And Abraham journeyed from thence toward the south country, and dwelled between Kadesh and Shur, and sojourned in Gerar.
1. from thence ] This passage is evidently derived from some distinct source. As it ignores the previous section dealing with Lot, and the last reference to Abraham is in Gen 18:33, when he is at Mamre, the precise meaning of “from thence” must remain obscure.
the South ] See note on Gen 12:9.
between Kadesh and Shur ] For these places, see Gen 14:7, Gen 16:7.
he sojourned in Gerar ] This causes a difficulty. Gerar is the court of the king Abimelech. In Gen 26:1, Abimelech is king of the Philistines. Gerar has, therefore, been identified with a spot a few miles south of Gaza ( Umm Gerar). This, however, is hardly a place of sojourn “between Kadesh and Shur.” Either, therefore, there is a lacuna between the two clauses of this verse, representing a journey from the Negeb into the Philistine region; or Gerar may be a place S.W. of Kadesh ( Wady Gerur), whose king happened to have the same name as the Philistine king of Gerar in chap. 26. Of these alternatives the former is the more probable.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
– Abraham in Gerar
2. .2 ‘abymelek, Abimelekh, father of the king.
7. naby’ prophet, he who speaks by God, of God, and to God, who declares to people not merely things future, but also things past and present, that are not obvious to the sense or the reason; related: flow, go forth.
13. htu is plural in punctuation, agreeing grammatically with ‘elohym. (w), however, may be regarded as the third radical, and the verb may thus really be singular.
16. nokachat an unusual form, either for nokahat the second person singular feminine perfect or nokehah the third person singular feminine perfect, from a verb signifying in hiphil, make straight, right.
17. ‘amah hand-maid, free or bond. shpchah bond-maid 1Sa 25:41.
The concealment of his relation to Sarah calls to our mind a similar act of Abraham recorded not many pages back. We are to remember, however, that an interval of twenty-four years has elapsed since that event. From the present passage we learn that this was an old agreement between him and his wife, while they were wandering among strangers. It appears that Abraham was not yet conscious of anything wrong or even imprudent in this piece of policy. He therefore practises it without any hesitation. On this occasion he appears for the first time as a prophet. He is the first of this order introduced to our notice in the Old Testament, though Henok had prophesied at an earlier period Jud 1:14, and Noahs benediction was, at the same time, a prediction.
Gen 20:1-7
Abimelek takes Sarah. Abraham had been dwelling near Hebron. But the total separation between him and Lot, and the awful overthrow of Sodom and Amorah in the vicinity, may have loosened his tie to Hebron, and rendered it for the present not an agreeable place of residence. He therefore travels southward and takes up his abode at Gerar (see note on Gen 10:19). Sarah, though now eighty-nine years of age, was as youthful in look as a person of forty would now be. She had, moreover, had no family, was remarkable for her good looks, and was at present, no doubt, renewed in health and vigor Gen 12:11-16.
Gen 20:3-7
The Supreme Being here appears as God ‘elohym, and therefore in his eternal power and independence, as he was antecedent to the creation of man. He communicates with Abimelek in a dream. This prince addresses him as ‘adonay, Lord. We have already seen that the knowledge of the true God had not yet disappeared from the Gentile world, who were under the Noachic covenant. Thou wilt die. Thou art dying or at the point of death if thou persist. A deadly plague was already in the body of Abimelek, on account of Sarah. Wilt thou slay a righteous nation also? Abimelek associates his nation with himself, and expects that the fatal stroke will not be confined to his own person. He pleads his integrity in the matter, which the Lord acknowledges. Gentiles sometimes act according to the dictates of conscience, which still lives in them, though it be obscured by sin. Abimelek was innocent in regard to the great sin of seizing another mans wife, of which God acquitted him. He was wrong in appropriating a woman to himself by mere stretch of power, and in adding wife to wife. But these were common customs of the time, for which his conscience did not upbraid him in his pleading with God. And the God. The presence of the definite article seems to intimate a contrast of the true God with the false gods to which the Gentiles were fast turning. Abimelek was at least in the doubtful ground on the borders of polytheism.
Gen 20:7
Abraham is here designated by the Lord a prophet. This constituted at once the gravity of Abimeleks offence Psa 105:15, and the ground of his hope of pardon. It is at the same time a step in advance of all the previous spiritual attainments of Abraham. A prophet is Gods spokesman, who utters with authority certain of the things of God Exo 7:1; Exo 4:15. This implies two things: first, the things of God are known only to him, and therefore must be communicated by him; secondly, the prophet must be enabled of God to announce in correct terms the things made known to him. These things refer not only to the future, but in general to all such matters as fall within the purpose and procedure of God. They may even include things otherwise known or knowable by man, so far as these are necessary to the exposition of the divine will. Now Abraham has heretofore received many communications from God. But this did not constitute him a prophet. It is the divinely-authorized utterance of new truth which raises him to this rank. And Abrahams first exercise in prophecy is not in speaking to men of God, but to God for men. He shall pray for thee. The prophetic and the priestly offices go together in the father of the faithful. These dignities belong to him, not from any absolute merit, for this he has not, but from his call to be the holder of the promise, and the father of that seed to whom the promises were made.
Gen 20:8-13
Abimelek retraces his steps, and rectifies his conduct. He makes known his dream to his assembled court, who are filled with astonishment and apprehension. He then calls Abraham, and in bold and manly style remonstrates with him for leading him into error and sin. Abraham is apparently silent from confusion and self-condemnation. Abimelek, after a pause, demands of him his reason for so doing. Abraham now replies with great simplicity and candor. He had said within himself, The fear of God is not in this place. This is another indication that polytheism was setting in. He concluded that his life would be in danger on account of his wife, and resorted to his wonted expedient for safety. He had learned to trust in the Lord in all things; but he did not think this inconsistent with using all lawful means for personal security, and he was not yet fully alive to the unlawfulness of his usual pretence. He pleads also in extenuation that she is in reality his sister (see Gen 12:19-20). Caused me to wander. The verb here is not necessarily plural. But if it be, it is only an instance of the literal, meaning of ‘elohym, the Eternal Supernatural Powers, coming into view. Thy kindness. The old compact of Abraham with Sarah tended to palliate his conduct in the eyes of Abimelek, as he would see that it had no special reference to himself.
Gen 20:14-18
Abimelek seems to have accepted his apology, as he probably felt that there was truth in the character Abraham gave of his people, and was precluded from resenting it by the salutary impression of his dream; while at the same time Abrahams mode of avoiding danger appeared warrantable according to his own and the common code of morals. He therefore hastens to make honorable amends for his conduct. He makes Abraham a valuable present, restores his wife, and makes him free to dwell in any part of his dominions. He then accosts Sarah in respectful terms, informing her that he had presented her brother with one thousand silver pieces, probably shekels, on her account. He does not offer this directly to herself, that it may be distinctly understood that her honor was unstained. This may refer either to Abraham or to the sum of money. The latter is more natural, as the sentence then affords a reason for addressing Sarah, and mentioning this particular gift. A covering of the eyes does not mean a veil, the proper word for which is tsayp, but is a figurative phrase for a recompense or pacificatory offering, in consideration of which an offence is overlooked. Unto all that are with thee. All her family were concerned in this public vindication of her character. And all this that thou mayest be righted. The original of this is most naturally taken as a part of Abimeleks speech, and then it is to be translated as above. All this has been done or given that the injury to Sarah may be redressed. If the original be regarded as a part of the narrative, it must be rendered, And all this (was done) that she might be righted. The sense is the same in substance. In the former case the verb is in the second person, in the latter in the third.
Gen 20:17-18
These verses record the fact of Abrahams intercession for Abimelek, and explain in what sense he was on the point of dying (Gen 20:3). They bare means that they were again rendered capable of procreating children, and in the natural course of things did so. The verb is in the masculine form, because both males and females were involved in this judicial malady. The name Yahweh is employed at the end of the chapter, because the relation of the Creator and Preserver to Sarah is there prominent.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Gen 20:1-7
And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, She is my sister
Abrahams repetition of his old fault; the power of former temptations
I.
THEIR POWER MAY SLUMBER LONG. In this instance, twenty-four years. Never safe from invasion of temptations once yielded to.
II. CIRCUMSTANCES MAY ARISE WHICH WILL REVIVE THEIR STRENGTH.
1. Reaction after great spiritual excitement.
2. Experience of social corruption.
III. THE RESULTS OF YIELDING AGAIN ARE MOST DISASTROUS.
1. The distress of anxiety.
2. Possible loss to ourselves.
3. The shame of reproof from worldly men.
IV. THOSE WHO FALL UNDER THEM ARE ONLY DELIVERED BY THE SPECIAL INTERFERENCE OF GOD.
1. The infirmities of believers appeal to the Divine compassion.
2. GOD is concerned to maintain the promises made to faith. (T. H.Leale.)
A bit of the old nature
I. His CONDUCT WAS VERY COWARDLY. He risked Sarahs virtue, and the purity of the promised seed.
II. IT WAS ALSO VERY DISHONOURING TO GOD.
III. IT ALSO STOOD OUT IN POOR RELIEF AGAINST THE BEHAVIOUR OF ABIMELECH. Lessons:
1. We are never safe, so long as we are in this world.
2. We have no right to throw ourselves into the way of temptation which has often mastered us.
3. We may be encouraged by Gods treatment of Abrahams sin. (F. B.Meyer, B. A.)
Abrahams artifice with Abimelech
I. THE ATROCIOUS NATURE OF THE SIN OF ADULTERY, WHICH CONSISTS IN VIOLATING CONNUBIAL RIGHTS, IS HERE REPRESENTED IN A VERY STRIKING MANNER. Though Abraham supposed that there was no sense of GOD and religion among the people of Gerar, yet he seems not to have entertained the least suspicion that they would insult the honour of his family, either by rape or seduction. His apprehension was that they would kill him for his wifes sake. His whole conduct, in this and the former instance, is grounded on the supposition that a ruffian, who is bloody enough to assassinate an innocent man, yet may not be so brutal as to violate a married woman. This crime has been held in detestation by almost all nations, in all ages of the world. By the ancient laws of Draco and Solon, the husband of an adulteress, if he detected her in her guilt, might immediately kill both the criminals, or stigmatise them, or put out their eyes, or might exact of the adulterer a heavy fine. But, by the law of Moses, they were both to be put to death with public infamy; and, in ordinary cases, there was no dispensation.
II. THAT A SENSE OF VIRTUE AND RELIGION IS SOMETIMES FOUND WHERE WE LEAST EXPECT IT. How different was the true character of the people in Gerar, from that which Abrahams jealousy had drawn for them! There was much of the fear of God among them, though he had imagined there was none at all.
III. THAT THE INDULGENCE OF TOO BAD AN OPINION OF MANKIND IS OF DANGEROUS CONSEQUENCE TO OURSELVES AND OTHERS. Had Abraham entertained a just opinion of the prince and people of Gerar, or taken pains to become acquainted with them, before he listened to the secret whispers of jealousy, he would have shunned so dangerous an artifice as to disguise his relation to his wife, and would have prevented the mischiefs which ensued, and the still greater mischiefs which threatened his own family and the house of Abimelech. It was a special Divine interposition which averted consequences of the most serious nature.
IV. THAT IN THE BEST MEN THERE MAY BE GREAT INFIRMITIES AND FAILINGS. Even they whose faith is strong must guard against the prevailing influence of fear, and call into exercise that confidence in God which is the best security against the terrors of the world. In times of apparent danger, and threatening temptation, they have need to be peculiarly watchful. We are never so safe as when we invariably follow the path of virtue and integrity. He who walks uprightly, walks surely; but he who perverts his way, shall fall. Duplicity and artifice, to avoid an evil, will but embarrass us the more. (J. Lathrop, D. D.)
Abrahams sin repeated
His sin in so speaking seems to be much greater than it was before. For–
1. He had narrowly escaped the first time. The repetition of the same fault looked like presuming upon Providence.
2. Sarah was now with child, and that of a son of promise; he might, therefore, surely have trusted God to preserve their lives in the straight-forward path of duty. (A. Fuller.)
Abimelechs plea accepted
The answer of God admits his plea of ignorance, and suggests that he was not charged with having yet sinned, but threatened with death in case he persisted now that he was informed of the truth. It is intimated, however, that if he had come near her he should in so doing have sinned against God, whether he had signed against Abraham or not; and this perhaps owing to her being in a state of pregnancy, of which, in that case, he could not have been ignorant. We see in this account–
1. That absolute ignorance excuses from guilt; but this does not prove that all ignorance does so, or that it is in itself excusable. Where the powers and means of knowledge are possessed, and ignorance arises from neglecting to make use of them, or from aversion to the truth, it so far from excusing that it is in itself sinful.
2. That great as the wickedness of men is upon the face of the earth, it would be much greater, were it not that God by His providence in innumerable instances withholds them from it. The conduct of intelligent beings is influenced by motives; and all motives which are presented to the mind are subject to His disposal. (A. Fuller.)
Abrahams reaction after his high spiritual experiences
Consider this repetition of his old fault with regard to–
I. Its causes.
1. Recent experience of the corruption of the world.
2. False prudence.
3. Exaggerated confidence.
4. The brotherly relation to Sarah.
5. The probable issue of the case in Egypt.
II. Its natural results.
1. Anxiety and danger.
2. Shame before a heathens princely court.
III. Its gracious issue through the interference of God. (Lange.)
Abraham reproved for denying his wife
Consider–
I. The offence which he committed. A very grievous sin. Look at–
1. The principle from which it sprang–loss of faith.
2. Its natural and necessary tendencies.
3. The fact of its having been before practised by him, and reproved.
II. The rebuke given him on account of it. In this we observe much that was–
1. Disgraceful to Abraham.
2. Honourable to Abimelech:
(1) Moderation.
(2) Equity.
(3) Virtue. Application–
(a) Shun every species of deception.
(b) Guard against relapses into sin.
(c) Be thankful to God for His protecting grace.
(d) Strive to the uttermost to cancel the effects of your transgressions. (C. Simeon, M. A.)
Abraham and Abimelech
The thing that is most remarkable in the whole story is that God should apparently have taken Abrahams part instead of humbling and punishing him in the sight of the heathen.
1. Observe, first of all, that if the Divine purpose was to be turned aside by the fault or blemish found in individual character, the Divine government of man is at an end, and human progress is an impossibility. Adam failed, so did Noah, so Abraham, so did Lot. It was not Adam that sinned, or Noah, or Abraham, it was human nature that sinned. Pharaoh seemed to be a better man than Abraham, but he was not so in reality. You say that Abimelech was better than Abraham; now let me ask you what you know about Abimelech? Nothing but what is stated in this chapter. Very well Yea are so far right. You have seen Abimelech at his best and you have seen Abraham at his worst, and then you have rushed to a conclusion! This is not the right way to read history; certainly it is not the right way to read the Bible. We are not to set act against act, but life against life. This, then, is the point at which I find rest when I am disturbed by the evident painful immortality of illustrious Bible characters, viz., human nature has never been perfect in all its qualities, energies, and services; the perfection of human nature can be wrought out only by longcontinued and severe probation; in choosing instruments for the representation of His will and the execution of His purposes, God has always chosen men who were best fitted on the whole for such ministry, though in some particulars they have disastrously and pitiably failed. When I think I could have improved Gods plan, the mistake is mine, because my vision is dim and I never can see more than a very limited section of any human character.
2. In the next place consider, knowing human nature as we do, how beneficial a thing it was to the great men themselves to be shown now and again that they were imperfect, and that they were only great and strong as they were good–as they were true to God. (J. Parker, D. D.)
The exact truth
Two young masons were building a brick wall–the front wall of a high house. One of them, in placing a brick, discovered that it was a little thicker on one side than the other. It will make your wall untrue, Ben, the other said. Pooh! answered Ben; what difference will such a trifle as that make? youre too particular. My mother, replied he, taught me that truth is truth, and ever so little an untruth is a lie, and a lie is no trifle. Oh, said Ben, :hats all very well; but Im not lying, and have no intention of lying. Very true; but you make your wall tell a lie, and I have read that a lie in ones work is like a lie in his character–it will show itself sooner or later, and bring harm, if not ruin. Ill risk it in this case, answered Ben, and he worked away, laying more brick, carrying the wall up higher, till the close of the day, when they gave up work and went home. The next morning they went to resume their work, when, behold, the lie had wrought out the result of all lies. The wall, getting a little slant from the untrue brick, had got more and more untrue as it got higher, and at last, in the night, had toppled over. Just so with ever so little an untruth in your character; it grows more and more untrue if you permit it to remain, till it brings sorrow and ruin. Tell, act, and live the truth.
God orders our journeys
A stage coach was passing through the interior of Massachusetts, on the way to Boston. It was a warm summer day, and the coach was filled with passengers, all impatient to arrive at the city at an early hour in the evening. The excessive heat rendered it necessary for the driver to spare his horses more than usual. Most of the passengers were fretting and complaining that he did not urge his horses along faster. But one gentleman sat in the corner of the stage calm and quiet. The irritation, which was destroying the happiness of all the others, seemed not to disturb his feelings in the least. At last the coach broke down as they were ascending a long steep hill, and the passengers were compelled to alight, and travel some distance on foot under the rays of the burning sun. This new interruption caused a general burst of vexatious feelings. All the party, with the exception of the gentleman alluded to, toiled up the hill, irritated and complaining. He walked along, good-humoured and happy, and endeavouring by occasional pleasantry of remark to restore good humour to the party. It was known that this gentleman, who was extensively engaged in mercantile concerns, had business which rendered it necessary that he should be in the city at an early hour. The delay was consequently to him a serious inconvenience. Yet, while all the rest of the party were ill-humoured and vexed, he alone was untroubled. At last one asked how it was that he retained his composure under such vexatious circumstances? The gentleman replied that he could have no control over the circumstances in which he was then placed; that he had commended himself and his business to the protection of the Lord, and that if it were the Lords will that he should not enter Boston at as early an hour as he desired, it was his duty patiently and pleasantly to submit. With these feelings he was patient and submissive, and cheerful. The day, which to the rest of the party was rendered disagreeable by vexation and complaint, was by him passed in gratitude and enjoyment. And when, late in the evening, he arrived in the city with a serene mind, he was prepared to engage in his duties.
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
CHAPTER XX
Abraham leaves Mamre, and, after having sojourned at Kadesh and
Shur, settles in Gerar, 1.
Abimelech takes Sarah, Abraham having acknowledged her only as
his sister, 2.
Abimelech is warned by God in a dream to restore Sarah, 3.
He asserts his innocence, 4, 5.
He is farther warned, 6, 7.
Expostulates with Abraham, 8-10.
Abraham vindicates his conduct, 11-13.
Abimelech restores Sarah, makes Abraham a present of sheep,
oxen, and male and female slaves, 14;
offers him a residence in any part of the land, 15;
and reproves Sarah, 16.
At the intercession of Abraham, the curse of barrenness is removed
from Abimelech and his household, 17, 18.
NOTES ON CHAP. XX
Verse 1. And Abraham journeyed] It is very likely that this holy man was so deeply affected with the melancholy prospect of the ruined cities, and not knowing what was become of his nephew Lot and his family, that he could no longer bear to dwell within sight of the place. Having, therefore, struck his tents, and sojourned for a short time at Kadesh and Shur, he fixed his habitation in Gerar, which was a city of Arabia Petraea, under a king of the Philistines called Abimelech, my father king, who appears to have been not only the father of his people, but also a righteous man.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
From thence; from the plain of Mamre, Gen 18:1, where he had long dwelt; and whence he removed, either because of its nearness to that filthy lake, which now was in the place of that late fruitful plain; or for other reasons and conveniences needless to be here inquired or determined.
Towards the south country, yet more towards the southern part of Canaan.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
1. Abraham journeyed from thence . .. and dwelled between Kadesh and ShurLeaving the encampment,he migrated to the southern border of Canaan. In the neighborhood ofGerar was a very rich and well-watered pasture land.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And Abraham journeyed from thence towards the south country,…. He returned from the plains or oaks of Mamre, where he had lived fifteen or twenty years, into the more southern parts of the land of Canaan: the reason of this remove is not certain; some think, because he could not bear the stench of the sulphurous lake, the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were become; and others, because of the scandal of Lot’s incest with his daughters, which prejudiced the idolatrous people in those parts more against the true religion; neither of which are likely, by reason of the distance; but the better reason seems to be, that it was so ordered in Providence that he should remove from place to place, that it might appear that he was but a sojourner in the land:
and dwelt between Kadesh and Shur; two wildernesses, as Jerom says y, one of which joined to Egypt, to which the people of Israel went when they passed over the Red sea, and the other, Kadesh, reached to the desert of the Saracens. Onkelos and Jonathan paraphrase the words between Rekam and Chagra, or Hagra, the same place where the angel of the Lord met with Hagar at the well, [See comments on Ge 16:7] and
[See comments on Ge 16:14]:
and sojourned in Gerar; or Gerara, as Jerom z calls it,
“from whence he says the Geraritic country in his time beyond Daroma, or the south, had its name, and was twenty five miles distance from Eleutheropolis to the south, and was formerly the southern border of the Canaanites, and the metropolis of Palestine.”
According to the Samaritan version, Gerar is the same with Ashkelon, which was afterwards, when aristocracy took place in this country, one of the five lordships of the Philistines; and so says Africanus a; and that Gerar was in the country of the Philistines, and Abimelech was king of them, is clear from Ge 21:32. This place was about six miles from Mamre b, from whence Abraham removed.
y De loc. Heb. fol, 91. I. z De loc. Heb. fol. 91. I. a Apud Syncell. Chronic. p. 100. b Bunting’s Travels, p. 57.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
After the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham removed from the grove of Mamre at Hebron to the south country, hardly from the same fear as that which led Lot from Zoar, but probably to seek for better pasture. Here he dwelt between Kadesh (Gen 14:7) and Shur (Gen 16:7), and remained for some time in Gerar, a place the name of which has been preserved in the deep and broad Wady Jurf el Gerr (i.e., torrent of Gerar) about eight miles S.S.E. of Gaza, near to which Rowland discovered the ruins of an ancient town bearing the name of Khirbet el Gerr. Here Abimelech, the Philistine king of Gerar, like Pharaoh in Egypt, took Sarah, whom Abraham had again announced to be his sister, into his harem, – not indeed because he was charmed with the beauty of the woman of 90, which was either renovated, or had not yet faded ( Kurtz), but in all probability “to ally himself with Abraham, the rich nomad prince” ( Delitzsch). From this danger, into which the untruthful statement of both her husband and herself had brought her, she was once more rescued by the faithfulness of the covenant God. In a dream by night God appeared to Abimelech, and threatened him with death ( en te moriturum ) on account of the woman, whom he had taken, because she was married to a husband.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| Abraham’s Denial of His Wife. | B. C. 1898. |
1 And Abraham journeyed from thence toward the south country, and dwelled between Kadesh and Shur, and sojourned in Gerar. 2 And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, She is my sister: and Abimelech king of Gerar sent, and took Sarah.
Here is, 1. Abraham’s removal from Mamre, where he had lived nearly twenty years, into the country of the Philistines: He sojourned in Gerar, v. 1. We are not told upon what occasion he removed, whether terrified by the destruction of Sodom, or because the country round was for the present prejudiced by it, or, as some of the Jewish writers say, because he was grieved at Lot’s incest with his daughters, and the reproach which the Canaanites cast upon him and his religion, for his kinsman’s sake: doubtless there was some good cause for his removal. Note, In a world where we are strangers and pilgrims we cannot expect to be always in the same place. Again, Wherever we are, we must look upon ourselves but as sojourners. 2. His sin in denying his wife, as before (ch. xii. 13), which was not only in itself such an equivocation as bordered upon a lie, and which, if admitted as lawful, would be the ruin of human converse and an inlet to all falsehood, but was also an exposing of the chastity and honour of his wife, of which he ought to have been the protector. But, besides this, it had here a two-fold aggravation:– (1.) He had been guilty of this same sin before, and had been reproved for it, and convinced of the folly of the suggestion which induced him to it; yet he returns to it. Note, It is possible that a good man may, not only fall into sin, but relapse into the same sin, through the surprise and strength of temptation and the infirmity of the flesh. Let backsliders repent then, but not despair, Jer. iii. 22. (2.) Sarah, as it should seem, was now with child of the promised seed, or, at least, in expectation of being so quickly, according to the word of God; he ought therefore to have taken particular care of her now, as Judg. xiii. 4. 3. The peril that Sarah was brought into by this means: The king of Gerar sent, and took her to his house, in order to the taking of her to his bed. Note, The sin of one often occasions the sin of others; he that breaks the hedge of God’s commandments opens a gap to he knows not how many; the beginning of sin is as the letting forth of water.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
GENESIS – CHAPTER TWENTY
Verses 1-7:
The Scriptures do not reveal Abraham’s reason for leaving the Plains of Mamre to journey southward. It may have been because he wished to leave the vicinity of the terrible scene he had witnessed in Sodom’s destruction. The region to which he traveled was between Kadesh and Shur, in the southern region of Palestine, near the site of Beersheba. The name of the region was Gerar.
Abraham sought to perpetuate the same deceit he had practiced in Egypt, years before (see Ge 12:13). He who was the “Father of the Faithful” was guilty of a severe breach of faith.
“Abimelech” is not a proper name, but a title, “father king.” He was the king of Gerar. When Abraham arrived in his country, it was obvious that he was man of great wealth. He had huge herds of livestock. And he maintained a private army of over three hundred soldiers. An alliance with so wealthy and powerful a chieftain would be very advantageous. A propitious means of arranging such an alliance would be marriage. Since Abraham had told Abimelech Sarah was his sister, the king saw nothing wrong with taking her into his harem, doubtless intending to marry her at the earliest opportunity.
Sarah at this time was past ninety years of age. It is strange to modern thought that a woman of this age would be a prime target for marriage!
Abimelech was evidently restrained by Divine intervention from consummating any marriage with Sarah. The language implies that he was stricken with a malady of some sort that made the marriage impossible for a time. He did not have sexual relations with Sarah at any time. It is absolutely necessary that the Divine record include this notice, lest some should say that Abimelech was the father of Isaac who would yet be born.
Abimelech feared and recognized Jehovah as God. God revealed to him in a dream that the new addition to his harem was in reality the wife of another man. This frightened Abimelech. He disclaimed any knowledge of this, and affirmed his innocence of any immorality. God instructed him to restore Sarah to Abraham, for he was a prophet. None should harm a prophet nor any of his household.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
1. And Abraham journeyed from thence. What Moses related respecting the destruction of Sodom, was a digression. He now returns to the continuation of his history, and proceeds to show what happened to Abraham; how he conducted himself, and how the Lord protected him; till the promised seed, the future source of the Church, should be born unto him. He also says, that Abraham came into the South country; not that he traveled beyond the limits of the inheritance given to him, but left his former abode, and went towards the South. Moreover; the region which he points out fell chiefly, afterwards, to the lot of the tribe of Judah. It is, however, unknown what was his intention in removing, or what necessity impelled him to change his place: we ought, however, to be persuaded, that he had not transferred his abode to another place for any insufficient cause; especially since a son, whom he had not even dared to wish for, had been lately promised him, through Sarah. Some imagine that he fled from the sad spectacle which was continually presented before his eyes; for he saw the plain, which had lately appeared so pleasant to the view, and so replenished with varied abundance of fruits, transformed into a misshapen chaos. And certainly, it was possible that the whole neighborhood might be affected with the smell of sulphur, as well as tainted with other corruptions, in order that men might the more clearly perceive this memorable judgment of God. Therefore, there is nothing discordant with facts, in the supposition, that Abraham, seeing the place was under the curse of the Lord, was, by his detestation of it, drawn elsewhere. It is also credible, that (as it happened to him in another place) he was driven away by the malice and injuries of those among whom he dwelt. For the more abundantly the Lord had manifested his grace towards him, the more necessary was it, in return, for his patience to be exercised, in order that he might reflect upon his conditions as a pilgrim upon earth. Moses also expressly declares, that he dwelt as a stranger in the land of Gerar. Thus we see, that this holy family was driven hither and thither as refuse, while a fixed abode was granted to the wicked. But it is profitable to the pious to be thus unsettled on earth; lest, by setting their minds on a commodious and quiet habitation, they should lose the inheritance of heaven.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
ABRAHAMTHE FRIEND OF GOD
Gen 11:10 to Gen 25:10.
ONE week ago we gave this hour to a study in Genesis, our subject being, The Beginnings. The birds-eye view of ten chapters and ten verses brought us to Babel, and impressed upon us the many profitable lessons that come between the record of creation and the report of confusion.
Beginning with the 10th verse of the 11th chapter of Genesis (Gen 11:10), and concluding with the 10th verse of the 25th chapter (Gen 25:10), we have the whole history of Abraham, the friend of God; and while other important persons, such as Sarai, Hagar, Lot, Pharaoh, Abimelech, Isaac, Rebecca and even Melchisedec appear in these chapters, Abraham plays altogether the prominent part, and aside from Melchisedec, the High Priest, is easily the most important person, and the most interesting subject presented in this inspired panorama. It may be of interest to say that Abraham lived midway between Adam and Jesus, and such was his greatness that the Chaldeans, East Indians, Sabeans and Mohammedans all join with the Jew in claiming to be the offspring of Abraham; while it is the Christians proud boast that he is Abrahams spiritual descendant.
It is little wonder that all these contend for a kinship with him whom God deigns to call His friend. The man who is a friend of God is entitled to a large place in history. Fourteen chapters are none too many for his record; and hours spent in analyzing his character and searching for the secrets of his success are hours so employed as to meet the Divine approval.
The problem is how to so set Abrahams history before you as to make it at once easy of comprehension, and yet thoroughly impress its lessons. In trying to solve that question it has seemed best to call attention to
THE CALL AND THE COVENANT.
Now the Lord had said unto Abraham, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy fathers house, unto a land that I will show thee, and I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing; and I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee, and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed (Gen 12:1-3).
Did you ever stop to think of the separations involved in this call?
It meant a separation from home. From thy fathers house. How painful that call is, those of us who have passed through it perfectly understand; and yet many of us have gone so short a distance from home, or else have made the greater journey with such extended stops, that we know but little how to sympathize with Abrahams more effective separation from that dear spot. To go from Chaldea to Canaan in that day, from a country with which he was familiar to one he had never seen; and from a people who were his own, to sojourn among strangers, was every whit equal to William Careys departure from England for India. But as plants and flowers have to be taken from the hot-bed into the broad garden that they may best bring forth, so God lifts the subject of His affection from the warm atmosphere of home-life and sets him down in the far field that he may bring forth fruit unto Him; hence, as is written in Hebrews, Abraham had to go out, not knowing whither he went.
This call also involves separation from kindred. And from thy kindred. In Chaldea, Abram had a multitude of relatives, as the 11th chapter fully shows. Upon all of these, save the members of his own house, and Lot, his brothers son, Abram must turn his back. In the process of time the irreligion of Lot will necessitate also a separation from him. In this respect, Abrahams call is in no whit different from that which God is giving the men and women today. You cannot respond to the call of God without separating yourself from all kin who worship at false shrines; and you cannot make the progress you ought and live in intimate relation with so worldly a professor of religion as was Lot.
We may have marvelled at times that Abraham so soon separated himself from Lot, but the real wonder is that the man of God so long retained his hold upon him. No more difficult task was ever undertaken than that of keeping in the line of service a man who, in the lust of his eyes and the purpose of his heart, has pitched his tent toward Sodom. It is worthy of note that so soon as Abraham was separated from Lot, the Lord said unto him,
Lift up now thine eyes and look from the place that thou art, northward and southward, and eastward and westward, for all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it and to thy seed forever (Gen 13:14-15).
The men of the broadest view in spiritual things, the men upon whom God has put His choicest blessing, have been from time immemorial men who have separated themselves from idolaters and pretenders that they might be the more free to respond to the call of God, and upon such, God has rested His richest favors.
This call also involves separation from the Gentiles. The Gentiles of Chaldea and the Gentiles of Canaan; from the first he was separated by distance and from the second by circumcision. Gods appeal has been and is for a peculiar people, not that they might be queer, but that He might keep them separatedunspotted from the world. God knows, O so well, how few souls there are that can mingle with the unregenerate crowd without losing their testimony and learning to speak the shibboleth of sinners. Peter was a good man; in some respects greater than Abraham; but Peter in that porch-company was a poor witness for Jesus Christ, while his profanity proved the baneful effect of fellowship with Gods enemies. The call to separation, therefore, is none other than the call to salvation, for if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him, for all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not of the Father but is of the world.
But Gods calls are always attended by
GODS COVENANTS.
As this call required three separations with their sacrifices, so its attendant covenant contained three promised blessings. God never empties the heart without filling it again, and with better things. God never detaches the affections from lower objects without at once attaching them to subjects that are higher; consequently call and covenant must go together.
I will make of thee a great nation. That was the first article in His covenant. To the Jew, that was one of the most precious promises. This ancient people delighted in progeny. The Psalmist wrote, As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man, so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them. They shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate. If our Puritan fathers, few in number and feeble as they were, could have imagined the might and multitude of their offspring, they would have found in the prospect an unspeakable pride, and a source of mighty pleasure. It was because those fathers did, in some measure, imagine the America to come, that they were willing to endure the privations and dangers of their day; but the honor of being fathers of a nation, shared in by a half hundred of them, was an honor on which Abraham had a close corporation, for to him God said,
I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth; so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall also thy seed be numbered.
If the heart, parting from parents and home, is empty, the arms into which children have been placed are full; and homesickness, the pain of separation, is overcome when, through the grace of God, one sits down in the midst of his own.
This covenant contained a further promise. I will . . . make thy name great. We may believe that the word great here refers not so much to empty honors as to merited praise. The Jewish conception of such a promise was expressed by Solomon when he said, A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches. And, notwithstanding the fact that our age is guilty of over-estimating the value of riches, men find it difficult to underrate the value of a good name.
Years ago, Jonas Chickering decided to make a better piano than had ever appeared on the market. He spared neither time nor labor in this attempt. His endeavor was rewarded in purity and truthfulness of tone as well as in simplicity of plan, and there came to him the ever-attendant result of success. His name on a piano was that instruments best salesman.
A Massachusetts man, seeing this, went to the Massachusetts legislature and succeeded in getting them to change his name to Chickering, that he might put it upon his own instruments.
As Marden said when referring to this incident, Character has a commercial value.
And, when God promised Abraham to make his name great, He bestowed the very honor which men most covet to this hour.
But the climax of His covenant is contained in this last sentence, In thee shall all the families of the earth be blest. That is the honor of honors! That is the success of all successes! That is the privilege of all privileges!
When Mr. Moody died some man said, Every one of us has lost a friend, and that speaker was right, for there is not a man in America who has not enjoyed at least an opportunity to be better because Moody lived. No matter whether the individual had ever seen him or no; had ever read one of his sermons or no; yet the tidal waves of Moodys work have rolled over the entire land, over many lands for that matter, and even the most ignorant and debased have breathed the better atmosphere on account of him. George Davis claims that Moody traveled a million miles, and addressed a hundred million people, and dealt personally with 750,000 individuals! I think Davis claim is an overstatement, and yet these whom he touched personally are only a tithe of the multitudes blessed indirectly by that evangelism for which Moody stood for forty years. If today I could be privileged to make my choice of the articles of this covenant, rather than be the father of a great nation, rather than enjoy the power of a great name, I would say, Give me the covenant that through me all the nations of the earth should be blessed. Such would indeed be the crowning glory of a life, and such ought to be the crowning joy of a true mans heart.
In the next place, I call your attention to
ABRAHAMS OBEDIENCE AND BLUNDERS.
His obedience was prompt No sooner are the call and covenant spoken than we read,
So Abraham departed as the Lord had spoken unto him (Gen 12:4).
In that his conduct favorably contrasted with the behavior of some other of the Old Testaments most prominent men. Moses was in many respects a model, but he gave himself to an eloquent endeavor to show God that He was making a mistake in appointing him Israels deliverer. Elijah at times indulged in the same unprofitable controversy, and the story of Jonahs criticism of the Divine appointment will be among our later studies. I am confident that Abraham brings before every generation a much needed example in this matter. In these days, men are tempted to live too much in mathematics and to regard too lightly Gods revelations of duty. That is one of the reasons why many pulpits are empty. That is one of the reasons why many a Sunday School class is without a teacher. That is the only reason why any man in this country can say with any show of truthfulness, No man careth for my soul. If the congregations assembled in Gods sanctuary should go out of them, as Abram departed from his home in Haran, to fulfil all that the Lord had spoken unto them, the world would be turned upside down in a fortnight, and Christ would quickly come.
In his obedience Abraham was steadfast also. There are many men who respond to the calls of God; there are only a few who remain faithful to those calls through a long and busy life. There were battles ahead for Abram. There were blunders in store for Abram. There were bereavements and disappointments to come. But, in spite of them all, he marched on until God gathered him to his people. I thank God that such stedfastness is not wholly strange at the present time. When we see professors of religion proving themselves shallow and playing truant before the smaller trials, and we are thereby tempted to join in Solomons dyspeptic lament, All is vanity and vexation of spirit, it heartens one to remember the history that some have made and others are making. Think of Carey and Judson, Jewett and Livingstone, Goddard and Morrison, Clough and Ashmoremen who, through long years, deprivations and persecutions, proved as faithful as was ever Abraham; and so, long as the world shall stand, stedfastness in obedience to the commands of God will be regarded highly in Heaven. Why is it that we so much admire the company of the apostles, and why is it that we sing the praises of martyrs? They withstood in the evil day, and having done all, stood.
Again, Abrams obedience was inspired by faith.
When he went out from Chaldea to come into Canaan, he was not yielding to reason but walking according to revelation. His action was explained in the sentence, He believed in the Lord. Joseph Parker commenting on the world believed as here employed says, This is the first time the word believed occurs in the Bible. * * * * What history opens in this one word. Abram nourished and nurtured himself in God. * * * * He took the promise as a fulfilment. The word was to him a fact. The stars had new meanings to him, as, long before, the rainbow had to Noah. Abram drew himself upward by the stars. Every night they spoke to him of his posterity and of his greatness. They were henceforward not stars only but promises and oaths and blessings.
One great need of the present-day church is a truer trust in God. Oh, for men who like Columbus can let the craft of life float out on the seas of thought and action, and look to the starry heavens for the guidance that shall land them upon newer and richer shores! Oh, for men that will turn their ears heavenward to hear what God will say, and even though His commissions contain sacrifice will go about exercising it! Such men are never forgotten by the Father. We are not surprised to hear Him break forth in praise of Abraham, saying,
Because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, m blessing 1 will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the seashore; and thy seed shall possess the gates of the enemy, and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because thou hast obeyed my voice.
No sacrifice made in faith is ever forgotten, and when Gods rewards for service are spoken, good men always regard them more than sufficient. If you could call up today the souls of Carey, Judson, Livingstone and Morrison, and assemble Clough, Ashmore, Taylor, Powell, Clark, Richards and a hundred others worthy to stand with them, and ask them the question Has God failed in any particular to keep with you any article of His covenant? they would answer in a chorus, No. And has God more than met the expectations of your faith? they would reply without dissent, Yes. As He was faithful to our father Abraham, so He is faithful to the present-day servant.
And yet Abraham, the obedient, was
GUILTY OF BLUNDERING.
Twice he lied, and the third time he approached the utmost limits of truth. He told Sarai to say she was his sister. She was his half-sister, and so he thought to excuse himself by dissembling and keeping back a part. But a lie is not a question of words and phrases! It may be acted as easily as spoken! When God comes to make a report upon your conduct and mine, dissembling will be labeled falsehood, for God does not cover up the sins of men. Somebody has asked, Do you suppose, if the Bible had been written by some learned Doctor, revised by a committee of some eminent scholars, and published by some great ecclesiastical society, we would ever have heard of Noahs drunkenness, of Abrams deception, of Lots disgrace, of Jacobs rascality, of the quarrel between Paul and Barnabas, or of Peters conduct on the porch? Not at all. But when the Almighty writes a mans life, He tells the truth about him.
I heard a colored preacher at Cincinnati say, The most of us would not care for a biography of ourselves, if God was to be the Author of it. Yet the work of the Recording Angel goes on, and as surely as we read today the report of Abrams blunders, we will be compelled to confront our own. Let us cease, therefore, from sin.
But Abrams few blunders cannot blacken his beautiful record. The luster of his life is too positive to be easily dimmed; and like the sun, will continue to shine despite the spots. Run through these chapters, and in every one of the fourteen you will find some touch of his true life. It was Abraham whose heart beat in sweetest sympathy with the sufferings of Hagar. It was Abraham who showed the most unselfish spirit in separating from Lot and dividing the estate. It was Abraham who opened his door to strangers in a hospitality of which this age knows all too little. It was Abram who overcame the forces of the combined kings and snatched Lot out of their hands. It was Abraham whose prayers prevailed with God in saving this same weakkneed professor out of Sodom. It was Abraham who trusted God for a child when Nature said the faith was foolish. It was Abraham who offered that same child in sacrifice at the word, not halting because of his own heart-sufferings. It was Abraham who mourned Sarahs death as deeply as ever any bereft bride felt her loss.
The more I search these chapters, the more I feel that she was right who wrote, A holy life has a voice. It speaks when the tongue is silent and is either a constant attraction or a continued reproof. Put your ear close to these pages of Genesis, and if Abraham does not whisper good to your heart, then be sure that your soul is dead and you are yet in your sins.
There remains time for but a brief review of these fourteen chapters in search of
THEIR TYPES AND SYMBOLS
Abrams call is a type of the Church of Christ. The Greek word for Church means the called-out. Separation from the Chaldeans was essential to Abrams access to the Father, and separation from the world is essential to the Churchs access to God and also essential to its exertion of an influence for righteousness. I believe Dr. Gordon was right when, in The Two-Fold Life he said, The truest remedy for the present-day naturalized Christianity and worldly consecration is to be found in a strenuous and stubborn non-conformity to the world on the part of Christians. With the most unshaken conviction, we believe that the Church can only make headway, in this world, by being loyal to her heavenly calling. Towards Ritualism her cry must be not a rag of popery; towards Rationalism, not a vestige of whatsoever is not of faith; and towards
Secularism, not a shred of the garment spotted by the flesh. The Bride of Christ can only give a true and powerful testimony in this world as she is found clothed with her own proper vesture even the fine linen clean and white, which is the righteousness of the saints.
Isaacs offering is a type of Gods gift of Jesus. He was an only son and Abraham laid him upon the altar of sacrifice. And, if one say that he fails as a type because he passed not through the experience of death, let us remember what is written into Heb 11:17 following,
By faith Abraham when he was tried, offered up Isaac; and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, *** accounting that God was able to raise him up even from the dead, from whence also he received him, in a figure.
It might be written in Scripture, Abraham so believed God that he gave his only begotten son, for Gods sake. It is written in Scripture, God so loved the world that He gave His only Begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Melchisedec is a type of our High Priest, Jesus Christ. His record in Gen 14:18-20 is brief, but the interpretation of his character in Hebrews 7 presents him as either identical with the Lord Himself, or else as one whose priesthood is the most perfect type of that which Jesus Christ has performed, and performs today for the sons of men.
In Sodom, we find the type of the days of the Son of Man. Of it the Lord said,
Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous, I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto Me.
Jesus Christ referred to that city and likened its condition to that which should obtain upon the earth at the coming of the Son of Man, saying, As it was in the days of Lot, they did eat; they drank; they bought; they sold; they planted; they builded; but the same day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all, even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed.
The newspapers some time ago reported great religious excitement in a Southern city through the work of two evangelists. Doctors said, We will prescribe no more liquor for patients, druggists said, We will sell no more liquor as a beverage; gamblers gave up their gambling; those called the toughs of the town turned to the Lord; the people of means put off their jewels, changed their frivolous clothes to plainer style; and wherever one went he heard either the singing of hymns or the utterance of prayers, and a great newspaper said this had all come about because the people in that little college town expected the speedy return of Christ. You may call it fanaticism, if you will, and doubtless there would be some occasion, and yet call it what you may, this sentence will remain in the Scriptures, Therefore, be ye also ready, for in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of Man cometh.
Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley
CRITICAL NOTES.
Gen. 20:1. Kadesh; Shur; Gerar.] All lying near the southern borders of Canaan. Gerar was the chief city of the Philistines. It is now called Khirbet-el-Gerar, i.e., the ruins of Gerar. The site is still pointed out near Gaza, where traces of the ancient city remain.
Gen. 20:2. Abimelech.] Father of the king. Probably the standing title of the kings of Gerar. Took Sarah, i.e., into his harem.
Gen. 20:3. Behold, thou art but a dead man.] Thou art dying, or on the point of dying, if thou persist. A deadly plague was already in the body of Abimelech, on account of Sarah. (Murphy.) Perhaps it was merely intended that he was dead as regards progeny. (Gen. 20:17.)
Gen. 20:5. In the integrity of my heart and innocency of my hands.] Heb. In the perfection, sincerity, or simplicity of my heart, etc. Comp. Psa. 26:6; Psa. 73:13.
Gen. 20:7. He is a prophet.] One who speaks on behalf of God. Enoch had prophesied before this, as we learn from Jude, and Noah had uttered a prophetic blessing; but Abraham is the first one in the O.T. who is called a prophet. (Jacobus.) He shall pray for thee. Intercession was a special work of prophets. (Jer. 27:18. Compare also Jer. 14:11; Jer. 15:1.)
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.Gen. 20:1-7
ABRAHAMS REPETITION OF HIS OLD FAULT: THE POWER OF FORMER TEMPTATIONS
I. Their power may slumber long. Twenty-four years had passed away since Abraham committed this same fault. He then distrusted the king and people of Egypt, as he does Abimelech in this instance. One would have thought that so long an experience of such extraordinary favours, on the part of God, would have so strengthened the faith of Abraham as to make him superior to all temptations which imply distrust in his Divine Director. He must have seen, by this time, that God had a way of deliverance when all human resources were at an end; and, therefore, that all carnal expedients were vain. Surely, the temptation to employ devices which had been proved to fail would now have no power over him! But this incident teaches us that the force of this old temptation was not destroyed, but only slumbered for awhile. We are never safe from the invasion of temptations which have once vanquished us. They have discovered our weak part, and this must always be a source of dangera chronic infirmity of the soul which is but imperfectly healed.
