But Abimelech had not come near her; and he said, “Lord, will You slay a righteous nation also? Did he not say to me, ‘She is my sister’? And she, even she herself said, ‘He is my brother.’ In the integrity of my heart and innocence of my hands I have done this.” And God said to him in a dream, “Yes, I know that you did this in the integrity of your heart. For I also withheld you from sinning against Me; therefore I did not let you touch her. Now therefore, restore the man’s wife; for he is a prophet, and he will pray for you and you shall live. But if you do not restore her, know that you shall surely die, you and all who are yours.” (Gen 20,4-7)

Well, Abimelech has just shown us how to usurp a stranger's wife with integrity and "clean hands" - and God may yet vouch for him!

To understand places like this, we must remember that in ancient times, people acted on the basis of customary law, because, unlike in our time, no other law was yet widespread. The king of a given area obviously had the right to take into his harem any unmarried woman in his territory. Horrible as it seems, it is perhaps worth mentioning that thousands of years later, in the 18th century, we also find references to the so-called law of the first night in so-called Christian Europe. According to this, a feudal lord had the right to have first intercourse with the wife of his estate who had just entered into marriage.

God certainly did not approve of such a thing, for we know from later Scripture how He views marriage - only that this standard was not even reached by many patriarchs, let alone by Abimelech, who did not honor the Lord at all. Therefore, this must be understood to mean that God is now only treating him as a stranger, based on his understanding, his culture, the generally accepted principles of the time - which he did not actually violate. Of course, if Abimelech were to become a worshiper of God, his morality would have to undergo changes far more far-reaching than that - and God would certainly require it!

"But if you do not restore her, know that you shall surely die, you and all who are yours." I wonder what it's like when God threatens someone with death - and mind you, not through an intermediary, but directly, right to their face! There are not many places in Scripture where we see something like this. It looks like Abimelech took a moment to compose himself after God had agreed at first, but it seems to have strengtened him so much that God had to go further and get tough: if you don't give her back, not only you will die, but all your loved ones as well!

This, too, was a custom of the time, and Abimelech understood it very well: not only the guilty party was punished for the harm done, but his whole family or tribe. The retribution normally exceeded the act committed.

This is also why the later Old Testament provision of "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" is, in the view of the time, an expression of mercy, not harshness as it appears to us today - it stipulates that the punishment was not to exceed the offense.