Genesis 12:20

they brought him on the way i.e. they escorted him to the frontier, treating with respect and honour a man of wealth and substance, and a foreigner whose God had been a protection to himself and a peril to the Egyptian royal family. Abram apparently retained the wealth that he had procured on false pretences. For the word rendered "bring on the way," in the sense of "escort," cf. Genesis 18:16; Genesis 31:27 ("sent away").

On this narrative, see the remarks of J. G. Frazer in Psyche's Task, p. 40, "among many savage races breaches of the marriage laws are believed to draw down on the community public calamities of the most serious character … in particular they are thought to blast the fruits of the earth through excessive rain or excessive drought. Traces of similar beliefs may perhaps be detected among the civilised races of antiquity." Frazer quotes, in illustration, Job 31:11 sq., and the two narratives of Genesis 12:10-20; Genesis 20:1-18. "These narratives," he says, "seem to imply that adultery, even when it is committed in ignorance, is a cause of plague and especially of sterility among women."