II. Circumstances may arise which will revive their strength. Abraham was again placed in similar circumstances to those in which he had once fallen, and the old temptation assaults him with all its former strength. Science considers two kinds of energy, one in which it is active, and the other potential. The energy of a cannon ball is active: we can see the effects of it; but the energy of a heavy body in an elevated position, or that which slumbers in gunpowder, is potential. There it is, though to all appearance most harmless; and by fitting means can in a moment be called into action. Such is the power of old temptations. They watch us like a tiger his prey, silently and in ambush, and then spring upon us in an unguarded moment. In the particular instance of Abraham there were several causes which, at this time, contributed to render him weak against the assault of his old temptation.
1. Reaction after great spiritual excitement. He had seen that terrible instance of Gods judgment upon the cities of the plainhis kinsman scarcely savedsilence, desolation, and death reigning over a land once beautiful and full of busy life. The sight of these things must have filled his heart with conflicting emotions. The kind of excitement hence arising may strengthen the soul, but it is that intermittent strength which is succeeded by intervals of depression. Hence it is that retirement and watchfulness are most necessary at such times. The soul is too weak to trust herself abroadto go out into the open field of conflict. The man out of whom Jesus had cast the devils wished to continue with Him. He was transported with joy and gratitudein a most excited state of feeling, and ready to make any sacrifice. But Jesus discouraged his over-confident zeal, and told him that a state of retirement, the quiet and obscure ways of life, would be best for him. Return to thy own house, and show how great things God hath done unto thee. (Luk. 8:38-39.)
2. Experience of social corruption. Abraham had seen all around him the worst forms of wickedness. He might well be tempted to consider that no truth, no high justice, could be due to those who were so irrecoverably bad. Such crooked ways of iniquity could only be combated by the cunning of the serpent. Abraham thought that the people were extremely wicked, and devoid of all religious thought and feeling. (Gen. 20:11.) He was under the temptation that he must not deal with them upon high principle and an open sincerity. Thus the very corruptions of mankind are dangerous to the virtues of saints. Besides, Abraham might reflect that he had escaped out of his former difficulty in Egypt with little hurt to himself, perhaps advantage, on the whole. The scheme had succeeded onceat least it had brought him no real damageand why should he not try it again? The experience of long years had not shown him that mankind was growing better; it rather seemed as if corruption was increasing more and more. The state of society was such as to tempt even a righteous man to renounce ideal truth and integrity, and employ a compromised or qualified veracity.
III. The results of yielding again are most disastrous. Abraham found to his sorrow that his policy did not succeed, but only brought him into trouble.
1. The distress of anxiety. After Abraham had made the representation that Sarah was his sister, how anxious he must have been as to the success of that device in giving them both any real protection. Carnal policies of this kind, while on trial, fill men with anxiety, and should they fail they bring confusion. Whatever is of doubtful virtue may well make us anxious, however good the end may be after which we seek.
2. Possible loss to ourselves. There is always some moral loss. But we may suffer temporal loss. That very good thing for which Abraham contrivedthe safety of his wifehe failed to secure. It would have been better for him had he trusted in God, and left all events with Him. It is only by faith that we can fight an honourable and successful battle with the world, for the moment we attempt to fight the world with its own weapons we lose dignity and ensure failure. We must conduct this strife lawfully.
3. The shame of reproof from worldly men. (Gen. 20:9-10; Gen. 20:16.) There are men of the world possessed of some strong moral principles, of great natural sagacity, and who are therefore keen to discover faults in others. They expect consistency in those who make a high profession, and are not sparing in indignant censure when they do not find it. When they catch a saint of God using doubtful means they quickly assume a moral superiority, and thus put him to shame.
IV Those who fall under them are only delivered by the special interference of God. Through all his faults God had a regard unto His servant. He was still His prophet, the interpreter of His will, the intercessor with Him on behalf of sinful men. He was the representative of faith in a faithless world; and, according to the flesh, the beginning of that line along which Gods purpose of love and mercy should move towards full accomplishment. Therefore God had a special regard unto him, and miraculously interfered to preserve him from the consequences of his fault. God always deals the same way, in principle, with His tried servants.
1. The infirmities of believers appeal to the Divine compassion. God knows the strength of our temptations, the difficulty we have to stand upright in this sinful world. He has regard unto those who have fought bravely against its evils, who have striven hard to obey their heavenly calling. He will put a difference between those whose faith shows occasional infirmity and weakness, and those in whom faith is wanting altogether. The attainments and habits of a life of godliness help the soul to return after the lapses of her infirmity. They appeal to the compassion of God, who is not unmindful of His former mercies. If, as the God of nature, He has regard to the work of His hands, surely, as the God of grace, He will have regard to the work of His new creation.
2. God is concerned to maintain the promises made to faith. A son was promised to Abraham who was to perpetuate the race from which Messiah should spring. The time of fulfilment was now drawing so near that Abraham by his conduct, in this instance, was endangering that promise. But God was guiding all events, and accomplishing His will and purpose. The interests of a magnificent future had to be considered as well as those which belonged personally to Abraham. Promises were made to the patriarchs faith, and God delivered him for His honour. And even in the case of saints whose lives are obscure, and who are not called to take the chief parts in history, yet so many important interests are bound up in them, that the Divine grace is rich in resources to complete their salvation.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Gen. 20:1. Abraham removed from the doomed district, for it was painful for him to look upon the desolations of Gods anger. The contemplation of acts of Divine judgment is awful and terrible, even though our faith in the righteousness of them may be strong.
Abraham journeyed from thence, either as grieved at the sight of Sodom, or as annoyed by the ill air thereof, or as loathing Lots incest, or driven out by famine, or desirous of doing good to many. Whatever it was that occasioned his removal, we find him ever and anon journeying from one place and sojourning in another. Gods people are a brood of travellers. This was Abram the Hebrew, of Heber, which signifieth pilgrim or stranger. They look towards Heaven as their home, as Ulysses is said to do towards Ithaca, as a bird looks to her nest on the highest rocks.(Trapp).
He had now sojourned many years in the Plains of Mamre (ch. Gen. 13:18, Gen. 18:1), and he had seen much of the Lords goodness, as well as of the Lords terror, there. But still greater things await him ere his pilgrimage finally closes. The last stage of his earthly journey is to be the most signally blessed and the most remarkably tried of all. He passes, therefore, now into a new scene, where, in new circumstances, he is to see the salvation of God.(Candlish).
Gen. 20:2. Lies that are not altogether such, but have some truth mixed up with them, are the most dangerous to the interests of mankind.
It is impossible to acquit Abraham of the sin of gross unbelief. For the space of twenty-five years he had experienced the faithfulness and loving-kindness of his God. He had recently received the promise that he should have a son by Sarah, who should be the progenitor of the Messiah. But on coming to Gerar, his heart fails him for fear that the people will kill him in order to gain possession of his wife. This was a practical distrust in the protection of Jehovah. In what had God failed him that he should begin now to doubt of His faithfulness and power? Besides, it ought to have occurred to him that he had once before been guilty of the same dissimulation, and had been reproved for it. The repetition of so gross an offence, after such a warning and such a deliverance, increased its sinfulness a hundredfold.(Bush).
How difficult it is, even for the best of saints, to forego the suggestions and guiding of their own wisdom and to trust entirely in God!
The calamity from which Abraham sought to shield his wife by sinful evasion fell upon her. Thus was he chastened for his evil counsel. All devices arising from practical distrust in God must fail, and bring their penalties upon all who have recourse to them.
This is the second time he thus sinned. So Jehoshaphat was twice taken tardy in Ahabs amity (2Ch. 19:2; 2Ch. 20:37); Jonah twice reproved for rebellion; and John, for angel-worship; Samson, twenty years after he had loved the Philistine woman, goes down to Gaza, and went into Delilah (Jdg. 15:20; Jdg. 16:1). But what shall we say to that example of the Apostles (Luk. 22:24), amongst whom there was a strife who should be accounted the greatest? And this was not the first, but the third time they had thus offended by ambition. But the last time most unseasonably, after that He had foretold His passion to follow within two days. See the incredible perverseness of corrupt nature! How strongly do the best still smell of the old cask, taste of the old stock, though ingrafted into Christ, and though poured from vessel to vessel (Joh. 5:14). And this have ye done again, saith the Lord (Mal. 2:13). A great aggravation, as numbers added to numbers, are first ten times more, and then a hundred, and then a thousand. How oft did they provoke Him in the wilderness, and grieve Him in the desert (Psa. 78:40).(Trapp.)
Gen. 20:3. The crisis was serious, and worthy of the special interference of God. Miracles are not recorded in Scripture as having been performed on frivolous occasions, as if intended merely to astonish. God interposes when the time is momentous.
The evil that men propose to do has often a gracious issue, for God interferes that He may prevent sin. We know not how much of the Divine dealings with men have this special object in view.
In the night sleep, the spirit of revelation comes nearer to the heathen, as is shown in the dreams of Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar. It is a medium of revelation also for children (Joseph, in the old covenant), and for labourers with the hand (Joseph, in the new covenant); and the prophetic disposition, enduring into the night or extending itself through its hours (Isaac, Jacob, Paul). Moreover, Pharaohs butler and baker (ch. Gen. 40:8); the Midianites (Jdg. 7:13-15); the wife of Pilate (Mat. 27:19, compare Wis. 18:17-19), had significant dreams.(Lange.)
Evil is overruled for good. Abrahams fault procured for Abimelech the advantage of a Divine visitation; which, though marked by severity, was kind in intent and issue.
The king thought he was innocent, but God interposed to show the true bearing of his conduct. So Saul on his way to Damascus thought he was doing God service, but the Divine voice suddenly alarmed him with a view of the real tendency and meaning of the act in which he was engaged.
Mans wisdom leads him into a pit, and Gods wisdom must draw him out. (Fuller.)
Gen. 20:4. How carefully are all the essential particulars regarding the genealogy of the Messiah preserved in the sacred records! The Holy Spirit marks this fact lest anyone should say that Isaac was the son of Abimelech.
Wilt thou slay also a righteous nation? A reference, probably, to the recent event of Sodoms overthrow, which must have greatly impressed the surrounding country. It is as if he had said, I am aware that thou hast slain a nation notorious for its filthy and unnatural crimes, but we are not such a nation, and in the present case all that has been done was done in perfect ignorance; surely thou wilt not slay the innocent as if they were guilty. The language, evidently carries with it the implication, which is abundantly warranted elsewhere in the Scripture, that from the close connection existing between them the sins of rulers were often visited upon their people. See this illustrated in the case of David (1Ch. 21:14; 1Ch. 21:17).(Bush.)
A heathen king knows how to address the Supreme. Thus the knowledge of the true God had not at this time entirely perished from among the Gentiles.
Gen. 20:5. The servants of God stand reproved by a heathen king.
Abimelech vindicates his conduct by undeniable facts which (to say the least) partly justify it.
With this example before us it is not too much to believe that some among the heathen live according to the dictates of conscience.
The saints of God often fail in those very graces and virtues for which they are the most remarkable. Abraham was famous for his faith, and Sarah for not being afraid with any amazement (1Pe. 3:6), and yet they both manifest distrust and fear.
Gen. 20:6. God admits the integrity of this heathen king. He had not committed that foul crime of which he was here in danger. Men who, as regards the whole law of God, are sinners, may yet be innocent of some particular forms of transgression.
1. The reason why he could yet claim innocence of the great transgression was Gods restraining power and grace.
2. What a hell on earth would there be but for Gods various restraints in conscience, the Scripture, the Church, the civil law, education, and society, and, most of all, the Holy Ghost.
3. How thankful should every man be for Gods restraints.
4. What infinite need have we of a Saviour from sin.
Augustine says: We see a sin is done against God when it is in the eyes of men of small moment, because they treat lightly mere sins of the flesh. (Psa. 51:3.)(Jacobus.)
Who that knows anything of his own heart is not conscious that he has at some times tampered with sin, and laid such snares for his own feet that nothing but Gods grace and unlooked-for interference has preserved him!(Bush.)
Gen. 20:7. Wrong may be done even when we have not reached the limit of actual transgression.
We are only safe when we cut off the occasion of sin, and place ourselves in the condition of the least danger.
Abimelech had sinned against one who was the ambassador of the Heavenly Kingboth the aggravation of his offence and the ground of his hope of pardon.
Life and death hang upon our treatment of the message of Gods prophets.
As with every sacrifice there was incense, so should every ministerial duty he performed with prayer. St. Paul begins his epistles with prayer, and proceeds and ends in like manner. What is it that he would have every one of his Epistles stamped with his own hand, but prayer for all his people? (2Th. 3:17-18.)(Trapp.)
Abraham is here designated by the Lord a prophet. This is a step in advance of all his previous spiritual attainments. A prophet is Gods spokesman, who utters with authority certain of the things of God. (Exo. 7:1; Exo. 4:15.) This implies two things:
1. The things of God are known only to him, and therefore must be communicated by him.
2. The prophet must be enabled of God to announce in correct terms the things made known to him. These things refer not only to the future, but in general to all such matters as fall within the purpose and procedure of God. They may even include otherwise known or knowable by man, so far as these are necessary to the exposition of the Divine will. Now Abraham has heretofore received many communications from God. But this did not constitute him a prophet. It is the divinely authorised utterance of new truth which raises him to this rank. And Abrahams first exercise in prophecy is not speaking to men of God, but to God for men. He shall pray for thee. The prophetic and the priestly offices go together in the Father of the Faithful. These dignities belong to him not from any absolute merit, but from his call to be the holder of the promise and the father of that seed to whom the promises were made.(Murphy.)
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
PART THIRTY-THREE
THE STORY OF ABRAHAM: SOJOURN IN THE NEGEB
(Gen. 20:1 to Gen. 21:34)
1. Abraham and Abimelech (Gen. 20:1-18)
1 And Abraham journeyed from thence toward the land of the South, and dwelt between Kadesh and Shur; and he sojourned in Gerar. 2 And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, She is my sister: and Abimelech king of Gerar sent, and took Sarah. 3 But God came to Abimelech in a dream of the night, and said to him, Behold, thou art but a dead man, because of the woman whom thou hast taken; for she is a mans wife. 4 Now Abimelech had not come near her: and he said, Lord, wilt thou slay even a righteous nation? 5 Said he not himself unto me, She is my sister? and she, even she herself said, He is my brother: in the integrity of my heart and the innocency of my hands have I done this. 6 And God said unto him in the dream, Yea, I know that in the integrity of thy heart thou hast done this, and I also withheld thee from sinning against me: therefore suffered I thee not to touch her. 7 Now therefore restore the mans wife; for he is a prophet, and he shall pray for thee, and thou shalt live: and if thou restore her not, know thou that thou shalt surely die, thou, and all that are thine.
8 And Abimelech rose early in the morning, and called all his servants, and told all these things in their ears: and the men were sore afraid. 9 Then Abimelech called Abraham, and said unto him, What hast thou done unto us? and wherein have I sinned against thee, that thou hast brought on me and on my kingdom a great sin? thou hast done deeds unto me that ought not to be done. 10 And Abimelech said unto Abraham, What sawest thou, that thou hast done this thing? 11 And Abraham said, Because 1 thought, Surely the fear of God is not in this place; and they will slay me for my wifes sake. 12 And moreover she is indeed my sister, the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife: 13 and it came to pass, when God caused me to wander from my fathers house, that I said unto her, This is thy kindness which thou shalt show unto me: at every place whither we shall come, say of me, He is my brother. 14 And Abimelech took sheep and oxen, and men-servants and women-servants, and gave them unto Abraham, and restored him Sarah his wife. 15 And Abimelech said, Behold, my land is before thee: dwell where it pleaseth thee. 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. 17 And Abraham prayed unto God: and God healed Abimelech, and his wife, and his maid-servants; and they bare children. 18 For Jehovah had fast closed up all the wombs of the house of Abimelech, because of Sarah, Abrahams wife.
(1) The Negeb, Gen. 20:1, the dry, largely waterless area, which from its geographical position generally south of Judea came to be known as the south, the land of the south, etc. (cf. Gen. 10:19; Gen. 12:9; Gen. 26:1-6). (See Nelson Gluecks great work, Rivers in the Desert). The northern boundary may be indicated by a line drawn roughly from Gaza to Beersheba, thence east directly to the Dead Sea. The southern boundary can be indicated by a line drawn from the highlands of the Sinai peninsula to the head of the Gulf of Aqabah at Eilat. (This, incidentally, is the line where the political division is drawn today). Significant economically were the copper ores in the eastern part of the Negeb and the commerce which resulted in the Arabah. Control of this industry explains the wars of Saul with the Amalekites and Edomites (1Sa. 14:47 ff.), the victories of David over the Edomites (1Ki. 11:15 ff.), the creation of the port of Ezion-geber by Solomon, and later when these mines became too silted, the creation of a new port at Elath by Uzziah (1Ki. 9:26; 1Ki. 22:48; 2Ki. 14:22). The persistent animosity of the Edomites was motivated by the struggles to control this trade (cf. Eze. 25:12, and the book of Obadiah). The way of Shur crossed this area from the central highlands (really mountains) of Sinai northeastward to Judea (Gen. 16:7; Gen. 20:1; Gen. 25:18; Exo. 15:22; Num. 33:8), the way followed by the Patriarchs (Gen. 24:62; Gen. 26:22), by Hadad the Edomite (1Ki. 11:14; 1Ki. 11:17; 1Ki. 11:21-22), and probably by Jeremiah in escaping to Egypt (Gen. 43:6-12), and later by Joseph and Mary (Mat. 2:13-15). The route was dictated by the zone of settled land in which the presence of well water was so important; hence the frequent references to its wells (Gen. 26:18-25; Jos. 15:18-19; Jdg. 1:13-15). See NBD, s.v.) This region, the Negeb, covers approximately one-half of the area of the state of modern Israel.
(2) Abrahams Journey. Following the destruction of the Cities of the Plain, Abraham pulled his stakes, so to speak, and journeyed toward the land of the South. Various reasons have been suggested as to the motive for this journey, e.g., in consequence of the hostility of his neighbors (Calvin); desire to escape from the scene of such a terrible catastrophe which he had just witnessed (Calvin, Murphy); impulsion by God, to remind him that Canaan was not intended for a permanent habitation, but a constant pilgrimage (Kalisch); but most likely, it would seem, in search of pasture, as on a previous occasion (Keil); cf. Gen. 12:9-10; Gen. 13:1. Arriving in the land of the South, it seems that he ranged his herds from Kadesh on the north (also Kadesh-barnea), some seventy miles south of Hebron, to Shur, a wilderness lying at the northwest tip of the Sinai peninsula (beside one of its springs the Angel of Jehovah, it will be remembered, found Hagar: cf. Gen. 16:7-14). (A wilderness in the Palestinian country of the Biblical records meant a rather wild region of scant vegetation, except at certain seasons when rainfall provided temporary pasturage for the nomads flocks (cf. Psa. 106:9, A.R.V., marginal rendering, pastureland). These wildernesses, unlike densely wooded wildernesses of our Americas, were treeless, except for palmtrees in the oases, bushes like acacia, and inferior trees like the tamarisk (Exo. 15:27, Elim; Gen. 21:33). Because of its aridity a wilderness in Scripture is sometimes called a desert.)
(3) Gerar, and the Philistines. Whatever the extent to which Abraham pastured his flocks between Kadesh and Shur, his more or less permanent tenting-ground must have been in the vicinity of Gerar, a city forty miles southeast of Gaza in the foothills of the Judean mountains (Gen. 10:19), hence interior to the coastal plain, and some distance from the route over which (by way of Gaza) invading armies invariably have moved to and fro between Egypt and Southwest Asia not only in ancient times, but even in our own century. (It should be noted that Armageddon lies on this military route, Rev. 16:16. See under Megiddo in any Bible Dictionary). Both Abraham and Isaac sojourned at Gerar (Gen., chs. 20, 21, 26), digging wells for their flocks. The city, we are told, was situated in the land of the Philistines (Gen. 21:32; Gen. 21:34; Gen. 26:1; Gen. 26:8). This designation is said to be an anachronism: it could be ascribed to a late editor, for the Philistines probably entered the land long after the time of Abraham (HSB, 35). Archaeological evidence, however, proves that this is not necessarily so. Cf. Schultz (OTS, 35): The presence of the Philistines in Canaan during patriarchal times has been considered an anachronism. The Caphtorian settlement in Canaan around 1200 B.C. represented a late migration of the Sea People who had made previous settlements over a long period of time. The Philistines had thus established themselves in smaller numbers long before 1500 B.C. In time they became amalgamated with other inhabitants of Canaan, but the name Palestine (Philistia) continues to bear witness to their presence in Canaan. Caphtorian pottery throughout southern and central Palestine, as well as literary references, testify to the superiority of the Philistines in arts and crafts, In the days of Saul they monopolized metalwork in Palestine. (The Caphtorium are said to have descended from Mizraim, Gen. 10:14, 1Ch. 1:12; Caphtor is identified as the land from which the Philistines came, Jer. 47:4, Amo. 9:7. The consensus of archaeological testimony in our day almost without exception identifies these Sea Peoples as spreading out over the eastern Mediterranean world from Crete: at its height in the second millennium, Minoan Crete controlled the larger part of the Aegean Sea.) The great cities of the Philistines in Philistia of the Bible were (1) those on the coastal strip, from north to south in the order named, Ashdod, Ashkelon, and Gaza; (2) those in the interior, Ekron on the north and Gath about the center and approximately west of Hebron. Gerar, though not one of the five great urban centers, was the seat of the royal iron smelting place producing iron swords, spearheads, daggers, and arrowheads (1Sa. 13:19-22). Pottery models of iron-shod chariots have been found here. These people seem to have settled in Palestine in great numbers about the time of the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age (cf. Jdg. 16:21); this would have been about 1500 B.C. Archaeology now confirms the fact that groups of these Sea Peoples began arriving in waves long before this time; that in fact these smaller migratory groups were in the Near East as early as the Patriarchal Age. Excavations at Gerar and other Philistine centers began as early as the nineteen-twenties, under the direction of Phythian-Adams and Flinders Petrie: these produced remains from the time of Egypts Eighteenth Dynasty, about 1600 to 1400 B.C. Recently an Israeli archaeologist, D. Alon, surveyed the site of Gerar and found evidence from potsherds that the city had enjoyed a period of prosperity during the Middle Bronze Age, the period of the Biblical patriarchs (DW: DBA, 251). Cornfeld (AtD, 72) gives a consistent account of this problem of the origin of the Philistines in the Near East, as follows: This designation [Philistine] is generally regarded as anachronistic because the name Philistine was applied to a Western people (Peoples of the Sea) which had migrated from Crete and the Aegean coastlands and isles around 1200 B.C.E., and settled in the coastal regions of southern Palestine. C. H. Gordon and I. Grinz consider that these early Philistines of Gerar came from a previous migration of sea people from the Aegean and Minoan sphere, including Crete, which is called Caphtor in the Bible and Ugarit tablets, and Caphtorian is the Canaanite name for Minoan. Their earlier home was that other great cultural center of antiquity, the Aegean, which flourished throughout the 2nd millenium B.C.E., and is considered a major cradle of East Mediterranean, Near Eastern and European civilization. It has a close connection with the Hittite civilization, which stems also from an Indo-European migration into this sphere. This civilization spread by trade, navigation, and migration to Asia Minor, North Canaan (Ugarit, etc.). South Canaan (Gerar). The early Philistines who came into contact with the early Hebrews, and the Mycenaeans of proto-historic Greece, to whom the most prominent Homeric heroes belonged, were different sections of this Minoan (Caphtorian) world, By the time of the Amarna Age, or late patriarchal age, these immigrants formed an important segment of the coastal dwellers of Canaan. Vestiges of Aegeo-Minoan art, pottery, and tools abound in archaeological finds of this period. The art is remarkable for its vivacity and it injected a notable degree of liveliness into the art of the Near East, including Egypt. The most important role of Caphtor was its impact on both the classic Greeks of a later period and the early Canaanites, so that the earliest Greek, Canaanite (Ugarit) and Hebrew literatures have a common denominator in the Minoan or Caphtorian factor. We shall see that the early histories of the Hebrew and pre-Hellenic settlements and migrations on the shores of the Eastern Mediterranean, were originally interrelated in certain ways and that the classic traditions of Greece and the treasures of the Near East will illumine each other. C. H Gordon maintains that the epic traditions of Israel starting with the patriarchal narratives are set in Palestine after the penetrations of the Indo-European Philistines from the west and the Indo-European Hittites from the north. When the Bible portrays Abraham as dealing with Hittites and Philistines, we have a correct tradition insofar as Hebrew history dawned in a partially Indo-Europeanized Palestine. This is reflected in Hebraic literature and institutions from the start. The early Caphtorian migration was one of a long series that had established various Caphtorian folk on the shores of Canaan long before 1500 B.C.E. They had become Canaanitized, and apparently spoke the same language as Abraham and Isaac. They generally behaved peacefully, unlike the Philistines of a later day, who fought and molested the Israelites. They were recognized in Canaan as the masters of arts and crafts, including metallurgy (italics mineC. C.). These facts account also for the spread of the Cult of Fertility throughout the Near East. It is generally held by anthropologists that Crete was the center where this cult originated and from which it spread in every direction, through the Near East especially.
(4) Abimelech. The facts stated above give us a clearer understanding of this man who was king of the city-state of Gerar when Abraham moved into the area. The name, which means father-king, is pure Hebrew, and apparently was the common titlerather than personal nameof the kings of Gerar, as Pharaoh, for example, was of the rulers of Egypt, Agag of the kings of the Amalekites (1 Samuel 15), Caesar of the emperors of Rome (whence such later titles as Kaiser, Czar, etc.). This fact makes it entirely plausible that the Abimelech who covenanted with Isaac later (Genesis 26) was a successor to the Abimelech who had dealings with Abraham. The latter evidently sought out Abraham on the patriarchs arrival within the region of which his capital, Gerar, was the dominant city. We must realize that the nomads of Abrahams time were not wanderers all the time; rather, they alternated between periods of migration and periods of a more or less settled life. Because water was precious and the nomadic sheiks had to have it for their flocks, they had to hunt out the area where waterusually from wellswas available. Abraham was of this class. Cornfeld suggests that Abimelech visited Abraham somewhere in the locality, probably for the purpose of concluding a treaty of mutual protection that would safeguard his descendants from Israelite encroachments. It may well be also that he took Sarah into his harem, not especially because he was infatuated with her beauty (she was now ninety years old: cf. Gen. 17:17, Gen. 21:2) but for the very same purpose of cementing an alliance with this wealthy and influential patriarch. As a matter of fact, on comparing the motives and actions of these two men, it will strike most of us, I think, that Abrahams conduct, generally speaking, was below the level of integrity manifested by the Philistine king. Certainly Abimelechs role in the entire transaction supports the view stated above that these early Philistines, unlike those of later times, as a general rule behaved honorably and peacefully. Cf. Jamieson (CECG, 166): These early Philistines were a settled population, who occupied themselves for the most part in the peaceful pursuits of agriculture and keeping cattle. They were far superior in civilization and refinement to the Canaanitish tribes around them; and this polish they doubtless owed to their Egyptian origin. (This author holds that they had once been connected with the shepherd kings who ruled in lower Egypt (Deu. 2:23), and had on their expulsion occupied the pasture lands which lay along its northern border. It seems, however, that their original Cretan origin has by now been firmly established.)
(5) Abimelechs Dream (Gen. 20:3-7). Undoubtedly it was in the course of an earlier meeting between Abimelech and Abraham that the patriarch repeated the equivocation he had perpetrated previously on the Egyptian Pharaoh (cf. Gen. 12:10-20), namely, the declaration that Sarah was his sister, a declaration which Sarah herself confirmed (Gen. 20:5), as a consequence of which Abimelech took her into his harem. Whereupon, to protect the purity of the promised seed, God closed up all the wombs of house of Abimelech, that is, by preventing conception (cf. Gen. 16:2, Isa. 66:9, 1Sa. 1:5-6), or by producing barrenness (cf. Gen. 29:31, Gen. 30:22). The reaction of Abimelech surely proves that his moral life was far above the level of the idolatrous Canaanites who occupied the land and makes it possible for us to understand why God deigned to reveal Himself to him.
The dream was the usual mode of self-revelation by which God (as Elohim) communicated with heathen. (Cf. Pharaohs dreams (Gen. 41:1), Nebuchadnezzars (Dan. 4:5), as distinguished from the visions and dreams in which Jehovah manifested His presence to His people. Cf. theophanies (visible appearances of deity) vouchsafed to Abraham (Gen. 12:7, Gen. 15:1, Gen. 18:1), and to Jacob (Gen. 28:13, Gen. 32:24), and the visions granted to Daniel (Dan. 7:1-28; Dan. 10:5-9), and to the prophets generally, which, though sometimes occurring in dreams, were yet a higher form of Divine manifestation than the dreams (PCG, 264). (Note that Pharaohs butler and baker (Gen. 40:8), the Midianites (Jdg. 7:13-15), the wife of Pilate (Mat. 27:19), experienced significant dreams,) (Cf. also the vision granted Isaiah of the Lord sitting upon a throne (Isa. 6:1-5); Daniels vision of the Ancient of Days (Dan. 7:9-11); the visions of the Living One, of the Door opened in heaven, of the Temple of God in heaven, and of the New Heaven and New Earth, all vouchsafed John the Beloved of the isle of Patmos (Rev. 1:18; Rev. 4:1; Rev. 11:19; Rev. 21:1), all of these together, in their various details, making up the content of the Apocalypse.) The fact that God communicated with Abimelech in a dream is sufficient evidence that the latter was in some sense a believer, one who apparently feared God; however, he must have had only a limited knowledge of God, because the dream, as stated above, was a mode employed for those standing on a lower level of revelation (EG, 582). Note the conversation which occurred by means of this dream: (1) God explains that Abimelech had done a deed worthy of death, viz., he had taken another mans wife from her husband for his own purposes, whereas he should have honored the sanctity of the marriage bond (nothing was said about the other members of the kings harem, but Gods silence must not be taken as approval, cf. Act. 17:30); (2) Abimelech answered by stating his fear that he, or even his subjects, however innocent in this case, might as a consequence of his sin (cf. 2Sa. 24:17, 1Ch. 21:17, Jer. 15:4), be destroyed as the Sodomites had been destroyed; he then protested his innocence, in view of the fact that both Abraham and Sarah had represented themselves to him as brother and sister; (3) whereupon God recognized the fact of the kings innocence and explained why he in turnas an act of benevolencehad imposed a physical affliction on him to prevent his laying hands on the mother of the Child of Promise. (4) Finally, God ordered Abimelech to restore Sarah to her husband, for he is a prophet, and he shall pray for thee, and thou shalt live, etc. Note (1) that Abraham was divinely declared to be a prophet, that is, an interpreter (communicator) of the will of God (Psa. 105:15, Amo. 3:7, 2Pe. 1:21), one who speaks by divine afflatus (Deu. 13:2; Deu. 18:15-19; Jdg. 6:8, 1Sa. 9:9, 1Ki. 22:7) either to announce the will of God to men (Exo. 4:15; Exo. 7:1) or to intercede with God for men (Gen. 20:7; Jer. 7:16; Jer. 11:14; Jer. 14:11); (2) that he, Abraham, would pray for Abimelech (1Sa. 7:5, Job. 42:8); (3) that failing to make the required restitution, the king and all that were his would surely die. Whatever the nature of a revelation by means of a dream may be, it surely allows for an interchange of thoughtsquestions and answers, remarks and responses (EG, 585). This teaches us, says Leupold, that sin is sin and involves guilt, even when the perpetrator may have sinned in ignorance; such ignorance does constitute an extenuating circumstance; God acknowledges that here (EG, 586). (God has often intimated His mind in dreams: cf. Gen. 28:12; Gen. 31:24; Gen. 37:5; Gen. 40:8; Gen. 41:1; 1 Ki. 3:51; Jeremiah 23, 25, 28, 32; Dan. 2:1; Dan. 4:5).
(6) Abrahams Explanation. Abimelech lost no time in setting things right, both in the understanding of his servants, and in the mind and heart of Abraham, protesting that the patriarch had brought on him and his kingdom near-disaster: thou hast done deeds unto me that ought not to be done. Abraham, apparently feeling a sense of guilt, accounted for his action on three grounds: (1) he surmised that the fear of God had been lost here as elsewhere throughout Canaan (undoubtedly a reaction from the awful scenes of the divine judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah); (2) he had not spoken a verbal untruth in declaring Sarah to be his sister; she was indeed his half-sister; (3) the action had been the result of a preconcerted arrangement between Sarah and himself, agreed upon at the time their wanderings began. (The patriarch attempts no self-justification, no exculpation: he simply states the facts,) The view that Abrahams statement in Gen. 20:12 is directly related to his statement in Gen. 20:11, is entirely plausible; that is, as if Abraham was saying, I spoke the truth about moral corruption in this place, because if the people had really been godfearing, they would have asked whether Sarah was also my wife, since one could marry his half-sister from the one father. The statement of the text indicates clearly that Sarah was her husbands half-sister, i.e., Terahs daughter by another wife than Abrahams mother. On the earlier levels of the development of the human race such closer relationships of those married were often necessary and so not abhorred as they came to be later. The Mosaic law would not allow such connections; see Lev. 18:9; Lev. 18:11; Lev. 20:17; Deu. 27:22. Whom Terah had first married or perhaps married after he had married Abrahams mother, we cannot determine (EG, 589590).
(7) Abimelechs Response (Gen. 20:14-16). The king carried out the divine instructions. He gave Sarah back to Abraham with a liberal present of sheep, cattle and servants, and gave the patriarch permission to dwell wherever he pleased in his, Abimelechs, land. He gave Abraham also a thousand shekels of silver: this was usually of the character of a purchase-price for a wife; here, however, it seems to have been a compensation for injury unwittingly inflicted. To Sarah he said, It is for thee a covering of the eyes, that is, not for a veil which she was to procure for this amount, but as an atoning gift. In respect of all thou art righted: the general sense seems to be that Sarahs honor was now fully rehabilitated.
(8) Abrahams Prayer (Gen. 20:17-18). The patriarch forthwith interceded in prayer for Abimelech and his people (cf. his intercessory prayer for Sodom and Gomorrah). As a result all the members of the kings court were now made capable of resuming their marital relations: coitus which had been temporarily suspended was now restored. This entire incident obviously was for the purpose of protecting the purity of the promised seed. In king Abimelech we meet with a totally different character from that of Pharaoh. We see in him a heathen imbued with a moral consciousness of right, and open to receive divine revelation, of which there is not the slightest trace in the king of Egypt. And Abraham, in spite of his natural weakness, and the consequent confusion which he manifested in the presence of the pious heathen, was exalted by the compassionate grace of God to the position of His own friend, so that even the heathen king, who seems to have been in the right in this instance, was compelled to bend before him and to seek the removal of the divine punishment, which had fallen upon him and his house, through the medium of his intercession. In this way God proved to the Philistine king, on the one hand, that He suffers no harm to befall His prophets (Psa. 105:15), and to Abraham on the other, that He can maintain His Covenant and secure the realization of His promise against all opposition from the sinful desires of earthly potentates. It was in this respect that the event possessed a typical significance in relation to the future attitude of Israel towards surrounding nations (BCOTP, 242, 243).
(9) Comparison of Gen. 12:10-20 and Gen. 20:1-18. Alleged differences in these two narratives is taken by the analytical critics as evidence of a weaving together of two original sources, J and E. (As a matter of fact this theme of a sister-wife relationship occurs again in Gen. 26:6-11 : in the first instance, involving Abraham-Pharaoh-Sarah; in the second, Abraham-Abimelech-Sarah, and in the third, Isaac-Abimelech-Rebekah). By the critics this chapter (20) is assumed to be an Elohistic document; then how account for the Jehovah of Gen. 20:18? The answer is that Gen. 20:18 demonstrates the fine propriety one often encounters in relating these two names. Gen. 20:18 states Yahwehs method of rendering the mother of the promised seed safe: the faithful covenant God in mercy watches over the mother of the child of the covenant; hence this verse is the complement essential to explaining Gen. 20:17. Other authorities explain that in Gen. 20:3, we have Elohim without the article, that is, Deity generally; but Abimelech recognizes the Lord, Adonai, i.e., God (Gen. 20:4); whereupon the historian represents Him as Elohim with the article, that is, the personal and true God, as speaking to him (Delitzsch, BCOTP, 240). Cf. Green (UBG, 251, 252): The critics have mistaken the lofty style used in describing grand creative acts or the vocabulary employed in setting forth the universal catastrophe of the deluge for the fixed habit of an Elohist writer, and set it over against the graceful style of the ordinary narrative in the early Jehovist sections. But in this chapter and in the rest of Genesis, whenever Elohim occurs in narrative sections, the stately periods of the account of the creation and the vocabulary of the creation and the flood are dropped, and terms appropriate to the common affairs of life and the ordinary course of human events are employed by the Elohist precisely as they are by the Jehovist. Elohim occurs throughout this chapter (Gen. 20:3; Gen. 20:6; Gen. 20:11-12; Gen. 20:17), except in the last verse (Gen. 20:18) where Jehovah is used. But the words and phrases are those which are held to be characteristic of the Jehovist. Thus do the critics nullify their own assured results.
Again, the question is raised by the critics, Why the specific inclusion of the elaboration by Abraham as regards his motivation in dealing with Abimelech, as distinguished from the narrative of his dealing with Pharaoh? That is to say, is there a reason for the explanation to Abimelech that his wife was in reality a half-sister in view of the fact that no such explanation was vouchsafed the king of Egypt? Obviously, there is a reason for this difference. Again, note Green (UBG, 257, n.): Abraham says of his wife at the outset, She is my sister (Gen. 20:2). In and of itself this is quite intelligible; and a Hebrew narrator would certainly have told this more plainly, if he had not on a like occasion stated in more detail what moved Abraham to it (Gen. 12:11-13). Was it necessary now to repeat it here? The rapidity with which he hastens on to the fact itself shows what he presupposes in the reader. But while in the first event of the kind (cf. 12), in Egypt, the narrator briefly mentions Pharaohs gifts and plagues, he sets forth in more detail the cause of Abrahams conduct. The reader might certainly be surprised that the same thing could happen twice to Abraham. The narrator is conscious of this; and in order to remove every doubt of this sort which might so easily arise, he lets Abraham clear up the puzzle in what he says to Abimelech (Gen. 20:11-13). Thus the narrator himself meets every objection that could be made, and by the words, when God caused me to wander from my fathers house (Gen. 20:13), he looks back so plainly over all thus far related, and at the same time indicates so exactly the time when he first thought of passing his wife off as his sister, everywhere in foreign lands, that this can only be explained from the previous narrative in ch. 12.
Certainly there are similarities between this episode and those recorded in Genesis 12 and Genesis 26. However, as Leupold writes (EG, 579): It is foolish to claim the identity of the incidents on the ground that they merely represent three different forms of the original event, forms assumed while being transmitted by tradition. Critics seem to forget that life just happens to be so strange a thing that certain incidents may repeat themselves in the course of one life, or that the lives of children often constitute a strange parallel to those of their parents. Smith-Field (OTH, 79) Here the deceit which Abraham had put upon Pharaoh, by calling Sarah his sister, was acted again with the like result. The repeated occurrence of such an event, which will meet us again in the history of Isaac, can surprise no one acquainted with Oriental manners; but it would have been indeed surprising if the author of any but a genuine narrative had exposed himself to a charge so obvious as that which has been founded on its repetition. The independent truth of each story is confirmed by the natural touches of variety; such as, in the case before us, Abimelechs keen but gentle satire in recommending Sarah to buy a veil with the thousand pieces of silver which he gave to her husband, We may also observe the traces of the knowledge of the true God among Abimelech and his servants (Gen. 20:9-11). Green (UBG, 258, n.): The circumstances are different in the two narratives. Here Abimelech makes Abraham a variety of presents after he understood the affair; there, Pharaoh before he understood it. Here God Himself appears; there He simply punishes. Here Abraham is called a prophet (Gen. 20:7), as he could not have been at once denominated when God had but just called him. The circumstances, the issue, and the description differ in many respects, and thus attest that this story is quite distinct from the former one. (Green quotes the foregoing from a work by the distinguished scholar, Ewald, Die Komposition der Genesis kritisch untersucht, 1823).
The following summarization by Leupold (EG, 579580) of the striking differences is conclusive, it seems to the writer: Note the following six points of difference: two different places are involved, Egypt and Philistia; two different monarchs of quite different characters, one idolatrous, the other, who fears the true God; different circumstances prevail, a famine on the one hand, nomadic migration on the other; different modes of revelation are employedthe one kind surmises the truth, the other receives revelation in a dream; the patriarchs reaction to the accusation is quite different in the two instances involvedin the first, silence; then in the second instance, a free explanation before a king of sufficient spiritual discernment; lastly, the conclusions of the two episodes are radically different from one anotherin the first instance, dismissal from the land; in the second, an invitation to stay in the land. We are compelled, therefore, to reverse the critical verdict: it is impossible to doubt that the two are variants of the same tradition. We have here two distinct, though similar, events.
Haley (ADB, 26): A favorite exegetical principle adopted by some of these critics appears to be, that similar events are necessarily identical. Hence, when they read that Abraham twice equivocated concerning his wife; that Isaac imitated his example; that David was twice in peril in a certain wilderness, and twice spared Sauls life in a cave, they instantly assume that in each case these double narratives are irreconcilable accounts of one and the same event. The absurdity of such a canon of criticism is obvious from the fact that history is full of events which more or less closely resemble one another. Take, as a well-known example the case of the two Presidents Edwards, father and son. Both were named Jonathan Edwards, and were the grandsons of clergymen. Both were pious in their youth, were distinguished scholars, and were tutors for equal periods in the colleges where they were respectively educated. Both were settled in the ministry as successors to their maternal grandfathers, were dismissed on account of their religious opinions, and again settled in retired country towns, over congregations singularly attached to them, where they had leisure to pursue their favorite studies, and to prepare and publish their valuable works. Both were removed from these stations to become presidents of colleges, and both died shortly after their respective inaugurations; the one in the fifty-sixth, and the other in the fifty-seventh year of his age; each having preached, on the first Sabbath of the year of his death, on the text: This year thou shalt die. (From Memoir prefixed to the Words of Edwards the younger, p. 34. Cf. also 1Sa. 23:19; 1Sa. 26:1; 1Sa. 24:6; 1Sa. 26:9, with Gen. 12:19; Gen. 20:2; Gen. 26:7.) Haley (ibid, 27, n.): Observe that no one of the above cases [in Genesis] bears, in respect to points of coincidence, worthy of comparison with this unquestioned instance in modern times. Again (ibid., 317): We have elsewhere seen that distant events may bear a very close resemblance. A late rationalist concedes that in those rude times, such a circumstance might have been repeated, and that the dissimilarities of the two cases render their identity doubtful. In king Abimelech, says Keil, we meet with a totally different character from that of Pharaoh. We see in the former a heathen imbued with a moral consciousness of right, and open to receive divine revelation, of which there is not the slightest trace in the king of Egypt. The two cases were evidently quite distinct. Again: Whereas Abraham makes no reply to Pharaohs stinging indictment (Gen. 12:20), he has here a great deal to say to Abimelech in self-defense (Gen. 20:11-13). In passing, it should be noted that Sarah was some sixty-five years old, in the encounter with Pharaoh. As a noble nomadic princess, undoubtedly she had led a healthful life with a great measure of freedom. (Haley, ibid., 318): In contrast to the swarthy, ugly, early-faded Egyptian women, she possessed no doubt great personal attraction. In the second instance, when she was some ninety years of age, nothing is said as to her beauty. Abimelech was influenced, not by Sarahs personal charms, but simply by a desire to ally himself with Abraham, the rich nomad prince (as Delitzsch puts it).
2. New Light on Abrahams Deceptions
(Explanatory: I have purposely withheld, for presentation at this point, certain evidence from recent archaeological findings which throws an entirely new light on Abrahams conduct toward Pharaoh and Abimelech, and have gone along, so to speak, with the traditional concept of Abrahams deceptions. It must be admitted that these do not portray the patriarch in a favorable light. On the basis of this viewpoint of his motives, perhaps the best that could be said by way of extenuation is the following comment by Leupold (EG, 593): If the case in hand is to be approached from the moral angle, then it is seen to offer an illustration how even with Gods best saints susceptibility to certain sins is not overcome by a single effort. These men of God, too, had their besetting sins and prevailing weaknesses. The repetition of the fall of Abraham under very similar circumstances, instead of constituting grounds for criticism should rather be regarded as a touch entirely true to life (EG, 593).
Dr. E. A. Speiser, in his excellent work on Genesis (Anchor Bible Series) presents an entirely different picture, as derived from Hurrian (Horite) customary law. The Horites evidently were a mixture of Semitic and Indo-European peoples who occupied East Central Mesopotamia. The chief center of Hurrian culture was Nuzi, which was east of the Tigris not too far southeast of Nineveh. (Another important center of archaeological findings was Mari, the center of the Amorite civilization; Mari was on the bend of the Euphrates, some distance northwest of Babylon, a region in which the city of Haran was located, which according to Genesis was the home of Abrahams kinsmen.) The Hurrian culture was not known until 19281929 when the Nuzi cuneiform documents (some 20,000 in number) were discovered. As a result we know that these people had some strange customs having to do with the sister-wife relationship.
