Bible Strands
Genesis 20:1
Now Abraham journeyed from there to the region of the Negev and settled between Kadesh and Shur. While he was staying in Gerar,
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The text does not record dialogue but narrates Abraham’s departure from a prior location and his arrival in the Negev, where he establishes a temporary residence between Kadesh and Shur while in Gerar. This narrative moment immediately precedes his claim about Sarah in Genesis 20:2.
The words — וַ/יֵּ֥שֶׁב (va/i.Ye.shev) translates literally as "and he dwelt" or "and he settled," denoting a deliberate, non-permanent stay rather than permanent migration.
The thread — Abraham’s sojourn in Gerar reappears in Genesis 26:6 when Isaac settles in the same city, and Genesis 26:1 notes another famine occurring in the land after Abraham’s time. The narrative backdrop connects to Genesis 18:1, which records the LORD’s prior appearance to Abraham at the Oaks of Mamre.
Why it lands — The verse documents a geographical relocation that creates the conditions for a test of faith, requiring the reader to note how patriarchal movements repeatedly place covenant promises in vulnerable, humanly unpredictable settings.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
And Abraham journeyed from thence toward the south country, and dwelled between Kadesh and Shur, and sojourned in Gerar.
Cross-references
- Genesis 26:1 Now there was another famine in the land, subsequent to the one that had occurred in Abraham’s time. And Isaac went to Abimelech king of the Philistines at Gerar.
- Genesis 26:6 So Isaac settled in Gerar.
- Genesis 18:1 Then the LORD appeared to Abraham by the Oaks of Mamre in the heat of the day, while he was sitting at the entrance of his tent.
- 2 Chronicles 14:13 Then Asa and his army pursued them as far as Gerar. The Cushites fell and could not recover, for they were crushed before the LORD and His army. So the people of Judah carried off a great amount of plunder
- Psalms 29:8 The voice of the LORD shakes the wilderness; the LORD shakes the Wilderness of Kadesh.
- Genesis 10:19 and the borders of Canaan extended from Sidon toward Gerar as far as Gaza, and then toward Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, as far as Lasha.
- Genesis 13:1 So Abram went up out of Egypt into the Negev—he and his wife and all his possessions—and Lot was with him.
- Genesis 24:62 Now Isaac had just returned from Beer-lahai-roi, for he was living in the Negev.
- Genesis 26:20 But the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with Isaac’s herdsmen and said, “The water is ours!” So he named the well Esek, because they contended with him.
- Genesis 26:26 Later, Abimelech came to Isaac from Gerar, with Ahuzzath his adviser and Phicol the commander of his army.