Genesis 20:3

3. God came to Abimelech in a dream It is interesting to note the use in this chapter of the divine names . Here it is God ( Elohim without the article) who comes to him in a dream, and in Genesis 20:4 he calls him Lord ( Adonai .) Then in Genesis 20:6, it is the God ( Elohim with the article) who continues to speak with the Philistine king . In Genesis 20:11 Abraham speaks timidly of the fear of God, ( Elohim without the article,) and uses the same indefinite name again in Genesis 20:13, as if accommodating himself to the notions of a heathen king . But in Genesis 20:17 it is said that Abraham prayed unto the God, ( Elohim with the article,) and God (Elohim without the article) healed Abimelech, etc . ; and then, in Genesis 20:18, it is finally declared that it was Jehovah, the covenant God of Abraham, who had interposed to preserve and honour the mother of the promised seed .

Behold, thou art but a dead man Hebrews, behold thee dead! Probably first of all an allusion to the deadness of the “wombs of the house of Abimelech,” (Genesis 20:18, note,) and also prospective of the certain death before him if he restored not the wife of Abraham, Genesis 20:7.

For she is a man’s wife Hebrews, and she mistress of a lord. Kalisch calls it “a pleonastic expression, the wife of a husband.”