Abraham tells a foreign king that Sarah is his sister. Again. He already pulled this move with Pharaoh in Egypt (Genesis 12:13). Now in Gerar, he does it a second time—and the Targum Jonathan reveals the real reason why.
Abimelech, king of Gerar, takes Sarah into his household. That night, "a word came from before the Lord unto Abimelek, in a dream of the night," telling him he is a dead man for taking another man's wife. Abimelech protests his innocence. Abraham told him she was his sister. She confirmed it. He acted "in the truthfulness of my heart and the innocency of my hands."
God agrees—and the Targum's version of God's response is remarkable. "Before Me also it is manifest that in the truthfulness of thy heart thou didst this, and so restrained I thee from sinning before Me; therefore I would not permit thee to come near her." God does not merely acknowledge Abimelech's innocence. God takes credit for physically preventing him from touching Sarah. The divine intervention was not passive. It was an active restraint.
But the most revealing addition comes when Abraham explains himself. In the Hebrew, Abraham says Sarah is "the daughter of my father but not the daughter of my mother" (Genesis 20:12). The Targum changes this: she is "the daughter of my father's brother"—making Sarah his cousin, not his half-sister. And then Abraham adds a line that does not exist in the original Hebrew at all: "When they sought to turn me aside to the worship of idols, and I went forth from my father's house, I said to her, This is the kindness thou shalt do me: in every place to which we come, say concerning me, He is my brother."
The "sister" deception was not cowardice. It was a survival pact forged in the moment Abraham broke from his family's idolatry. When he rejected the gods of his father, he became a target. The agreement with Sarah was a strategy born from religious persecution—a detail the Targum supplies to defend Abraham's honor.
Abimelech gives Abraham sheep and a thousand silver coins, and tells Sarah the money is "a veil of the eyes"—compensation for one night separated from her husband. The Targum ends with a pointed note: "Abraham knew that Abimelek had not come near Sarah his wife." The patriarch's reputation, and his wife's dignity, are preserved.