Dr. Speiser writes (ABG, Intro., 39 ff.): Among the various patriarchal themes in Genesis, there are three in particular that exhibit the same blend of uncommon features: each theme appears to involve some form of deception; each has proved to be an obstinate puzzle to countless generations of students, ancient and modern; and at the same time, each was seemingly just as much of an enigma to the Biblical writers themselves. These three are specifically; the problem of the sister-wife relationship (Abraham and Sarah), that of the transfer of the birthright and the paternal blessing (as from Esau to Jacob), and that of a fathers disposition of his household gods (images, Gen. 31:19-30). (It is the first of these problems which we deal with here; the other two will be taken up in connection with their appearance in the Scripture text.) Involved in most of these instances are the laws of inheritance, especially those involved in adoption, and certain legal phraseology in some cases. Discoveries at Nuzi have shed a flood of light on these problems. The difficulty involved, however, is that of ascertaining the extent to which Abraham was familiar with this Hurrian customary law. Traditionally, Abraham has been regarded as resorting to deception to save his skin, in the three instances in Genesis in which he is represented as introducing his wife as his sister, primarily because the twohusband and wifefelt that this half-truth and half-lie was necessary to protect them from the erotic habits of their pagan neighbors. As we have already seen, the three occurrences of this episode have been used by the critics as an argument for the composite (documentary) authorship of the Pentateuch. Now, according to the light shed on the problem in the Nuzi documents, it was the custom among those of the higher social caste there (the nobility) for a husband to adopt his wife as his sister. This was designedly for social standing. Speiser (ABG, intro., 40): In Hurrian society a wife enjoyed special standing and protection when the law recognized her simultaneously as her husbands sister, regardles of blood ties. Such cases are attested by two separate legal documents, one dealing with the marriage and the other with the womans adoption as sister. This dual role conferred on the wife a superior position in society. The idea seems to have been that, under an old fratriarchal system, a sister had privileges that wives generally did not have. Hence, when Abraham said of Sarah, She is my sister, and Sarah said in turn of Abraham, He is my brother, this meant that they were, in a sense, untouchable. But, as this interpretation indicates, when they made these representations to Pharaoh, they found them of no avail. On the other hand, as this was their best defense under Hurrian law, it would seem that Abimelech was acquainted with that particular law and hence respected the position of Sarah. The same must also be true of the Abimelech who figured in the case of Isaac and Rebekah. Speiser concludes (ibid.) that in the context of the customary law involved, Abraham and Sarah were perfectly honorable in their representations.
Obviously, there are some serious objections to this general interpretation. In the first place, why were the representations made by Abraham and Sarah to the Egyptian king accepted at face value with the result that he took Sarah into his harem? It must be true, of course, that he had no such knowledge of the Hurrian law governing the case. It is said, however, that Pharaohs conduct must have been due to the fact that in Egypt the role of sister was not highly regarded. The difficulty with this explanation is the fact that it is not in harmony with what is known about Egyptian history and culture. (The reader is advised to read Dr. Will Durants great work, Our Oriental Heritage, pp. 164170, for reliable information about these matters.) Writes Dr. Durant: Very often the king married his own sisteroccasionally his daughterto preserve the purity of the royal blood . . . the institution of sister-marriage spread among the people, and as late as the second century after Christ two thirds of the citizens of Arsinoe were found to be practising the custom. The words brother and sister, in Egyptian poetry, have the same significance as lover and beloved among ourselves. . . . No people, ancient or modern, said Max Muller, has given women so high a legal status as did the inhabitants of the Nile Valley, . . . It is likely that this high status of woman arose from the mildly matriarchal character of Egyptian society. Not only was woman full mistress in the house, but all estates descended in the female line. . . . Men married their sisters not because familiarity bred romance, but because they wished to enjoy the family inheritance, etc. (pp 164166). Obviously, then, Abrahams device could have worked in Egypt only if the Pharaoh was familiar with Hurrian law and was willing to acknowledge it binding in his realm. But both of these conditions seem most unlikely.
Then, what about Abimelech? Was he aware of this Hurrian law, as far as Philistia was from far eastern Mesopotamia? It is possible that he could have been familiar with it. But, again, the opposite would seem to have been the truth. And again we have the difficulty of explaining why Abimelech would have been influenced by such a custom had he even known of it.
As for the Genesis story, the causes and effects involved are plainly presented. The truthfulness of the Genesis accounts of these sister-wife representations is in strict harmony with the realism of the whole Bible. And finally, the application of the Hurrian law to these cases necessitates certain pre-suppositions, namely, (1) that the redactors (apparently the possibility of Mosaic authorship is ignored) were completely ignorant of the Hurrian custom; (2) that in trying to weave together alleged varied traditions of one and the same original event, they allowed unexplainable inconsistencies to creep into the Genesis text; (3) that they must have experienced considerable embarrassment in portraying the revered patriarch and his wife as practising equivocation to save their own skins; that they were prompted to introduce in each case what was known in ancient times as the deus ex machina, i.e., the obtrusion of divine judgment to produce understanding, repentance and restitution on the part of the monarchs involved. Finally, and most serious of all, not only is the possibility of Mosaic authorship ignored, but even the possibility of Divine inspirationverbal, dynamic, or even supervisoryis completely disregarded.
The facts of the matter are, from the present authors point of view, that the narratives under consideration in Genesis are three different accounts of three different originals; and that the accounts, as they stand, are completely in line with Biblical realism. The Bible is the most realistic book in the world. It pictures life just as men have lived it in the past and as they live it now. It is pre-eminently the Book of Life. It portrays both their vices and virtues, their fears and their triumphs, their temptations and frailties as well as their victories of faith. The very first principle of Biblical interpretation is that the Bible should be allowed to mean what it says and to say what it means, without benefit of over-reaching analytical criticism or the gobbledygook of speculative theology. This is simply the application of the practical norm of calling Bible things by Bible names.
REVIEW QUESTIONS
See Gen. 21:22-24.
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
XX.
ABRAHAMS DENIAL OF HIS WIFE AT GERAR.
(1) Abraham journeyed from thence.That is, from Mamre, where he had so long halted, and which seems to have continued to be one of his homes. As he had been commanded to traverse the whole land (Gen. 13:17-18), we need seek no reasons for his removal. It was the rule of his life to move from place to place, both on account of his cattle, and also because by so doing he was taking possession of the country. There were, nevertheless, certain places which were his head-quarters, such as Bethel, Mamre, and Beer-sheba.
The south country.It is a proper name, the Negeb; see Note on Gen. 12:9. For Kadesh, see Gen. 16:14; for Shur, Gen. 16:7; and for Gerar, Gen. 10:19.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
ABRAHAM AND ABIMELECH, Gen 20:1-18.
1. Abraham journeyed from thence Not impelled by fear, as Lot (Gen 19:30) when he went up out of Zoar, but probably impressed by the destruction of Sodom that he must not sojourn too long with any one heathen people .
The south country Hebrews, the Negeb . See on Gen 13:1.
Kadesh On Trumbull’s identification of this place, see on Gen 14:7.
Shur See on Gen 16:7. The name Shur means a wall, and was, perhaps, first given to the high ridge or wall of rock extending north and south through the western portion of the desert et-Tih . This whole north-western part of the peninsula of Sinai thus came to be called the wilderness of Shur . See on Exo 15:22.
Gerar Rowlands discovered a valley and ruins, some three hours journey south of Gaza, bearing the name of Gerar, but the identification has not been sufficiently confirmed . He merely sojourned in Gerar as a stranger and pilgrim, while his more permanent dwelling (the abode of his great household and the place where his vast herds remained) was the open pasture lands between Kadesh and Shur .
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Abraham and Abimelech ( Gen 20:1-18 ).
Gen 20:1
‘And Abraham journeyed from there towards the land of the South, and dwelt between Kadesh and Shur, and he sojourned in Gerar.’
He had been established many years by the Oaks of Mamre but now he moves on, although he would later return to the area. There Sarah died and was buried (Gen 23:19), and he himself was buried there (Gen 25:9). Isaac later returns there (Gen 35:27) and Jacob was also buried there (Gen 50:13).
We do not know why Abraham moved on. Perhaps the area of Mamre was suffering from a period of drought, or the arrival of larger groups made it wiser to do so. Or it may be that the catastrophe of the cities of the Plain constrained him to such a move, giving him a feeling that he no longer wanted to be near so terrible a place. It may even be that the catastrophe had rendered the animal feedstuff around unpalatable. Whatever may be the case he now returns to the Negev, spending time there between Kadesh and Shur in the far South, before settling for a time in Gerar, which was probably about 10 miles South East of Gaza. If this identification is correct evidence of Gerar’s prosperity at this time has been unearthed.
The movements show that he was seeking a new place to settle and may suggest he was finding it difficult. Not everyone wanted such a family tribe on their doorsteps. ‘He sojourned in Gerar’. He feels this is the right place but is probably wary of what the local reaction will be. He had previously had a treaty arrangement with the King of Salem. But there is no mention yet of that here.
Gen 20:2
‘And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, “She is my sister”. And Abimelech, King of Gerar, sent and took Sarah.” ’
This incident compares with that in Gen 12:10-20, but apart from the claim that Sarah is Abraham’s sister, which was his constant practise (Gen 20:12-13) and the ‘taking of Sarah’ there are no similarities at all between the accounts. Both fit adequately into their particular backgrounds, and the whole tenors of the stories are different. This story is indeed leading up to the covenant between Abraham and Abimelech and is the necessary preparation for it (Gen 20:15-16).
Sarah was an outstandingly beautiful woman, and, even though she has now matured, the bloom of childbearing is on her and there are unquestionably some women who have something about them which gives them an attraction far beyond the norm at all ages. Sarah was clearly one of them. The beauty and attractiveness of a tribeswoman may well have been very different from that of Philistine women. So if Abraham did persist in describing her as his sister when they moved about the surprise is that there were only two such incidents known. Men will move mountains for an alluring woman.
The whole account reads superficially as though it happened over a few days but Gen 20:17-18 suggest a somewhat longer time span. The event did not take place immediately. The King had had time to observe Sarah as she moved about and had clearly built up a passion for her.
“Sent and took Sarah.” He may well have waited until Abraham was well away supervising the oversight of his flocks and herds, so that the arrival of men from the local king was unopposed. It is difficult to accept that Abraham would have stood idly by. This was not the Pharaoh of Egypt.
There is about the phrase a suggestion of the typical arrogance of a man who has a high opinion of his own importance. Such behaviour towards women was not uncommon. Indeed he may well have thought that Abraham would be pleased to learn that his matured sister was to marry ‘royalty’, although such men do not usually consider other people’s feelings.
That his intentions were honourable comes out in that he does not violate Sarah. He keeps her safely in preparation for the wedding to come.
Gen 20:3
‘But God came to Abimelech in a dream of the night and said to him, “Behold, you are but a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken. For she is a man’s wife.” ’
The use of ‘God’ in this passage rather than Yahweh is noteworthy. It arises from the fact that the main action between God and Abimelech is personal, and to Abimelech Yahweh is not God. Nor would God approach Abimelech as ‘Yahweh’, the covenant God. But Abimelech accepts that his dream comes from a divine being. Later however we are assured that we are to see here the activity of Yahweh (20:18).
“In a dream of the night”. This a fairly common method by which God communicates with outsiders. Compare Gen 31:24; Gen 41:25; Job 33:15-16. When outsiders receive dreams from God it is always as God and not as Yahweh. Only his prophets receive dreams from Yahweh (Gen 15:12; Num 12:6).
Abimelech’s real crime is that he has taken a woman for the purpose of making her his wife without due enquiry. It is true that he was misled, but his peremptory action prevented him from learning the truth. And unfortunately for him the woman in question was under the direct protection of Yahweh. But no man of ancient times would fail to see that what he had done, however accidentally, was a crime.
Gen 20:4-5
‘Now Abimelech had not come near her, and he said, “Lord, will you slay even a righteous nation? Did he not himself say to me, ‘She is my sister’. And she, even she herself, said, ‘He is my brother’. In the integrity of my heart and the innocency of my hands I have done this”.’
He addresses God as ‘Lord’, an address of deference, not as Yahweh. ‘Even a righteous nation’. The king equates himself with his people. To slay the king is to devastate the people. However there may be in this a reference to the fact, brought out in verse 19, that the conception of children had mysteriously dried up, which if it continued would certainly destroy the ‘nation’. But he considers the grounds for these things are unfair for they are ‘righteous’ (i.e. blameless in this case). He claims he has acted in all innocency. He did not view his peremptory action as anything but his right.
Gen 20:6-7
‘And God said to him in the dream, “Yes, I know that in the integrity of your heart you have done this, and I also withheld you from sinning against me. That is why I did not allow you to touch her. Now therefore, restore the man’s wife, for he is a prophet. And he will pray for you and you will live. But, if you do not restore her, know that you will surely die, you and all who are yours”.’
God acknowledges that at least he has not deliberately violated a man’s wife. But even to have done it ‘innocently’ would have been a crime against Yahweh because of whose she is. He must learn to be careful when dealing with the chosen of Yahweh.
Indeed Yahweh’s goodness is brought out in that He had prevented the occurrence of what would have been unforgivable. None must forget that Yahweh watches over His own.
“He is a prophet”. Compare on Genesis 15 where Abraham is first revealed as a prophet. As a prophet his prayer will be effective. Note that God does not see Abimelech as totally innocent. He needs to be prayed for by the one who has been offended against. And that Abraham is a ‘prophet’ would give Abimelech pause for thought. Prophets were highly regarded and feared.
“He will pray for you.” Powerful prayer was the evidence of a true prophet who, in special circumstances, alone could prevail with God (Number 12:13; 21:7; Deu 9:26; 1Sa 12:19). We gather from the passage that God is seeking to impress on Abimelech the importance of treating Abraham rightly. It may be that the atmosphere of the time is making it difficult for Abraham with his fearsome band to find somewhere to finally settle. Thus God is preparing the way for their permanent acceptance.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Abraham and Abimelech Gen 20:1-18 gives the account of Abraham and Abimelech. This king took his wife Sarah, and God judged him as He did Pharaoh. As a result the king returned Sarah to Abraham along with an abundance of wealth in order to make amends to Abraham and to his God.
Gen 20:1 And Abraham journeyed from thence toward the south country, and dwelled between Kadesh and Shur, and sojourned in Gerar.
Gen 20:1
Gen 18:1, “And the LORD appeared unto him in the plains of Mamre : and he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day;”
Gen 20:2 And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, She is my sister: and Abimelech king of Gerar sent, and took Sarah.
Gen 20:2
Gen 20:12, “And yet indeed she is my sister; she is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife.”
We also see Isaac calling Rebekah his sister when she was in fact not (Gen 26:7). So, Abraham was not necessarily telling the truth.
Gen 26:7, “And the men of the place asked him of his wife; and he said, She is my sister: for he feared to say, She is my wife; lest, said he, the men of the place should kill me for Rebekah; because she was fair to look upon.”
Gen 20:3 But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night, and said to him, Behold, thou art but a dead man, for the woman which thou hast taken; for she is a man’s wife.
Gen 20:4 Gen 20:4
Gen 20:5 Said he not unto me, She is my sister? and she, even she herself said, He is my brother: in the integrity of my heart and innocency of my hands have I done this.
Gen 20:6 Gen 20:7 Gen 20:7
Job 42:8, “Therefore take unto you now seven bullocks and seven rams, and go to my servant Job, and offer up for yourselves a burnt offering; and my servant Job shall pray for you : for him will I accept: lest I deal with you after your folly, in that ye have not spoken of me the thing which is right, like my servant Job.”
Gen 20:8 Therefore Abimelech rose early in the morning, and called all his servants, and told all these things in their ears: and the men were sore afraid.
Gen 20:9 Gen 20:10 Gen 20:11 Gen 20:12 Gen 20:12
Gen 11:29, “And Abram and Nahor took them wives: the name of Abram’s wife was Sarai ; and the name of Nahor’s wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah, and the father of Iscah.”
Gen 20:13 And it came to pass, when God caused me to wander from my father’s house, that I said unto her, This is thy kindness which thou shalt shew unto me; at every place whither we shall come, say of me, He is my brother.
Gen 20:14 Gen 20:15 Gen 20:16 Gen 20:17 Gen 20:17
Job 42:10, “And the LORD turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends: also the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before.”
Gen 20:18 For the LORD had fast closed up all the wombs of the house of Abimelech, because of Sarah Abraham’s wife.
Gen 20:18
Gen 18:10, “And he said, I will certainly return unto thee according to the time of life; and, lo, Sarah thy wife shall have a son. And Sarah heard it in the tent door, which was behind him.”
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Ten Genealogies (Calling) – The Genealogies of Righteous Men and their Divine Callings (To Be Fruitful and Multiply) – The ten genealogies found within the book of Genesis are structured in a way that traces the seed of righteousness from Adam to Noah to Shem to Abraham to Isaac and to Jacob and the seventy souls that followed him down into Egypt. The book of Genesis closes with the story of the preservation of these seventy souls, leading us into the book of Exodus where we see the creation of the nation of Israel while in Egyptian bondage, which nation of righteousness God will use to be a witness to all nations on earth in His plan of redemption. Thus, we see how the book of Genesis concludes with the origin of the nation of Israel while its first eleven chapters reveal that the God of Israel is in fact that God of all nations and all creation.
The genealogies of the six righteous men in Genesis (Adam, Noah, Shem, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob) are the emphasis in this first book of the Old Testament, with each of their narrative stories opening with a divine commission from God to these men, and closing with the fulfillment of prophetic words concerning the divine commissions. This structure suggests that the author of the book of Genesis wrote under the office of the prophet in that a prophecy is given and fulfilled within each of the genealogies of these six primary patriarchs. Furthermore, all the books of the Old Testament were written by men of God who moved in the office of the prophet, which includes the book of Genesis. We find a reference to the fulfillment of these divine commissions by the patriarchs in Heb 11:1-40. The underlying theme of the Holy Scriptures is God’s plan of redemption for mankind. Thus, the book of Genesis places emphasis upon these men of righteousness because of the role that they play in this divine plan as they fulfilled their divine commissions. This explains why the genealogies of Ishmael (Gen 25:12-18) and of Esau (Gen 36:1-43) are relatively brief, because God does not discuss the destinies of these two men in the book of Genesis. These two men were not men of righteousness, for they missed their destinies because of sin. Ishmael persecuted Isaac and Esau sold his birthright. However, it helps us to understand that God has blessed Ishmael and Esau because of Abraham although the seed of the Messiah and our redemption does not pass through their lineage. Prophecies were given to Ishmael and Esau by their fathers, and their genealogies testify to the fulfillment of these prophecies. There were six righteous men did fulfill their destinies in order to preserve a righteous seed so that God could create a righteous nation from the fruit of their loins. Illustration As a young schoolchild learning to read, I would check out biographies of famous men from the library, take them home and read them as a part of class assignments. The lives of these men stirred me up and placed a desire within me to accomplish something great for mankind as did these men. In like manner, the patriarchs of the genealogies in Genesis are designed to stir up our faith in God and encourage us to walk in their footsteps in obedience to God.
The first five genealogies in the book of Genesis bring redemptive history to the place of identifying seventy nations listed in the Table of Nations. The next five genealogies focus upon the origin of the nation of Israel and its patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
There is much more history and events that took place surrounding these individuals emphasized in the book of Genesis, which can be found in other ancient Jewish writings, such as The Book of Jubilees. However, the Holy Scriptures and the book of Genesis focus upon the particular events that shaped God’s plan of redemption through the procreation of men of righteousness. Thus, it was unnecessary to include many of these historical events that were irrelevant to God’s plan of redemption.
In addition, if we see that the ten genealogies contained within the book of Genesis show to us the seed of righteousness that God has preserved in order to fulfill His promise that the “seed of woman” would bruise the serpent’s head in Gen 3:15, then we must understand that each of these men of righteousness had a particular calling, destiny, and purpose for their lives. We can find within each of these genealogies the destiny of each of these men of God, for each one of them fulfilled their destiny. These individual destinies are mentioned at the beginning of each of their genealogies.
It is important for us to search these passages of Scripture and learn how each of these men fulfilled their destiny in order that we can better understand that God has a destiny and a purpose for each of His children as He continues to work out His divine plan of redemption among the children of men. This means that He has a destiny for you and me. Thus, these stories will show us how other men fulfilled their destinies and help us learn how to fulfill our destiny. The fact that there are ten callings in the book of Genesis, and since the number “10” represents the concept of countless, many, or numerous, we should understand that God calls out men in each subsequent generation until God’s plan of redemption is complete.
We can even examine the meanings of each of their names in order to determine their destiny, which was determined for them from a child. Adam’s name means “ruddy, i.e. a human being” ( Strong), for it was his destiny to begin the human race. Noah’s name means, “rest” ( Strong). His destiny was to build the ark and save a remnant of mankind so that God could restore peace and rest to the fallen human race. God changed Abram’s name to Abraham, meaning, “father of a multitude” ( Strong), because his destiny was to live in the land of Canaan and believe God for a son of promise so that his seed would become fruitful and multiply and take dominion over the earth. Isaac’s name means, “laughter” ( Strong) because he was the child of promise. His destiny was to father two nations, believing that the elder would serve the younger. Isaac overcame the obstacles that hindered the possession of the land, such as barrenness and the threat of his enemies in order to father two nations, Israel and Esau. Jacob’s name was changed to Israel, which means “he will rule as God” ( Strong), because of his ability to prevail over his brother Esau and receive his father’s blessings, and because he prevailed over the angel in order to preserve his posterity, which was the procreation of twelve sons who later multiplied into the twelve tribes of Israel. Thus, his ability to prevail against all odds and father twelve righteous seeds earned him his name as one who prevailed with God’s plan of being fruitful and multiplying seeds of righteousness.
In order for God’s plan to be fulfilled in each of the lives of these patriarchs, they were commanded to be fruitful and multiply. It was God’s plan that the fruit of each man was to be a godly seed, a seed of righteousness. It was because of the Fall that unrighteous seed was produced. This ungodly offspring was not then nor is it today God’s plan for mankind.
Outline Here is a proposed outline:
1. The Generation of the Heavens and the Earth Gen 2:4 to Gen 4:26
a) The Creation of Man Gen 2:4-25
b) The Fall Gen 3:1-24
c) Cain and Abel Gen 4:1-26
2. The Generation of Adam Gen 5:1 to Gen 6:8
3. The Generation of Noah Gen 6:9 to Gen 9:29
4. The Generation of the Sons of Noah Gen 10:1 to Gen 11:9
5. The Generation of Shem Gen 11:10-26
6. The Generation of Terah (& Abraham) Gen 11:27 to Gen 25:11
7. The Generation Ishmael Gen 25:12-18
8. The Generation of Isaac Gen 25:19 to Gen 35:29
9. The Generation of Esau Gen 36:1-43
10. The Generation of Jacob Gen 37:1 to Gen 50:26
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
The Genealogy of Terah (and of Abraham) The genealogies of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob have a common structure in that they open with God speaking to a patriarch and giving him a commission and a promise in which to believe. In each of these genealogies, the patriarch’s calling is to believe God’s promise, while this passage of Scripture serves as a witness to God’s faithfulness in fulfilling each promise. Only then does the genealogy come to a close.
