Charles Ellicott Commentary Genesis 20:10

"And Abimelech said unto Abraham, What sawest thou, that thou hast done this thing?" — Genesis 20:10 (ASV)

What sawest thou? —Some modern commentators explain the Hebrew as meaning, What purpose did you have? What did you look for? But the old rendering is probably right. Abimelech first denies by indignant questions that he had been guilty of any wrong towards Abraham, and then asks what he had seen in the conduct of himself and his people to justify such mistrust of them. Throughout, the king speaks as a man conscious that his citizens so respected the rights of a stranger and of marriage, that Sarah would have been perfectly safe had Abraham openly said that she was his wife.