Genesis 20:11

Summary

Abraham explains to Abimelech why he presented Sarah as his sister: he assumed that fear of God was absent in that place, and feared he would be killed because of his wife. The verse reports Abraham's internal reasoning through direct speech within direct speech.

Key words

• amarti ("I said", H0559) — qal perfect, first person; marks a completed inner statement, introducing what Abraham had reasoned to himself before acting.
• yir'at ("[the] fear of", H3374) — feminine singular construct noun; grammatically bound to the following word, forming the phrase "fear of God."
• Elohim ("God", H0430G) — masculine plural noun functioning as the object of the construct chain with yir'at.
• haraguni ("they will kill me", H2026) — qal sequential perfect with 1st person suffix ni ("me", H9030); continues the narrative sequence begun by va-, presenting the feared outcome as a consequence.
• ki ("that/if", H3588A) — subordinating particle introducing Abraham's quoted reasoning after va-yomer.

What the text says

The verse is built as nested speech: va-yomer Avraham ("and Abraham said") introduces a report of what Abraham had earlier said to himself, marked by ki amarti ("that/because I said"). This construction signals that Abraham is now recounting a prior internal judgment, not a statement made at the moment of the events in Gerar. The adverb rak ("certainly", H7535) intensifies the following clause, which contains the negative existential ein ("there is not", H0369) governing the construct phrase yir'at Elohim ("fear of God") — a genitive-type construction where "fear" belongs grammatically to "God."

The second half of the verse, joined by the narrative va- prefixed to haragu ("they will kill", H2026), presents the feared result as a further link in the chain of reasoning, using a sequential perfect form typical of Hebrew narrative continuation even within reported speech. The suffix ni attaches the action directly to Abraham as object ("kill me"). The final clause al-devar ishti ("on account of the matter of my wife") uses a construct chain (devar... ishti) to specify the cause, with the possessive suffix i ("my") marking Sarah as "my wife."

Differences between versions

The LXX renders yir'at Elohim as theosebeia ("godliness"), a single abstract noun, where the Hebrew has a construct phrase "fear of God." The Vulgate uses timor Dei ("fear of God"), closer to the Hebrew construct structure. The Vulgate also adds cogitavi mecum, dicens ("I thought within myself, saying"), making explicit the internal reflection that the Hebrew conveys more compactly through ki amarti.