And when the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife’: some translators will have problems with a quote within a quote, and so they may have to adjust this to say, for example, “… they will say that you are my wife.” Note Good News Translation “they will assume that you are my wife….” Abram then draws the conclusion then they will kill me, but they will let you live. If it is necessary to make the reasons for their actions clearer than this, we may say, for example, “they will kill me in order to take you.” This expression of the motives of the Egyptians is expressed in another way by one translation that says “… see that you are a pretty woman, and perhaps they will desire you. If they know you are my wife, then they will kill me….”

Quoted with permission from Reyburn, William D. and Fry, Euan McG. A Handbook on Genesis. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .