Literary Devices – Bereshit 20/0
Literary Devices – Bereshit 20
Structure
Parallels and Contrasts
Key Words Tanakh Lab demonstrates that the words that appear with greatest frequency in this chapter, relative to the rest of Tanakh, are “אָחוֹת” and “אִשָּׁה” reflecting the theme of this chapter – the ruse of pretending that Sarah is Avraham’s sister instead of his wife.
Type Scenes
Wife Sister Narratives
The story of posing one’s wife as one’s sister is an example of a type-scene, which appears three times in Sefer Bereshit.1
As Robert Alter points out in his commentary on Bereshit, there are several differences between the type-scene as it appears here and in Bereshit 12. In Ch. 20 there is no mention of famine, Hashem communicates with Avimelekh through speech rather than through plagues, Avimelekh gives Avraham the opportunity to explain his actions, and the motif of infertility is introduced through the punishment of Gerar (20:18). These differences indicate the different personalities of Pharaoh and Avimelekh, and serve to connect the story of Bereshit 20 to the surrounding narratives about the challenges and blessing of establishing family lines. By contrast, the type-scene in Bereshit 12 is clearly meant to foreshadow the experience of the Jews in Egypt.
