Genesis 20:17-18

"And Abraham prayed unto God: and God healed Abimelech, and his wife, and his maid-servants; and they bare children. For Jehovah had fast closed up the wombs of the house of Abimelech, because of Sarah, Abraham's wife."

We are not told the nature of the illness with which God had afflicted the household of Abimelech, but Willis' comment is excellent: "God had smitten him with a serious disease which prevented him (and all the afflicted) from having sexual relations."[14]

"And God healed Abimelech ..." The word here rendered "healed" is a comprehensive word. "It means restored full health, not healed."[15]

Again we return to the thought already expressed, that the purpose of this unhappy incident included in the sacred narrative hard by the birth scene of the promised Isaac has the function of stressing that, wonderful as Abraham was, he was not the Saviour. Abraham, like all men, required deliverance and forgiveness from his sins, and such a precious blessing as that could only come, in time, through the salvation and redemption to be revealed in the Christ of the Ages. Abraham would continue to grow in faith and the knowledge of God, and God would not fail to bless and protect him until the divine purpose should be fully realized according to the infinite wisdom of God.