Gen 11:27 to Gen 25:11 gives the account of the genealogy of Terah and his son Abraham. (Perhaps the reason this genealogy is not exclusively of Abraham, but rather of his father Terah, is because of the importance of Lot and the two tribes descended from him, the Moabites and the Ammonites, who will play a significant role in Israel’s redemptive history.) Heb 11:8-19 reveals the central message in this genealogy that stirs our faith in God when it describes Abraham’s acts of faith and obedience to God, culminating in the offering of his son Isaac on Mount Moriah. The genealogy of Abraham opens with God’s promise to him that if he would separate himself from his father and dwell in the land of Canaan, then God would make from him a great nation through his son (Gen 12:1-3), and it closes with God fulfilling His promise to Abraham by giving Him a son Isaac. However, this genealogy records Abraham’s spiritual journey to maturity in his faith in God, as is typical of each child of God. We find a summary of this genealogy in Heb 11:8-19. During the course of Abraham’s calling, God appeared to Abraham a number of times. God reappeared to him and told him that He would make his seed as numerous as the stars in the sky (Gen 15:5). God later appeared to Abraham and made the covenant of circumcision with him and said, “I will make My covenant between Me and you, and will multiply you exceedingly.”(Gen 17:2) After Abraham offered Isaac his son upon the altar, God reconfirmed His promise that “That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies.” (Gen 22:17). The event on Mount Moriah serves as a testimony that Abraham fulfilled his part in believing that God would raise up a nation from Isaac, his son of promise. Thus, Abraham fulfilled his calling and destiny for his generation by dwelling in the land of Canaan and believing in God’s promise of the birth of his son Isaac. All of God’s promises to Abraham emphasized the birth of his one seed called Isaac. This genealogy testifies to God’s faithfulness to fulfill His promise of giving Abraham a son and of Abraham’s faith to believe in God’s promises. Rom 9:6-9 reflects the theme of Abraham’s genealogy in that it discusses the son of promise called Isaac.
Abraham’s Faith Perfected ( Jas 2:21-22 ) – Abraham had a promise from God that he would have a son by Sarai his wife. However, when we read the Scriptures in the book of Genesis where God gave Abraham this promise, we see that he did not immediately believe the promise from God (Gen 17:17-18).
Gen 17:17-18, “Then Abraham fell upon his face, and laughed, and said in his heart, Shall a child be born unto him that is an hundred years old? and shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear? And Abraham said unto God, O that Ishmael might live before thee!”
Instead of agreeing with God’s promise, Abraham laughed and suggested that God use Ishmael to fulfill His promise. However, many years later, by the time God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son, he was fully persuaded that God was able to use Isaac to make him a father of nations. We see Abraham’s faith when he told his son Isaac that God Himself was able to provide a sacrifice, because he knew that God would raise Isaac from the dead, if need be, in order to fulfill His promise (Gen 22:8).
Gen 22:8, “And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together.”
Heb 11:17-19, “By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, Of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called: Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure.”
The best illustration of being fully persuaded is when Abraham believed that God would raise up Isaac from the dead in order to fulfill His promise. This is truly being fully persuaded and this is what Rom 4:21 is referring to.
What distinguished Abraham as a man of faith was not his somewhat initial weak reaction to the promises of God in Gen 17:17-18, but it was his daily obedience to God. Note a reference to Abraham’s daily obedience in Heb 11:8.
Heb 11:8, “By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed ; and he went out, not knowing whither he went.”
Abraham was righteous before God because he believed and obeyed God’s Words on a daily basis. A good illustration how God considers obedience as an act of righteousness is found in Genesis 19. Abraham had prayed for ten righteous people to deliver Sodom from destruction. The angels found only four people who hearkened to their words. These people were considered righteous in God’s eyes because they were obedient and left the city as they had been told to do by the angels.
Abraham’s ability to stagger not (Rom 4:20) and to be fully persuaded (Rom 4:21) came through time. As he was obedient to God, his faith in God’s promise began to take hold of his heart and grow, until he came to a place of conviction that circumstances no longer moved him. Abraham had to learn to be obedient to God when he did not understand the big picture. Rom 5:3-5 teaches us that tribulation produces patience, and patience produces experience, and experience hope. Abraham had to pass through these four phases of faith in order to develop strong faith that is no longer moved by circumstances.
Let us look at Abraham’s history of obedience to God. He had first been obedient to follow his father from Ur to Haran.
Gen 11:31, “And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son’s son, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram’s wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there.”
He was further obedient when he left Haran and went to a land that he did not know.
Gen 12:1, “Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee:”
He was further obedient for the next twenty-five years in this Promised Land, learning that God was his Shield and his Reward. Note:
Gen 15:1, “After these things the word of the LORD came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward.”
God called Himself Abraham’s shield and reward because Abraham had come to know Him as a God who protects him and as a God who prospers him. Note that Abraham was living in a land where people believed in many gods, where people believed that there was a god for every area of their lives. God was teaching Abraham that He was an All-sufficient God. This was why God said to Abraham in Gen 17:1, “I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect.” In other words, God was telling Abraham to be obedient. Abraham’s role in fulfilling this third promise was to be obedient, and to live a holy life. As Abraham did this, he began to know God as an Almighty God, a God who would be with him in every situation in life. As Abraham fulfilled his role, God fulfilled His divine role in Abraham’s life.
God would later test Abraham’s faith in Gen 22:1 to see if Abraham believed that God was Almighty.
Gen 22:1, “And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am.”
God knew Abraham’s heart. However, Abraham was about to learn what was in his heart. For on Mount Moriah, Abraham’s heart was fully persuaded that God was able to raise Isaac from the dead in order to fulfill His promise:
Heb 11:19, “Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure.”
Abraham had to die to his own ways of reasoning out God’s plan. He had taken Eliezer of Damascus as his heir as a result of God’s first promise. Then, he had conceived Ishmael in an attempt to fulfill God’s second promise. Now, Abraham was going to have to learn to totally depend upon God’s plan and learn to follow it.
The first promise to Abraham was made to him at the age of 75, when he first entered the Promised Land.
Gen 12:7, “And the LORD appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land: and there builded he an altar unto the LORD, who appeared unto him.”
This first promise was simple, that God would give this land to Abraham’s seed. So, Abraham took Eliezer of Damascus as his heir. But the second promise was greater in magnitude and more specific.
Gen 15:4-5, “And, behold, the word of the LORD came unto him, saying, This shall not be thine heir; but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir. And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be.
This next promise said that God would give Abraham this land to Abraham’s biological child and that his seed would proliferate and multiply as the stars of heaven. So, Abraham has a son, Ishmael, by Hagar, his handmaid in order to fulfill this promise.
The third promise, which came twenty-five years after the first promise, was greater than the first and second promises. God said that Abraham would become a father of many nations through Sarah, his wife. Abraham had seen God be his Shield and protect him from the Canaanites. He had seen God as his Reward, by increasing his wealth (Gen 15:1). But now, Abraham was to learn that God was Almighty (Gen 17:1), that with God, all things are possible.
It was on Mount Moriah that Abraham truly died to himself, and learned to live unto God. In the same way, it was at Peniel that Jacob died to his own self and learned to totally depend upon God. After Mount Moriah, Abraham stopped making foolish decisions. There is not a fault to find in Abraham after his experience of sacrificing his son. When Abraham was making wrong decisions, he had the wisdom to build an altar at every place he pitched his tent. It was at these altars that he dealt with his sins and wrong decisions.
At Peniel God called Jacob by the name Israel. Why would God give Jacob this name? Because Jacob must now learn to totally trust in God. His thigh was limp and his physical strength was gone. The only might that he will ever know the rest of his life will be the strength that he finds in trusting God. Jacob was about to meet his brother and for the first time in his life, he was facing a situation that he could not handle in his own strength and cunning. He has been able to get himself out of every other situation in his life, but this time, it was different. He was going to have to trust God or die, and Jacob knew this. His name was now Israel, a mighty one in God. Jacob would have to now find his strength in God, because he had no strength to fight in the flesh. Thus, his name showed him that he could look to God and prevail as a mighty one both with God and with man. After this night, the Scriptures never record a foolish decision that Jacob made. He began to learn how to totally rely upon the Lord as his father Abraham had learned.
After Mount Moriah and Peniel, we read no more of foolish decisions by Abraham and Jacob. We just see men broken to God’s will and humble before God’s mercy.
Obedience is the key, and total obedience is not learned quickly. I believe that it takes decades, as we see in the life of Abraham, to learn to be obedient to a God whom we know as Almighty. This is not learned over night.
Abraham had a word from God before he left Ur. When he reached Canaan, he received a promise from God. Don’t mess with a man and his promise. Pharaoh tried to mess with this man’s promise and God judged him. King Abimelech tried to take Abraham’s promise, but God judged him.
Like Abraham, we may start the journey making some poor judgments, but God is greater than our errors.
We will first know God as our shield and our reward. He will protect us throughout our ministry. He will reward us. He will prosper our ministry. As we learn to be obedient, we will come to know our God as the Almighty in a way that we have never known Him before.
Do not mess with a man who has laid Isaac on the altar. I have heard Gen 17:17 taught as the laugh of faith.
Gen 17:17-18, “Then Abraham fell upon his face, and laughed, and said in his heart, Shall a child be born unto him that is an hundred years old? and shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear? And Abraham said unto God, O that Ishmael might live before thee!”
I see very little faith in Abraham’s words in these verses. On the other hand, I have heard other preachers criticize Abraham for his lack of faith at these times in his life; yet, I do not see God criticizing his faith. Abraham was not fully persuaded at this point, but he did not fail God. Abraham simply continued being obedient and living holy until the faith grew in his heart. Every wrong decision that Abraham made brought him that much closer to the right decision. We call this the school of hard knocks. As a result, faith continued to grow in his heart. By Genesis 22, Abraham was fully persuaded and strong in faith that God was Almighty.
Watch out, lest you criticize a man learning to walk in his promise. He may look foolish at times, but do not look on the outward appearance. You either run with him, or get out of the way, but don’t get in the way.
When I left Seminary and a Master’s degree, I was given a job driving a garbage truck while learning to pastor a Charismatic church. I was learning to walk in a promise from God. I will never forget riding on the back of these garbage trucks in my hometown, while the church members who had given money to send me to Seminary watched me in disbelief.
God does not measure a man by the size of his ministry, but by the size of his heart. When Jimmy Swaggart fell into sin, Alethia Fellowship Church was one of his partners, so this church was receiving his monthly ministry tapes during this period in his ministry. In a cassette tape immediately after his fall, he gave a testimony of how he told the Lord that he had failed. The Lord replied to him that he had not failed; rather the Lord had to get some things out of his life. [170] That word from God gave him the courage to go on in the midst of failure. You see, God was more pleased with Jimmy Swaggart living a godly life in fellowship with Him than preaching in great crusades while living in sin.
[170] Jimmy Swaggart, “Monthly Partner Cassette Tape,” (Baton Rouge, Louisiana: Jimmy Swaggart Ministries, February 1988), audiocassette.
Joyce Meyer said that if God measured our success by the way the world measured us, He would have called us “achievers” and not “believers.” [171] Abraham was justified by faith and not by his works. Our work is to believe, not to achieve.
[171] Joyce Meyer, Life in the Word (Fenton, Missouri: Joyce Meyer Ministries), on Trinity Broadcasting Network (Santa Ana, California), television program.
Many of my church friends and relatives criticized me as a failure. However, I knew somehow that the walk of faith was obedience to the Word of God, and not a walk of pleasing man. I obviously did not spend much time with people who thought that I was nuts. Instead, I spent so much time in my bedroom studying my Bible that I looked dysfunctional. Yet, the Lord strengthened me. I will never forget, after riding the garbage truck during the day, and hiding in God’s Word in the night. One night, I laid down about 1:00 a.m. and the glory of God filled my room until 5:00 a.m. in the morning. It was during these most difficult times that the Lord strengthened me the most.
The Lord strengthened Abraham in the midst of his questions and errors. If you will just stay obedient, God will see His Word come to pass through you, as did Abraham learn to see God as Almighty.
Gen 11:27 Now these are the generations of Terah: Terah begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran begat Lot.
Gen 11:28 Gen 11:28
“And in the thirty-fifth jubilee, in the third week, in the first year [1681 A.M.] thereof, Reu took to himself a wife, and her name was ‘Ora, the daughter of ‘Ur, the son of Kesed, and she bare him a son, and he called his name Seroh, in the seventh year of this week in this jubilee. And ‘Ur, the son of Kesed, built the city of ‘Ara of the Chaldees, and called its name after his own name and the name of his father. And they made for themselves molten images, and they worshipped each the idol, the molten image which they had made for themselves, and they began to make graven images and unclean simulacra, and malignant spirits assisted and seduced (them) into committing transgression and uncleanness.” ( The Book of Jubilees 11.1-5)
Gen 11:29 And Abram and Nahor took them wives: the name of Abram’s wife was Sarai; and the name of Nahor’s wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah, and the father of Iscah.
Gen 11:29
Gen 20:12, “And yet indeed she is my sister; she is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife.”
Compare the comments in Gen 11:29 where Nahor, Abraham’s brother, took his niece, the daughter of Haran, as his wife.
Gen 11:29 “and the name of Nahor’s wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah, and the father of Iscah” – Word Study on “Milcah” Gesenius tells us that by Chaldean usage the Hebrew name “Milcah” “Milkah” ( ) (H4435) means “counsel.” Strong tells us that the name means, “queen.” PTW tells us it means, “counsel.” She is daughter of Haran and sister to Lot and Iscah. She married her uncle named Nahor and bare him eight children. She is first mentioned in Gen 11:29 in the genealogy of Terah. She is mentioned a second time in Scripture Gen 22:20-24, where Nahor’s genealogy is given. Her name is mentioned on a third occasion in the chapter where Isaac takes Rebekah as his bride (Gen 24:15; Gen 24:24; Gen 24:47). She is mentioned no more in the Scriptures.
Word Study on “Iscah” Gesenius says the Hebrew name “Iscah” “Yickah” ( ) (H3252) means, “one who beholds, looks out” from ( ). Strong tells us that it comes from an unused word meaning “to watch.” PTW tells us it means, “Jehovah is looking” or “who looks.” Iscah was the sister to Milcah and Lot. Nothing more is mentioned of this person in the Scriptures, her significance being her relationship to her siblings, of whom Lot is the best known.
Gen 11:30 But Sarai was barren; she had no child.
Gen 11:30
Gen 11:31 And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son’s son, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram’s wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there.
Gen 11:31
“And Terah went forth from Ur of the Chaldees, he and his sons, to go into the land of Lebanon and into the land of Canaan, and he dwelt in the land of Haran, and Abram dwelt with Terah his father in Haran two weeks of years.” ( The Book of Jubilees 12.15-16)
However, Act 7:1-4 says that it was Abraham who moved out from Ur due to a Word from the Lord.
Act 7:1-4, “Then said the high priest, Are these things so? And he said, Men, brethren, and fathers, hearken; The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Charran, And said unto him, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and come into the land which I shall shew thee. Then came he out of the land of the Chaldaeans, and dwelt in Charran: and from thence, when his father was dead, he removed him into this land, wherein ye now dwell.”
Gen 11:31 Scripture References – Note:
Jos 24:2, “And Joshua said unto all the people, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood in old time, even Terah , the father of Abraham, and the father of Nachor: and they served other gods.”
Gen 11:32 And the days of Terah were two hundred and five years: and Terah died in Haran.
Gen 12:1-3
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
The Calling of the Patriarchs of Israel We can find two major divisions within the book of Genesis that reveal God’s foreknowledge in designing a plan of redemption to establish a righteous people upon earth. Paul reveals this four-fold plan in Rom 8:29-30: predestination, calling, justification, and glorification.
Rom 8:29-30, “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.”
The book of Genesis will reflect the first two phase of redemption, which are predestination and calling. We find in the first division in Gen 1:1 to Gen 2:3 emphasizing predestination. The Creation Story gives us God’s predestined plan for mankind, which is to be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth with righteous offspring. The second major division is found in Gen 2:4 to Gen 50:25, which gives us ten genealogies, in which God calls men of righteousness to play a role in His divine plan of redemption.
The foundational theme of Gen 2:4 to Gen 11:26 is the divine calling for mankind to be fruitful and multiply, which commission was given to Adam prior to the Flood (Gen 1:28-29), and to Noah after the Flood (Gen 9:1). The establishment of the seventy nations prepares us for the calling out of Abraham and his sons, which story fills the rest of the book of Genesis. Thus, God’s calling through His divine foreknowledge (Gen 11:27 to Gen 50:26) will focus the calling of Abraham and his descendants to establish the nation of Israel. God will call the patriarchs to fulfill the original purpose and intent of creation, which is to multiply into a righteous nation, for which mankind was originally predestined to fulfill.
The generations of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob take up a large portion of the book of Genesis. These genealogies have a common structure in that they all begin with God revealing Himself to a patriarch and giving him a divine commission, and they close with God fulfilling His promise to each of them because of their faith in His promise. God promised Abraham a son through Sarah his wife that would multiply into a nation, and Abraham demonstrated his faith in this promise on Mount Moriah. God promised Isaac two sons, with the younger receiving the first-born blessing, and this was fulfilled when Jacob deceived his father and received the blessing above his brother Esau. Jacob’s son Joseph received two dreams of ruling over his brothers, and Jacob testified to his faith in this promise by following Joseph into the land of Egypt. Thus, these three genealogies emphasize God’s call and commission to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and their response of faith in seeing God fulfill His word to each of them.
1. The Generations of Terah (& Abraham) Gen 11:27 to Gen 25:11
2. The Generations Ishmael Gen 25:12-18
3. The Generations of Isaac Gen 25:19 to Gen 35:29
4. The Generations of Esau Gen 36:1-43
5. The Generations of Jacob Gen 37:1 to Gen 50:26
The Origin of the Nation of Israel After Gen 1:1 to Gen 9:29 takes us through the origin of the heavens and the earth as we know them today, and Gen 10:1 to Gen 11:26 explains the origin of the seventy nations (Gen 10:1 to Gen 11:26), we see that the rest of the book of Genesis focuses upon the origin of the nation of Israel (Gen 11:27 to Gen 50:26). Thus, each of these major divisions serves as a foundation upon which the next division is built.
Paul the apostle reveals the four phases of God the Father’s plan of redemption for mankind through His divine foreknowledge of all things in Rom 8:29-30, “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.” Predestination – Gen 1:1 to Gen 11:26 emphasizes the theme of God the Father’s predestined purpose of the earth, which was to serve mankind, and of mankind, which was to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth with righteousness. Calling – Gen 11:27 to Gen 50:26 will place emphasis upon the second phase of God’s plan of redemption for mankind, which is His divine calling to fulfill His purpose of multiplying and filling the earth with righteousness. (The additional two phases of Justification and Glorification will unfold within the rest of the books of the Pentateuch.) This second section of Genesis can be divided into five genealogies. The three genealogies of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob begin with a divine calling to a patriarch. The two shorter genealogies of Ishmael and Esau are given simply because they inherit a measure of divine blessings as descendants of Abraham, but they will not play a central role in God’s redemptive plan for mankind. God will implement phase two of His divine plan of redemption by calling one man named Abraham to depart unto the Promised Land (Gen 12:1-3), and this calling was fulfilled by the patriarch. Isaac’s calling can also be found at the beginning of his genealogy, where God commands him to dwell in the Promised Land (Gen 26:1-6), and this calling was fulfilled by the patriarch Isaac. Jacob’s calling was fulfilled as he bore twelve sons and took them into Egypt where they multiplied into a nation. The opening passage of Jacob’s genealogy reveals that his destiny would be fulfilled through the dream of his son Joseph (Gen 37:1-11), which took place in the land of Egypt. Perhaps Jacob did not receive such a clear calling as Abraham and Isaac because his early life was one of deceit, rather than of righteousness obedience to God; so the Lord had to reveal His plan for Jacob through his righteous son Joseph. In a similar way, God spoke to righteous kings of Israel, and was silent to those who did not serve Him. Thus, the three patriarchs of Israel received a divine calling, which they fulfilled in order for the nation of Israel to become established in the land of Egypt. Perhaps the reason the Lord sent the Jacob and the seventy souls into Egypt to multiply rather than leaving them in the Promised Land is that the Israelites would have intermarried the cultic nations around them and failed to produce a nation of righteousness. God’s ways are always perfect.
1. The Generations of Terah (& Abraham) Gen 11:27 to Gen 25:11
2. The Generations Ishmael Gen 25:12-18
3. The Generations of Isaac Gen 25:19 to Gen 35:29
4. The Generations of Esau Gen 36:1-43
5. The Generations of Jacob Gen 37:1 to Gen 50:26
Divine Miracles It is important to note that up until now the Scriptures record no miracles in the lives of men. Thus, we will observe that divine miracles begin with Abraham and the children of Israel. Testimonies reveal today that the Jews are still recipients of God’s miracles as He divinely intervenes in this nation to fulfill His purpose and plan for His people. Yes, God is working miracles through His New Testament Church, but miracles had their beginning with the nation of Israel.
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Sarah Again in Danger
v. 1. And Abraham journeyed from thence toward the south country, and dwelled between Kadesh and Shur, and sojourned in Gerar. v. 2. And Abraham said of Sarah, his wife, She is my sister; and Abimelech, king of Gerar, sent and took Sarah. v. 3. But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night and said to him, Behold, thou art but a dead man for the woman which thou hast taken; for she is a man’s wife. v. 4. But Abimelech had not come near her; and he said, Lord, wilt Thou slay also a righteous nation? v. 5. Said he not unto me, She is my sister? And she, even she herself, said, He is my brother. In the integrity of my heart and ithis of my hands have I done this. v. 6. And God said unto him in a dream, Yea, I know that thou didst this in the integrity of thy heart; for I also withheld thee from sinning against me; therefore suffered I thee not to touch her. v. 7. Now, therefore, restore the man his wife; for he is a prophet, and he shall pray for thee, and thou shalt live; and if thou restore her not, know that thou shalt surely die, thou and all that are thine.
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
EXPOSITION
Gen 20:1
And Abraham journeyed (vide Gen 12:9) from thence. Mamre (Gen 18:1). In search of pasture, as on a previous occasion (Keil); or in consequence of the hostility of his neighbors (Calvin); or because he longed to escape from the scene of so terrible a calamity as he had witnessed (Calvin, Wilier, Murphy); or in order to benefit as many places and peoples as possible by his residence among them (A Lapide); or perhaps being impelled by God, who designed thereby to remind him that Canaan was not intended for a permanent habitation, but for a constant pilgrimage (Poole, Kalisch). Toward the south country. Negeb, the southern district of Palestine (Gen 12:9; Gen 13:1); the central region of Judaea being called Hahor, or the Highlands; the eastern, towards the Dead Sea, Midhbar; and the western Shephelah (Lange). And dwelled between Kadesh and Shur (vide Gen 16:14 and Gen 16:7), and sojourned in Gerar (vide Gen 10:19).
