at 33:2 and the fifth at 34:5.