John Calvin Commentary Genesis 20:16

"And unto Sarah he said, Behold, I have given thy brother a thousand pieces of silver. Behold, it is for thee a covering of the eyes to all that are with thee. And in respect of all thou art righted." — Genesis 20:16 (ASV)

He is to you a covering of the eyes. Because there is some obscurity in these words, the passage is explained in various ways. The beginning of the verse is free from difficulty. For when Abimelech had given a thousand pieces of silver, so that his generosity might not be suspected, he declared that he had given them to Abraham, and that since Abraham had been honorably received, his wife was not to be regarded as a harlot.

But what follows is more obscure: He shall be a veil to you. Many interpreters refer this to the gift, in which they seem to me to be wrong. The Hebrews, having no neuter gender, use the feminine instead of it. But Moses, in this place, rather points to the husband, and this best suits the sense.

For Sarah is taught that the husband to whom she is joined was like a veil, with which she should be covered so that she would not be exposed to others. Paul says that the veil which the woman wears on her head is the symbol of subjection (1 Corinthians 11:10). This also pertains to unmarried persons, referring to the purpose for which their sex is ordained, but it applies more aptly to married women because they are veiled, as by the very ordinance of marriage.

I therefore explain the words in this way: ‘You, if you had no husband, would be exposed to many dangers; but now, since God has appointed for you a guardian of your modesty, it is fitting for you to conceal yourself under that veil. Why then have you of your own accord thrown off this covering?’ This was a just rebuke, because Sarah, by pretending that she was under her husband's authority, had deprived herself of divine protection.

Thus she was reproved. Interpreters distort this clause also. The natural exposition seems to me to be that the Lord had allowed Sarah to be reproved by a heathen king, so that He might more deeply affect her with a sense of shame. For Moses draws special attention to the person of the speaker, because it seemed a disgrace that the mother of the faithful should be rebuked by such a master. Others suppose that Moses speaks of the benefit she had received, seeing that she, instructed by such a lesson, would from now on learn to act differently. But Moses seems rather to point out that kind of correction of which I have spoken: namely, that Sarah was humbled by being delivered over to the discipline of a heathen man.