Gen 20:2
And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, She is my sister. As formerly he had done on descending into Egypt (Gen 12:13). That Abraham should a second time have resorted to this ignoble expedient after the hazardous experience of Egypt and the richly-merited rebuke of Pharaoh, but more especially after the assurance he had lately received of his own acceptance before God (Gen 15:6), and of Sarah’s destiny to be the mother of the promised seed (Gen 17:16), is well nigh unaccountable, and almost irreconcilable with any degree of faith and piety. Yet the lapse of upwards of twenty years since that former mistake may have deadened the impression of sinfulness which Pharaoh’s rebuke must have left upon his conscience; while altogether the result of that experiment may, through a common misinterpretation of Divine providence, have encouraged him to think that God would watch over the purity of his house as he had done before. Thus, though in reality a tempting of God, the patriarch’s repetition of his early venture may have had a secret connection with his deeply-grounded faith in the Divine promise (cf. Kalisch in loco). And Abimelechi.e. Father-king, a title of the Philistine kings (Gen 21:22; Gen 26:1; Psa 34:1), as Pharaoh was of the Egyptian (Gen 12:15), and Hamor of the Shechemite (Gen 34:4) monarchs; cf. Padishah (father-king), a title of the Persian kings, and Atalik (father, properly paternity), of the Khans of Bokharaking of Gerar sent, and took Sarah. I.e. into his harem, as Pharaoh previously had done (Gen 12:15), either having been fascinated by her beauty, which, although she was twenty years older than when she entered Egypt, need not have been much faded (vide Gen 12:11; Calvin), or may have been miraculously rejuvenated when she received strength to conceive seed (Kurtz); or, what is as probable, having sought through her an alliance with the rich and powerful nomad prince who had entered his dominions (Delitzsch).
Gen 20:3
But GodElohim; whence the present chapter, with the exception of Gen 20:18, is assigned to the Elohist (Tuch, De Wette, Bleek, Davidson), and the incident at Gerar explained as the original legend, of which the story of Sarah’s abduction by Pharaoh is the Jehovistic imitation. But
(1) the use of Elohim throughout the present chapter is sufficiently accounted for by observing that it describes the intercourse of Deity with a heathen monarch, to whom the name of Jehovah was unknown, while the employment of the latter term in Gen 20:18 may be ascribed to the fact that it is the covenant God of Sarah who there interposes for her protection; and
(2) the apparent resemblance between the two incidents is more than counterbalanced by the points of diversity which subsist between themcame to Abimelech in a dreamthe usual mode of self-revelation employed by Elohim towards heathen. Cf. Pharaoh’s dreams (Gen 41:1) and Nebuchadnezzar’s (Dan 4:5), as distinguished from the visions in which Jehovah manifests his presence to his people. Cf. the theophanies vouchsafed to Abraham (Gen 12:7; Gen 15:1; Gen 18:1) and to Jacob (Gen 28:13; Gen 32:24), and the visions granted to Daniel (Dan 7:1-28; Dan 10:5-9) and the prophets generally, which, though sometimes occurring in dreams, were yet a higher form of Divine manifestation than the dreamsby night, and said to him, Behold, thou art but a dead man,literally, behold thyself dying, or about to die (LXX.). Abimelech, it is probable, was by this time suffering from the malady which had fallen on his house (vide Verse 17)for (i.e. on account of) the woman which thou hast taken; for she is a man’s wifeliterally, married to a husband, or under lordship to a lord (cf. Deu 22:22).
Gen 20:4
But Abimelech had not come near her. Apparently withheld by the peculiar disease which had overtaken him. The statement of the present verse (a similar one to which is not made with reference to Pharaoh) was clearly rendered necessary by the approaching birth of Isaac, who might otherwise have been said to be the child not of Abraham, but of the Philistine king. And he said, Lord,Adonai (vide Gen 15:2)wilt thou slay also a righteous nation? Anticipating that the stroke of Divine judgment was about to fall upon his people as well as on himself, with allusion to the fate of Sodom (Knobel), which he deprecates for his people at least on the ground that they are innocent of the offence charged against him (cf. 2Sa 24:17). That Abimelech and his people, like Melchisedeck and his subjects, had some knowledge of the true God, and that the Canaanites generally at this period had not reached the depth of moral degradation into which the cities of the Jordan circle had sunk before their overthrow, is apparent from the narrative. The comparative virtue, therefore, of these tribes was a proof that the hour had not arrived for the infliction on them of the doom of extermination.
Gen 20:5
Said he not unto me, She is my sister? and she, even she herself said, He is my brother. From which it is clear that the Philistine monarch, equally with the Egyptian Pharaoh, shrank from the sin of adultery. In the integrity of my heart and innocency of my hands have I done this. I.e. he assumes the right of kings to take unmarried persons into their harems,
Gen 20:6
And God said unto him in a dream,”It is in full agreement with the nature of dreams that the communication should be made in several, and not in one single act; cf. Gen 37:1-36, and Gen 41:1-57.; Mat 2:1-23.” (Lange)Yea, I know that thou didst this in the integrity of thy hearti.e. judged from thy moral standpoint. The words do not imply a Divine acquittal as to the essential guiltiness of the act, which is clearly involved in the instruction to seek the mediation of God’s prophet (Mat 2:7). For I also withheld thee from sinning against me: therefore suffered I thee not to touch her (vide on Mat 2:4).
Gen 20:7
Now therefore restore the man his wife. Literally, the wife of the man, God now speaking of Abraham non tanquam de homine quolibet, sod peculiariter sibi charum (Calvin). For he is a prophet Nabi, from naba, to cause to bubble up; hence to pour forth, applied to one who speaks by a Divine afflatus (Deu 13:2; Jdg 6:8; 1Sa 9:9; 1Ki 22:7). The office of the Nabi was twofoldto announce the will of God to melt Exo 4:15; Exo 7:1), and also to intercede with God for men (Exo 7:7; Jer 7:16; Jer 11:14; Jer 14:11). The use of the term Nabi in this place neither proves that the spirit of prophecy had not existed from the beginning (cf. Gen 9:25-27), nor shows that the Pentateuch, which always uses this term, cannot be of greater antiquity than the time of Samuel, before which, according to 1Sa 9:9, the prophet was called a seer (Bohlen, Hartmann). As used in the Pentateuch the term describes the recipient of Divine revelations, and as such it was incorporated in the Mosaic legislation. During the period of the Judges the term Roeh appears to have come into use, and to have held its ground until the reformation of Samuel, when the older theocratic term was again reverted to (vide Havernick, 19). And he shall pray for thee (vide supra), and thou shalt live. Literally, live thou, the imperative being used for the future in strong prophetic assurances. And if thou restore her not, know thou that thou shalt surely die,literally, dying thou shalt die (cf. Gen 2:17)thou, and all that are thine.
Gen 20:8
Therefore Abimelech rose early in the morning,an evidence of the terror into which’ he had been cast by the Divine communication, and of his earnest desire to carry out the Divine instructionsand called all his servants, and told all these things in their ears:confessed his fault, explained his danger, and affirmed his intention to repair his error; a proof of the humility of this God-fearing king (Lange)and the men were sere afraid. It spoke well for the king’s household that they received the communication with seriousness.
Gen 20:9
Then Abimelech called Abraham, and said unto him (in the presence of his people), What hast thou done unto us?identifying himself once more with his people, as he had already done in responding to God (Gen 20:4)and what have I offended thee, that thou hast brought on me and on my kingdom a great sin? The gravamen of Abimelech’s accusation was that Abraham had led him and his to offend against God, and so to lay themselves open to the penalties of wrong-doing. Thou hast done deeds unto me that ought not to be done. Literally, deeds which ought not to be done thou hast done with me. The king’s words were unquestionably designed to convey a severe reproach.
Gen 20:10
And Abimelech said unto Abraham, What sawest thou,either, What hadst thou in view? (Knobel, Delitzsch, Keil, Murphy, et alii), or, What didst thou see? Didst thou see any of my people taking the wives of strangers and murdering their husbands? (Rosenmller, ‘Speaker’s Commentary’)that thou hast done this thing?
Gen 20:11
And Abraham said (offering as his first apology for his sinful behavior the fear which he entertained of the depravity of the people), Because I thought,literally, said (sc. in my heart)Surely the fear of God is not in this place;otherwise, there is not any fear of God, having usually a confirming sense with reference to what followsand they will slay me for my wife’s sake.
Gen 20:12
And yet indeed she is my sister. This was the second of the patriarch’s extenuating pleas, that he had not exactly lied, having uttered at least a half truth. She is the daughter of my father (Terah), But not the daughter of my mother. That Sarah was the grand-daughter of Terah, i.e. the daughter of Haran, and sister of Lot, in other words, Iscah, has been maintained. That she was Terah’s niece, being a brother’s daughter adopted by him, has received some support (Calvin); but there seems no reason for departing from the statement of the text, that she was her husband’s half-sister, i.e. Terah’s daughter by another wife than Abraham’s mother (Rosenmller, Kalisch, Keil, Knobel). And she became my wife.
Gen 20:13
And it came to pass, when God caused me to wander (or to go on pilgrimages) from my father’s house,Elohim, usually construed with a singular verb, is here joined with a verb in the plural, as an accommodation to the polytheistic stand-point of Abimelech (Keil), as a proof that Elohim is to be viewed as a Pluralis Majestaticus (Kalisch), as referring to the plurality of Divine manifestations which Abraham had received (Lange), as showing that Elohim here signifies angels (Calvin), or, most likely, as an instance of the literal meaning of the term as the supernatural powers (Murphy. Cf. Gen 35:7; Exo 22:8; 2Sa 7:23; Ps 58:12that I said unto her, This is thy kindness which thou shalt show unto me. The third plea which the patriarch presented for his conduct; it had no special reference to Abimelech, but was the result of an old compact formed between himself and Sarah. At every place whither he shall come, say of me, He is my brother (cf. Gen 12:13).
Gen 20:14
And Abimelechas Pharaoh did (Gen 12:18), but with a different motivetook sheep, and oxen, and men-servants, and women-servants. The LXX. and Samaritan insert “a thousand didrachmas” after “took,” in order to include Sarah’s present, mentioned in Gen 20:16; but the two donations are separated in order to distinguish them as Abraham’s gift and Sarah’s respectively (Rosenmller, Delitzsch), or the sum of money may indicate the value of the sheep and oxen, &c. which Abraham received (Keil, Knobel, Lange, ‘Speaker’s Commentary’). And gave them unto Abraham. To propitiate his favor for the wrong he had suffered. Pharaoh’s gifts were “for the sake of Sarah” (Gen 12:16). And restored him Sarah his wife.
Gen 20:15
And Abimelech said, Behold, my land is before thee: dwell where it pleaseth thee. Literally, in the good in thine eyes; the generous Philistine offering him a settlement within his borders, whereas the Egyptian monarch hastened his departure from the country (Gen 12:20).
Gen 20:16
And unto Sarah he said, Behold, I have given thy Brother a thousand pieces of silver. Literally, a thousand of silver, the exact weight of each piece being uncertain. If sacred shekels (Gesenius, Keil, Kalisch) their value would be over 130, if shekels ordinary somewhat less. Behold, hei.e. thy brother; or it, i.e. the present (LXX; Vulgate, Targums, Syriac)is to thee a covering of the eyes. (from a root signifying to cover over) has been understood as
(1) a propitiatory gift (LXX.), or
(2) a veil for the protection of the face;
and, according as the subject of the sentence has been regarded as Abraham or the sum of money, the sense of the clause has been given as either
(1) he, i.e. thy brother, will be to thee a protection, hiding thee like a veil, from the voluptuous desires of others (Aben Ezra, Cajetan, Calvin, Kalisch); or
(2) it, i.e. this present of mine, will be to thee a propitiatory offering to make thee overlook my offence (Chrysostom, Gesenius, Furst, Knobel, Delitzsch, Keil, Murphy); or
(3) a declaration of thy purity, and so a defense to thee against any calumnious aspersions (Castalio); or
(4) the purchase-money of a veil to hide thy beauty, lest others be ensnared (Vulgate, Amble, Kitto, Clark); or
(5) the means of procuring that bridal veil which married females should never lay aside (cf. Gen 24:65; Dathe, Vitringa, Michaelis, Baumgarten, Rosenmller).
The exact sense of this difficult passage can scarcely be said to have been determined, though of the above interpretations the choice seems to lie between the first and second. Unto all that are with thee, and with all other. I.e. in presence of thy domestics and of all with whom thou mayest yet mingle, either Abraham will be thy best defense, or let my gift be an atonement, or a veil, &c. Thus she was reproved. . If a third person singular niph. of (Onkelos, Arabic, Kimchi, Gesenius, Rosenmller, Furst), then it is the historian’s statement signifying that Sarah had been convicted, admonished, and left defenseless (Gesenius); or, connecting the preceding words , that, with regard to all, right had been obtained (Furst), or that all had been done that she might be righted (Murphy); but if a second person singular niph. (LXX; Vulgate, Delitzsch, Keil, Lange, Murphy, Kalisch), then it is a continuation of Abimelech’s address, meaning neither (LXX.), nor memento te deprehensam (Vulgate), but either, “and thou art reproved” (Wordsworth), or, “and thou wilt be recognized” (Kalisch), or, again connecting with the preceding words, “and with all, so thou art justified or set right” (Delitzsch, Keil, Lange), or, “and all this that thou mayest be righted ” (Murphy) or “reproved“ (Ainsworth).
Gen 20:17
So Abraham prayed unto God. Literally, the Elohim, the personal and true God, and not Elohim, or Deity in general, to whom belonged the cure of Abimelech and his household (Keil), as the next clause shows. And God (Elohim, without the art.) healed Abimelech, and his wife, and his maid-servants;i.e. his concubines, as distinguished from the women servants (Gen 20:14)and they bare children. The verb may apply to both sexes, and the malady under which they suffered may be here described as one which prevented procreation, as the next verse explains.
Gen 20:18
For the Lord (Jehovah; vide supra on Gen 20:3) had fast closed up all the wombsi.e. prevented conception, or produced barrenness (cf. Gen 16:2; Isa 66:9; 1Sa 1:5, 1Sa 1:6; for the opposite, Gen 29:31; Gen 30:22); “poena convenientissima; quid enim convenientius esse poterat, quam ut amittat, qui ad se rapit aliena” (Musculus). Vide Havernick, 19of the house of Abimelech, because of Sarah Abraham’s wifethe motive obviously being to protect the purity of the promised seed.
HOMILETICS
Gen 20:1-18
Abraham in Gerar, or two royal sinners.
I. THE SIN OF THE HEBREW PATRIARCH
1. An old sin repeated. “Abraham said of Sarah his wife, She is my sister.” Twenty years before the same miserable equivocation had been circulated in Egypt. A sin once committed is not difficult to repeat, especially if its legitimate consequences, as in the case of Abraham and Sarah, have been mercifully averted. One is apt to fancy that a like immunity will attend its repetition.
2. A worthless lie propagated. “Abimelech, king of Gerar, sent and took Sarah.” Designed for protection in both Egypt and Gerar, the ignoble expedient of the patriarch was in both places equally ineffectual. So does all sin tend to outwit itself, and in the end generally proves abortive in its designs.
3. A deliberate fraud practiced. As Abraham explained to Abimelech, it was no sudden impulse on which he acted, but a preconcerted scheme which he had put in operation. Intended for the extenuation of his fault, this was in reality an aggravation. Sin leisurely and knowingly gone about is ever more heinous than that into which the heart and will are surprised.
4. An unjustifiable suspicion entertained. All the preceding sins had their origin in what the event proved to be an altogether unwarranted estimate of Abimelech and his people. The patriarch said to himself, “Surely the fear of God is not in this place, and they will slay me for my wife’s sake,” without reflecting that he was not only deciding without evidence, but doing an injustice to the monarch and the people into whose land he was crossing.
Learn
1. How hard it is to lay aside one’s besetting sin. The character of the patriarch, otherwise so noble, appears to have had a natural bias towards deception.
2. How difficult it is to lead a life of faith. One would have thought that by this time every vestige of carnal policy would have been eliminated from the walk of Abraham.
3. How possible it is for an eminent saint to relapse into great sin. If Abraham illustrated the virtues, he likewise remarkably exemplified the weaknesses of God’s believing people.
4. How wrong it is to cherish and act upon uncharitable views of others. True religion always leans to the side of charity in judging of the characters of men.
II. THE SIN OF THE HEATHEN PRINCE.
1. A common sin. The popularity of an action, though not sufficient to make it good, may serve, in some degree, to extenuate its guilt where it is wrong.
2. An unconscious sin. The narrative distinctly represents Abimelech as a prince who feared God and shrank from incurring his displeasurea character which all kings should study to possess. Abimelech himself claimed to have perpetrated no offence against the law of God in acting as he did, which shows that the voice of conscience always speaks according to its light. The avowal which he makes of his integrity is admitted by Jehovah as correcta proof that God judges men according to their privileges. Yet it was
3. A great sin. Implied in the Divine direction to seek the friendly intercession of the patriarch, it was admitted by Abimelech when once his mind was enlightened as to the true character of the deed he had committed.
See here
1. A lesson of charity concerning peoples and individuals outside the visible Church.
2. A proof that men are not necessarily free from guilt because their consciences fail to accuse them.
3. A good sign of true contrition, viz; the acknowledgment of sin when it is pointed out.
III. GOD‘S DEALINGS WITH THE PRINCE AND WITH THE PATRIARCH.
1. With the prince.
(1) Restraining grace. God withheld him from proceeding to further sin by doing injury to Sarah, the means employed being disease which was sent upon both the monarch and his house. So God frequently interposes by afflictive dispensations to prevent those who fear him from running into sins of which perhaps they are not aware.
(2) Illuminating grace. Appearing in a dream, Elohim disclosed the true character of his offence, and quickened his conscience to apprehend the guilt and danger which had been incurred. Sincere souls who fear God and are faithful to the light they have are never left to wander in darkness, but in God’s time and way are mysteriously guided to the path of safety and duty (Psa 25:12-14).
(3) Directing grace. Finding the heathen monarch’s heart susceptible of good impressions, God further counseled him how to act in order to obtain forgiveness, viz; to solicit the mediating services of Abraham, who in this matter was a type of heaven’s great High Priest and Intercessor (Heb 7:25). Cf. God’s way of dealing with erring men (Job 32:14 -33).
2. With the patriarch.
(1) Protection. A second time he shielded his erring servant from the consequences of his own folly. A mark of God’s tender pity towards sinful men.
(2) Reproof. Besides being much needed, it was exceedingly severe, and must have been deeply humiliating. God often permits his people to be rebuked by the world for their good.
(3) Honor. God is ever better to his people than their deserts. Not only did he direct Abimelech to ask the help of Abraham, but he constituted Abraham the medium of bestowing blessings on Abimelech. So does God honor Abraham’s seed, Christ, by exalting him in the world’s sight as the one Mediator between God and man; and Abraham’s children, the Church, by making them the instruments of drawing down blessings on the world.
Learn
1. That God’s dealings with sinning men are always adapted to the peculiar characters of their respective sins.
2. That God never chastises men, either by affliction or rebuke, for his pleasure, but for their profit.
3. That God never pardons sin without bestowing blessing on the sinner.
HOMILIES BY J.F. MONTGOMERY
Gen 20:2
Falsehood the fruit of unbelief.
“Abraham said of Sarah his wife, She is my sister.” Notice how imperfectly the obligation of truth recognized in Old Testament times. Not only among heathen, or those who knew little of God (Jos 2:5; 2Ki 10:18), but godly men among God’s own people (Gen 26:7; 1Sa 27:10). Yet the excellence of truth was known, and its connection with the fear of God (Exo 18:21; Psa 15:2). Not until manifested in Christ does truth seem to be fully understood (cf. Joh 8:44; 1Jn 3:8). This gives force to “I am the truth.” Some see in text an act of faith; trust that God would make the plan (Gen 20:13) successful. But faith must rest on God’s word. Trust in what God gives no warrant for believing is not faith but fancy, e.g. to attempt what we have no reason to believe we can accomplish, or to incur liabilities without reasonable prospect of meeting them. More natural and better to look on it as a breach of truth under temptation; the failure Of a godly man under trial. His words were true in letter (Gen 20:12), but were spoken to deceive, and did deceive.
I. ROOT OF HIS FAULTUNBELIEF; want of all-embracing trust. His faith was real and vigorous (cf. 1Co 10:12), but partial (cf. Gen 27:19; Mat 14:28). Shrank from trusting God fully. Turned to human devices, and thus turned out of the way (Pro 3:5). Partial distrust may be found even where real faith. A very common instance is trusting in God for spiritual blessings only. A large part of our actions, especially in little things, springs not from conscious decision, but from habitual modes of thought and feeling. We act instinctively, according to what is the natural drift of thought. Abraham had so dwelt on the danger that he forgot the help at hand (Psa 34:7; Rom 8:28). Bold in action, his faith failed when danger threatened. To endure is a greater trial of faith than to do. To stand firm amid secularizing influences, ridicule, misconstruction is harder than to do some great thing. St. Peter was ready to fight for his Master, but failed to endure (Mar 14:50-71; Gal 2:12). So to St. Paul’s “What wilt thou have me to do?” the Lord’s word was, “I will show him how great things he must suffer.”
II. FORM OF HIS FAULTUNTRUTH. Contrary to the mind of Christ. May be without direct statement of untruth. May be by true words so used as to convey a wrong idea; by pretences, e. g. taking credit unduly for any possession or power; by being ashamed to admit our motives; or by untruth in the spiritual life, making unreal professions in prayer, or self-deceiving. Every day brings numberless trials. These can be resisted only by the habit of truthfulness, gained by cultivating “truth in the inward parts,” aiming at entire truthfulness. Nothing unpractical in this. May be said, Mast I tell all my thoughts to every one? Not so. Many things we have no right to speak; e.g. things told in confidence, or what would give unnecessary pain. Concealment when it is right is not untruth. No doubt questions of difficulty may arise. Hence rules of casuistry. But a Christian should be guided by principles rather than by rules (Gal 5:1); and wisdom to apply these rightly is to be gained by studying the character of Christ, and prayer for the Holy Spirit’s guidance (Luk 11:13; Joh 16:14).M.
HOMILIES BY J.F. MONTGOMERY
Gen 20:15, Gen 20:16
Abraham and Abimelech at Gerar.
I. THE UNIVERSALITY OF DIVINE GRACE. The varieties in moral state of nations a testimony to God’s forbearing mercy. There was evidently a great contrast between such people as dwelt under Abimelech’s rule and the cities of the plain, which helps us to see the extreme wickedness of the latter. It was probably no vain boast which the king-uttered when he spoke of “the integrity of his heart and innocency of his hands.” Moreover, God appeared to him by dreams, and it is implied that he would have the greatest reverence for Jehovah’s prophet. Abraham testified the same; although he declared that the fear of God was not in the place, still he sojourned in Gerar, and after Lot’s experience he would not have done so unless he had believed it to be very different from Sodom.
II. THE CHARACTER OF GOD‘S CHILDREN IS NOT THE GROUND OF THEIR ACCEPTANCE WITH HIM. It is strange that the Egyptian experience should not have taught the patriarch simply to trust in God. But the imperfect faith justifies; the grace of God alone sanctifies. The conduct of Abimelech is throughout honorable and straightforward. Abraham’s equivocation is not excusable. It sprang from fear, and it was no sudden error, but a deliberate policy which betokened weakness, to say the least.
