Then Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech, his wife and his slave girls so they could have children again.
//The story goes that when Abraham lived in Gerar, he deceived Abimelech,
king of Gerar, telling him that his wife Sarah was really his sister.
So Abimelech, knowing no better, "sent for Sarah and took her." (Not
really; two verses later, scripture explains that he didn't have
opportunity to get near her, but it was apparently a close call. God
intervened.)
Nevertheless,
God is angry, and says Abimelech had better make things right with
Abraham or he will die. God also "closed up every womb in Abimelech's
household" so that Abimelech couldn't conceive an heir.
Abimelech
pleads with Abraham, and Abraham is moved to pray to God, not only to
spare Abimelech's life but to restore his ability to conceive. God hears
the prayer, and opens the wombs of Abimelech's wife and slave girls.
Legend
tells us that this was the first time in human history that God
fulfilled the prayer of one human being for another. Not the first time
someone prayed for another; Abraham had previously begged God to spare
Sodom, though God refused. But Abraham's incessant pleading for others
wore God down. Indeed, as the legend goes, the very reason God conversed
with Abraham at all was because of Abraham's concern for others: when
Abraham begged for leniency toward Sodom, God said, "You take delight in
defending My creatures, and you would not call them guilty. That is why
I have spoken to no one but you during the ten generations since Noah."
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