Abimelech has Sarah returned to Abraham and gives him a purse of silver (colorized), Pieter van der Borcht, 1573-1608. Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum
Abraham and Isaac in Gerar Foreshadows Judea under Persian Rule
Abraham and Isaac’s sojourn in Gerar and Beersheba, and their covenants with the local ruler Abimelech, reflect the historical circumstances of Judea during the Persian period. They are living in the Promised Land, struggling with the local people, but they come to terms with the friendly and God-fearing ruler.
Published: November 3, 2021
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Last Updated: September 7, 2026
For a discussion of the historical Philistines, see Shirly Ben-Dor Evian, “The Philistines: Ancient Records, Archaeological Remains, and Biblical Traditions,” TheTorah (2015).
Gerar is typically identified with Tell Abu Hureyra / Tel Haror; see Bill T. Arnold, Genesis (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 236, with reference to further literature.
Abraham’s reasoning is, of course, aimed at protecting himself, not Sarah. Although to the modern reader the notion of a man “taking” a woman by force is anathema under any circumstances, the character of Abraham seems to take for granted that such an act is a real possibility regardless of whether Sarah is his wife or his sister. Taking a man’s wife required killing the man, while taking a man’s sister did not.
This is also noted by Dany Nocquet, La Samarie, la Diaspora et l’achèvement de la Torah: Territorialités et internationalités dans l’Hexateuque (Fribourg: Academic Press / Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2017), 260.
Scholars’ evaluation of the literary relationship between the three wife-sister episodes is highly varied and largely depends upon the underlying compositional models that they work with. That said, I concur with the scholars who see Genesis 20 as later than Genesis 12:10–20.
For some discussions of this term, see Elinoar Bareket, “Chesed: A Reciprocal Covenant,” TheTorah (2017); Marc Zvi Brettler, “Praise YHWH All You Nations: Psalm 117,” TheTorah (2020).
It can also mean Well of Seven, which is apparently the thinking of whoever wrote the verse about the seven sheep.
In Genesis 26:1, Abimelech is called “king of the Philistines” (מֶלֶךְ־פְּלִשְׁתִּים), whereas in Genesis 20–21 he is only indirectly identifiable as a Philistine king through the reference to Abraham’s residence “in the land of the Philistines” (Genesis 21:34).
Some scholars see Genesis 12 as depending on Genesis 26. See, for example, Christoph Levin, “Abraham and Sarah in Egypt: A Story Composed to Prefigure the Exodus,” TheTorah (2020). Others, however, see Genesis 26 as an interpretive elaboration of Genesis 12 and 20–21. See Arnold, Genesis, 235–236 and Nocquet, La Samarie, 267. This latter is my view as well.
Editor’s note: For more on this word, see Lisbeth S. Fried, “Did Ishmael Molest Isaac?” TheTorah (2021).
The root א.שׁ.מ itself appears only twice in Genesis, here and in Genesis 42:21 (Joseph’s brothers refer to themselves as אֲשֵׁמִים “guilty” after they are accused of being spies), and the next place it appears in the Torah is in Leviticus 4–5, in the context of the guilt offering.
For example,
ויקרא ה:יז וְאִם־נֶפֶשׁ כִּי תֶחֱטָא וְעָשְׂתָה אַחַת מִכָּל־מִצְוֹת יְ־הוָה אֲשֶׁר לֹא תֵעָשֶׂינָה וְלֹא־יָדַע וְאָשֵׁם וְנָשָׂא עֲוֹנוֹ׃
Lev 5:17 And when a person, without knowing it, sins in regard to any of YHWH’s commandments about things not to be done, and then realizes his guilt (ve-ashem), he shall be subject to punishment.
R. Toviah adds a further point that has little basis in the text:
והיה בדעתו לשדך עליה כדרך המלכות. והוא שוגג בדבר. כי בחזקת פנויה היה משדך עליה.
…but he had in his mind to betroth her to himself in the royal manner, and he acted without knowledge of wrongdoing, since she who he would betroth was known to be unmarried…
His student, R. Menachem ben Shlomo, takes the same approach in his Sekhel Tov (ad loc.):
והבאת עלינו אשם – שהאשם בא על המעילות ועל השוגג, והיה בדעתו לשדך עליה כדרך המלכות ונמצא שוגג עליה, כי בחזקת פנויה הי' ששידך עליה:
“And you would have brought an asham upon us”—For the asham is brought on account of violations of the holy and unintentional sins. And it was in his (Abimelech’s) mind to betroth her to himself in the royal way, and he acted without knowledge of wrongdoing, since she who he would betroth was known to be unmarried.
For more on this connection, see Nocquet, La Samarie, 270.
Like the wife-sister story, the next incident with Isaac parallels what we read with Abraham, though it is much more developed. Unlike the Abraham stories, which form a frame around the story of Isaac’s birth and Ishmael’s expulsion (Gen 21:1–21), the Isaac and Abimelech complex is built as one long account. For further discussion of the relationship between the similar traditions about Abraham and Isaac in Genesis 20–21 and 26, see David Frankel, “Isaac before He Was Abraham’s Son,” TheTorah (2020).
In the present form of the story, Abimelech’s covenant with Isaac is framed by a report in vv. 25b, 32–33 that offers a different explanation for the origin of the place-name Beersheba found in Genesis 21:25–31. Since Genesis 26:23 treats Beersheba as a place with a well-(be'er)established name, the explanation in vv. 32–33 of how the town got its name comes somewhat unexpectedly here and seems to be a later development compared to the explanation found in Genesis 21:25–33.
Editor’s note: For more about Judeans’ experience under Persian rule, see Zev Farber, “The 220-Year History of the Achaemenid Persian Empire,” TheTorah (2017).
Along similar lines, Dany Nocquet has suggested that the authors of Genesis 20 and 26 may have had in view a Persian governor or satrap in their characterization of Abimelech of Gerar (La Samarie, 255 note 1151).
See, for example, Elisabeth Robertson Kennedy, Seeking a Homeland: Sojourn and Ethnic Identity in the Ancestral Narratives of Genesis (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 65 and Nocquet, La Samarie, 262. They further argue that the placement of Isaac’s birth story between the two accounts of Abraham and Abimelech marks Isaac as a “child of the diaspora.”
In light of the divine command to Isaac in Genesis 26:2 not to go down to Egypt, Dany Nocquet’s suggestion that in Genesis 26 Philistia represents another land of migration comparable to Egypt (“Genèse 26,1–32: Le ‘bon roi Abimélek,’” Lire et dire 107 [2016]: 13–27, here 19) and that Genesis 26 was produced by diaspora communities (La Samarie, 277) oversimplifies the matter and misses the function of Philistia as a space representing the “promised land” under foreign control.
For a Persian-period background of the Abimelech passages in Genesis 20; 21:22–34; and 26, see Nocquet, La Samarie, 266–267.
Indeed, the account of Abram’s travels from his origins in Ur of the Chaldeans (i.e., in Mesopotamia) to the land of Canaan (Gen 11–12) represents the community of exiled Judeans in Babylonia during the sixth century B.C.E. who returned to the Persian province of Yehud.
The particular interest in Beersheba in Genesis 21:22–33 and in Genesis 26:26–33 also fits well with a Persian-period setting, considering that Nehemiah 11:25–30 refers to the settlement of returnees from Babylonia in the region of Beersheba. On this connection, see Nocquet, La Samarie, 274.