III. THE LORD BRINGS GOOD OUT OF EVIL. Abimelech’s character is a bright spot in the terrible picture of evil and its consequences. By the discipline of Providence the errors and follies of men are made the opportunities for learning God’s purposes and character. The contact of the less enlightened with the more enlightened, though it may humble both, gives room for Divine teaching and gracious bestowments. Again we are reminded “the prayer of a righteous man availeth much” not because he is himself righteous, but because he is the ‘channel of blessing to others, chosen of God’s free grace.R.
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
Gen 20:1. Journeyed from thence toward, &c. Not able to endure the melancholy prospect, which the desolated cities afforded, whence too, probably, a noxious stench might arise, Abraham removed from his usual place of abode at Mamre, towards those parts in the south of Palestine, which lie near to AEgypt; and having continued some time in the country between Kadesh and Shur, he at length took up his abode at Gerar, the metropolis of Palestine, which city appears to have been situated in the angle where the south and west sides of Canaan met.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
EIGHTH SECTION
Abraham and Abimelech of Gerar. His and Sarahs renewed exposure through his human, calculating prudence, as formerly in Egypt before Pharaoh. The Divine preservation. Abrahams intercession for Abimelech
Gen 20:1-18
1And Abraham journeyed from thence toward the south1 country [the mid-day], and dwelled between Kadesh and Shur, and sojourned [as a stranger even] in Gerar [lodging-place, pilgrims rest]. 2And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, She is my sister; and Abimelech 3[father of the king, or father-king] king of Gerar sent and took Sarah. But God [Elohim] came to Abimelech in a dream by night, and said to him, Behold, thou art but a dead man [thou diest, art dead], for the woman which thou hast taken; for she is a mans wife 4[is married]. But Abimelech had not come near her: and he said, Lord, wilt thou slay also a righteous nation? 5Said he not unto me, She is my sister? and she, even she herself said, He is my brother: in the integrity of my heart, and the innocency of my hands have I done this. 6And God said unto him in a dream, Yea, I know that thou didst this in the integrity of thy heart; for I also withheld thee from sinning against me: therefore suffered I thee not to touch her. 7Now therefore restore the man his wife; for he is a prophet,2 and he shall pray for thee, and thou shalt live: and if thou restore her not, know thou that thou shalt surely die, thou and all that are thine. 8Therefore Abimelech rose early in the morning, and called all his servants, and told all these things in their ears: and the men were sore afraid. 9Then Abimelech called Abraham, and said unto him, What hast thou done unto us? and what have I offended thee, that thou hast brought on me and on my kingdom a great sin? thou hast done deeds unto me that ought not to be done. 10And Abimelech said unto Abraham, What sawest thou 11[evil], that thou hast done this thing? And Abraham said, Because I thought [said], Surely the fear of God [Elohim] is not in this place; and they will slay me for my wifes sake. 12And yet indeed she is my sister; she is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife. 13And it came to pass when God [Elohim] caused me to Wander [to go on pilgrimages; a striking plural.3 The manifestations of God here and there, caused me to go here and there, pilgrimages] from my fathers house, that I said unto her. This is thy kindness which thou shalt show unto me; at every place whither we shall come, say of me, He is my brother. 14And Abimelech took sheep and oxen [small and large cattle], and menservants, and womenservants, and gave them to Abraham, and restored him Sarah his wife. 15And Abimelech said, Behold, my land is before thee 16[stands open to thee]: dwell where it pleaseth thee [is good in thine eyes]. And unto Sarah he said, Behold, I have given thy brother a thousand pieces of silver: behold he is to thee [for] a covering of the eyes unto all that are with thee, and with all other: thus she was reproved4 [set right, proved to be a wife, not unmarried].
17So Abraham prayed unto God [Elohim]: and God [Elohim] healed Abimelech, and his wife, and his maidservants: and they bare children. 18For the Lord5 had fast closed up all the wombs of the house of Abimelech, because of Sarah, Abrahams wife.
GENERAL PRELIMINARY REMARKS
1. The present chapter and the following appear to favor strongly the documentary hypothesis. The cases in which the name Jehovah appears (Gen 20:18; Gen 21:1), have, according to Delitzsch, all the traits of explanatory additions of the completer. But Knobel accepts, aside from the text of the original writing (Gen 21:2-5), a twofold enlargement, which should be ascribed to the Jehovistic writer, but which he must have derived in great part from Elohistic records designed to complete the original record, and only in part from a completing Jehovistic record (p. 180, 181). We leave the hypothesis of different records to rest upon its own basis, but shall enquire how far the choice in the names of God may be explained from the text itself, and this without regard to the hypothesis in question.
2. The repetition of the fact that Abraham proclaims his wife to be his sister has been noticed already. In Knobels view, the Jehovistic writer has recorded the occurrence with Sarah already (Gen 12:11-20), because he could then do it independently, which could not be the case here. This conjecture, remarks Delitzsch, is certainly plausible if one ascribes the Elohistic portions to a peculiar source, but it is equally probable that the same event might occur twice in the life of Abraham. Keil, on the other hand, justly brings into prominence the great distinction between the two histories. The first difficulty, viz. that Abraham, after having experienced in Egypt the reproach of this deed, should here repeat it once more, cannot be removed, if, as Delitzsch holds, Abraham in Egypt had condemned himself to penitence after the reproof of Pharoah; if even he walked under a general sense that he had done wrong, as Delitzsch and Baumgarten state the case. [It is not insupposible, surely, in the light of experience, that even such a believer as Abraham should have fallen again into the same sin: that he should have repeated the act even when he was walking under the sense of his wrong-doing in the first instance.A. G.] Our history gives us the key (v. 13) why this act was repeated. Abraham could not make an explanation to Pharoah, concerning the determination to proclaim his wife his sister while among strangers, but Abimelech has instilled the necessary confidence in him, for this confidential explanation. But if the saying was then founded and chosen, the event might, under possible circumstances, have often occurred unless Jehovah had interfered to prevent this venture of an unfounded and exaggerated confidence; which we have already above distinguished from a mere exposure of Sarah. It must be taken into account, moreover, that Abraham had recently received fearful impressions of the godless beings in the world, which naturally filled him with suspicion. The second difficulty consists in this: that Abimelech should have found delight in taking Sarah, who was ninety years old, into his harem. According to Kurtz, her still blooming or now rejuvenated beauty was not the motive; according to Delitzsch, he would relate himself by marriage with the rich nomadic prince, Abraham. Beauty and the consideration of rank do not exclude each other; spiritual excellence and greatness have often an almost magical effect. But it is to be observed that here it is not said that the beauty of Sarah was reported to Abimilech. He knew only, it may be, that there was a sister of Abraham in his tent, and brought her to himself.
3. We are here told again that Abraham broke up his tent, and journeyed thence towards the souththe land towards the mid-day (Gen 12:9; Gen 13:1). According to Gen 13:18, he had a permanent abode at Hebron; but here he removes from Hebron to the south. This is to be explained upon the ground that, for the northern parts of Canaan, the south designates preminently the land of Judah; but for the land of Judah, thus for Hebron itself, it denotes the parts towards Arabia Petrea, Egypt, and the western shore upon the Mediterranean. The southern section of Canaan (which was assigned to the tribes of Judah, Simeon, and Benjamin) falls into four distinct parts, through the character of the country. The mountains () or highlands form the central part, upon whose westerly slopes lies a hilly country which gradually sinks to the plain (), while towards the east the descent () falls off into the valley of the Jordan and the Dead Sea, but towards the south, the mid-day land (, Jos 15:21; compare above Gen 12:9; Gen 13:1) forms, in several distinctly marked terraces, a kind of first step to the mountains, from the Petrean peninsula. (See Gross, in Stud. und Krit. 1843, p. 1080.) Here Abraham descends to the stretch of country between Kadesh and Shur, and remained a long time about Gerar, whose ruins have been recently discovered by Rowland, under the name Khirbet-el-Gerr, about three hours south-easterly from Gaza, in the neighborhood of a deep and broad wady, which takes the name Dschurf-el-Gerr. Delitzsch. Robinson sought Gerar in vain, see Schrder, p. 382. Eusebius and Jerome locate the place about twenty-five Roman miles south from Eleutheropolis, and Sozomen relates that there stood very near here, in a winter stream, a great and renowned convent. The name of Marcian, bishop of Gerar (perhaps in the convent), appears among the subscribers in the Council of Chalcedon in the year 451. Gerar, upon the way from Gaza to Elusa, removed about three hours from the first-named place. Bunsen. The most southerly of the five cities of the Philistines was not far from Beersheba. The king of Gerar, Abimelech, had this territory in the lands of the Philistines, according to Gen 21:33. In Gen 26:1, he is named directly as a king of the Philistines. According to Bertheau, the reference to the Philistines is an anticipation, and Delitzsch also finds in Genesis 26 traces of a later hand, though not recognizing therein an actual anticipation. If denotes the land of wanderers, or of strangers (Gesenius), the name denotes those who came from the coasts into the interior, in distinction from the earlier Canaanites, and the inquiry whether the later Philistines, of the times of the Judges and Kings, are here meant, is a matter by itself; in any case, the text here intimates that the later confederate cities of the Philistines did not yet exist. Hitzig and Ewald also concede Philistine emigrations into Canaan, or traditions of them, before Moses. Knobels view, that Abraham may have left Hebron from a similar anxiety with that which led Lot (to leave Zoar), is arbitrary in the highest degree, since Abraham was in covenant with the mightier men in Hebron. According to Keil, he went probably to find better pastures. In any case the pasture-ground must be changed from time to time, but this could be done through a wider range, as we learn from the history of Joseph and Moses. The neighborhood of the scene of the terrible judgment upon Sodom, in connection with other unknown motives, may have determined him to change his residence. The birth of Isaac (Genesis 21) and the offering of Isaac (Genesis 22) occur during his residence in the further south: but then he dwelt (Gen 23:1) again in Hebron, although his return thither from Beersheba, where he had last dwelt (Gen 21:33), is not recorded.
4. Since, from the promise which was given to Abraham in the oak-grove of Mamre, to the birth of Isaac, we must reckon, according to Genesis 18, about a year, Abraham must have drawn southwards very soon after the overthrow of Sodom, and the meeting with Abimelech must also have taken place at an early date. But if Gen 20:17-18 seem to point to a longer time, this creates no real difficulty, since the sickness of the house of Abimelech may have lasted a long time after Sarah was restored. Moreover, our history illustrates, in two respects, what may introduce the further history of the birth of Isaac. First, we see that Sarah was not faded in her appearance, although according to the usual supposition her body was dead. Then we see how her usual relation to Abraham could be animated and strengthened by a new affection resulting directly through the exposure and disturbance to which it had been subjected.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. Abrahams settlement in the South, especially in Gerar. Abimelechs error, and the admonition of God (Gen 20:1-7).Between Kadesh and Shur.Kadesh, see Gen 14:7; Shur, Gen 16:7. We must distinguish between this dwelling-place and the peculiar sojourn in Gerar. Schrder: Leaving his herds and servants behind him in this region, he himself repairs to Gerar.Abimelech (Father King, or my Father King). A standing title for the kings of Gerar, as Pharoah was in Egypt and Melchizedec, or Adonizedec, in Salem (see Psa 34:1); the king the father of the land.God (Elohim) came to Abimelech.It is presupposed that Abimelech had the knowledge of the true God; he could not have known him as Jehovah.In a dream by night.Knobel finds in this feature, as in similar cases, that these communications are not in accordance with the Elohistic writer. But the supposition is entirely arbitrary. The prophetic dream of the night is generally closely connected with the moral reflections and longings of the day. It is in full agreement with the nature of dreams, that the communication should be made in several, not in one single act (see Genesis 37, 41; Matthew 2).She is a mans wife (married).Literally, ruled by a ruler, or her lord. His sin was thus marked as an infringement of the married rights of a stranger. The anxious dream appears to have been introduced through the sickness impending over him (see Gen 5:17).6Wilt thou slay also a righteous nation?Delitzsch refers the directly to the adjective righteous. A nation however righteous, i.e., although it is righteous. But why then does he use the term people or nation? Knobel thinks that the fate of the Sodomites was floating in his mind. In this way this chapter is, through a delicate psychological feature, connected with the preceding. Abimelech is conscious of innocence as to his subjective state. He assumes the right to possess a harem or to live in polygamy, and the right of princes to bring into their harem any unmarried persons of their territory. He is conscious of a pure heart, and asserts that his hands are pure, since Abraham and Sarah, through their own declarations, had rendered it impossible that he should have any intention to interfere with the rights of another. She is my sister. [These incidents show the truth and the need of Scripture;its truth, because it does not represent the patriarchs as exempt from human infirmities; the need of it, because the best of men were not able to make for themselves even a correct standard of moral duty (and how much less of faith) without Scripture. Wordsworth, p. 91.A. G.]And God said unto him in a dream.The transaction continues in a new and more quiet dream. God recognizes the apology as essentially valid, and reveals to him how and why he had kept him from touching the wife of a prophet. With this he points out to him the cause of his sickness. The command to restore the woman was enforced by a threatening. Although he was guiltless as to his subjective state, it is a reproach to him that he acted blindly, and betrayed himself into the danger, either of depriving a prophet of his wife, or rather of being punished by God with death. [That Abimelech thought himself innocent, did this, as he says, in the integrity of his heart, may be explained from his moral and religious standpoint. But that God recognizes his deed as such, and still says to him that he can only live through the intercession of Abraham, thus that his sin was one worthy of death, proves that God regards him as one who was fitted to have, and ought to have, deeper moral views and piety. This is intimated in the change of the names of God in the narrative, and noticed in the text. Keil, p. 168.A.G.] That is to say, the spirit of a higher moral standpoint comes to him in his dream, and opens to him not only the cause of his sickness, but also that divine preservation secured by the sickness, as well as his duty and the danger of death in which he was still moving. With this he receives an enlargement of his religious knowledge. At first (without the article) the Godhead in a general sense appears to him (Gen 20:3): but Abimelech recognizes in the appearance the Lord , upon which the narrator introduces the personal and true God, as speaking to him (Gen 20:6.)For he is a prophet.The spirit of prophecy had been present from the beginning in the Scripture, but here the name prophet occurs for the first time. How could this aggravate the error of Abimelech, that Abraham, whose rights he ignorantly had violated, was a prophet? Knobel explains that the sin of violating the rights of the chosen of God, which he had in idea committed, was a sin against God himself. Since every sin is a sin against God himself, it must still be asked, how far this shows the danger of greater guilt? for the text cannot be explained under the idea of a partiality of God for Abraham. But Abimelech held Abraham and Sarah as the ordinary nomads of his time, and thought therefore that he could blindly lay his hands upon them: he thus resisted the dim impression, which they must have made upon him, of a higher calling and aim. A prophet should be received in the name of a prophet; the sin against the divine in the prophet was a sin against the divine in his own conscience, and thus in a special sense a sin against God.And he shall pray for thee.Abraham had already appeared as a royal warlike hero, in his conflict with the Eastern kings. We have learned to recognize him as a priest, especially in his intercessory prayer for Sodom: here he appears preminently as a prophet. But here intercession appears as the most obvious function of the prophet.7 The attributes of the prophet and the priest are thus still inwardly united in one, as this indeed is evident from the altars he erected.
2. The atonement of Abimelech(Gen 20:8-16).And called all his servants (courtiers).It marks the frank, open character of this God-fearing king, that he humbles himself by communicating the events of the night, before his courtiers. It was humbling in the first place to confess that, in spiritual blindness, he had made a dangerous mistake, and secondly that he must restore to the stranger his wife. It speaks well also for his household and his court, that the effect of his reverence communicates itself to his servants.Then Abimelech called Abraham.He addresses him before his people, for Abraham had not only brought him into danger, but also his household and kingdom. He had reason to complain of the conduct of Abraham, as Pharaoh before him (Genesis 12). He is thus also evidently a bold, heroic character, who does not shrink from declaring against Abraham his injured sense of truth and justice, although he must have regarded him as under the special protection of God. He does not belong to the kings who oppose the priests in slavish bigotry.What hast thou done to us?Done to us. Thus he values the unity in which he feels that he is bound with his household and people. But he reproaches him especially with this: that he had brought him into danger of bringing sin both upon himself and his people. This, he says, is immoral. But since he takes up again the words, What have I offended thee? and asks, What hast thou seen? he utters in a discreet form, which concedes the possibility that he might have ignorantly occasioned the wrong of Abraham, his consciousness that he had himself indeed given no occasion for this deceitful course. Keil and Knobel explain the words what hast thou seen? what hast thou in thy eye, what purpose? Delitzsch (with a reference to Psa 37:37; Psa 66:18): It is preferable to take the word in its usual sense through all time: what evil hast thou seen in me or in us, that thou believest us capable of greater evil?Abraham said, because I thought (said).He assumes the antecedent; I acted thus, because he is ashamed. The two grounds of apology follow. The first runs: Because I spake (thought or considered it with myself and with Sarah). [This use of he word is fully illustrated by Bush, who refers to Exo 2:14; 1Ki 5:5; Psa 14:1.A. G.]Surely the fear of God is not in this place.This special motive has its explanation in the fact that he had so recently seen the destruction of Sodom. The fear of men which had determined him so to act in Egypt, was awakened afresh by this destruction. But he palliates the offence of this declaration by his second excuse. He explains at first that what he had said was not untrue, since Sarah, as his half-sister, was his sister; and then why, in his migration from Haran, he had arranged with Sarah that she should journey with him from place to place under the name of his sister. [Some suppose that Sarah is the same with Iscah, Gen 11:29. Bush holds that Terah had two wives: the one the mother of Haran, the father of Sarah and Lot; the other the mother of Abraham.A. G.] The suppressed feeling of an endless, difficult pilgrimage, and of a very dangerous situation, reveals itself clearly in the expressions of Gen 20:13-14. He cannot yet speak to Abimelech of Jehovah, his covenant God. Still less was it necessary that he should reveal to him that Jehovah had promised Canaan to him. Thus he says: at the command of God I entered upon my wanderings. He speaks of his theocratic journeys as wanderings, says Elohim instead of Haelohim, uses this noun with the plural of the verbs, that he may make himself understood by Abimelech. This use of the substantive with the plural verbs is found (in the Pentateuch only in this author, Gen 35:7; Exo 22:8; Exo 30:4; Exo 30:8; Jos 24:19. Gesenius, 146, 2; Ewald, 318 a.) Knobel. Keil finds in the words of Abraham, especially in the plural of the verb, a certain accommodation to the polytheistic standpoint of the Philistine king. Delitzsch, on the other hand, remarks, that the plural connection of Elohim is found in passages which exclude any idea of accommodation, or of any polytheistic reference; by which he refutes at the same time the explanation of Schelling, that the Gods of the house of Terah are to be understood by Elohim. Under the expression [The verb here is not necessarily plural. But if it be, it is only an instance of the literal meaning of Elohim, the eternal, supernatural powers, coming into view. Murphy, p. 328.A. G.] we understand the fact, expressed with some reservation, that Haelohim, through a plurality of special manifestations of God, which he received here and there, had caused him to move from place to place, and thus, although in the extremest danger which his wanderings could occasion, extended his providence over him still. When, on the contrary, Abimelech (Gen 26:28) calls God Jehovah, Delitzsch supposes (p. 103), but without certainty, that it is the same person, and besides overlooks the difference of time, in which a longer intercourse may have made the Philistines familiar with the Abrahamic ideas.And Abimelech took sheep and oxen.He is satisfied, and acts analogously to the conduct of Pharaoh (Genesis 12), in that he makes Abraham rich presents of the ancient nomadic goods. The departure of Abraham from Egypt also seems to find its echo here. He appears to utter a modest wish that Abraham would leave Gerar. [This seems a forced interpretation of the words.A. G.] Still he may dwell in his territory where it pleases him.And to Sarah he said.The thousand pieces of silver, i.e., the thousand shekels of silver, are not a peculiar present made to Sarah, but the estimated worth of the present (Gen 20:14), and designate it as something important. Knobel. So also Keil. Delitzsch, with others, distinguishes a special present in money, a truly royal present, since thirty shekels was the price of a slave (Exo 21:32). (A thousand shekels of silver after the shekel of the sanctuary would be about 550 dollars; according to the ordinary shekel, less. It is not certain which is intended here.) The first interpretation is preferable, as otherwise the second present must have been made to Sarah.Behold, he is to thee (or that shall be to thee) a covering of the eyes.This difficult place admits of different explanations. Vitringa: If the words are referred to Abraham, the idea seems to be: Abraham, if he professes to be the husband of Sarah, would be instead of a veil to those who, looking upon Sarah more intensely, may be inflamed with love for her. (Thus Ewald; so Delitzsch, p. 404.) We prefer, however, to refer the words to the money received by Abraham. As if he says, let this money, paid as a fine to Abraham, prevent any from desiring thee as I have done. He alludes to the veil usually worn by women. See Gen 24:65. Gesenius: This is an expiatory present to thee, for all that has happened to thee, and to Abram, and she was convinced (of her fault). Knobel similarly, but still with less fitness, and at the conclusion, thou art adjudged, i.e., justice is done to thee. Delitzsch and Keil: This is to thee an atoning present, for all who are with thee (since the whole family is disgraced in the mistress, etc.) It is to be explained, says Knobel, after to cover ones face, so that he may forget the wrong done (Gen 32:21), to cover the face of the judge, so that he shall not see the right. Michaelis, Baumgarten, and others, explain the words to mean a present for the purchase of a veil which she should wear in the future. [Murphy urges against this that the proper word for veil is . The covering of the eyes is a figurative phrase for a recompense or pacificatory offering, in consideration of which an offence is overlooked. And so also Jacobus.A. G.] Since Sarah wore no veil in Egypt, but the custom of veiling the face quickly with the mantle soon after appears in the history of Rebekah (Gen 24:65), this thought seems quite probable. But one would then expect a special present to Sarah, besides the one to Abraham. Delitzsch remarks, this would be bitter irony. But the irony in the expression, I have given thy brother, cannot, however, be denied. The also agrees well with this thought. Besides, it must be considered that Abimelech had to relieve himself of his displeasure as well against Sarah as against Abraham. And what then could this mean, that shall be to thee an atoning present, and for all with thee, leaving out of view that here the conjunctive is wanting? As a covering of the eyes, designed to make good his error in her eyes, the great present would excite rather only contempt. The atonement would thus be to the violated rights of the husband; Sarah, who had constantly declared that he was her brother, even when prudent calculation became imprudent temerity, had well deserved that she also should suffer a reproof. Still Abimelech appears to define it as a covering of the eyes only in a figurative sense: in the sense of the Vulgate: hoc erit tibi in velamen oculorum ad omnes qui tecum sint, et quocunque perpexeris; mementoque te deprehensam.8 Since Sarah wore no veil, which designated her as the wife of a husband (see Gen 24:6; 1Co 11:10), so the present of Abimelech, wherewith he expiates his fault, has the effect of such a veil; it should for all, and everywhere, be a testimony that she is a married woman. As such should she now be held everywhere, in consequence of his present. With Clericus, therefore, we find here a designed double sense or meaning; a covering of the eyes as an atonement, which should, at the same time, have the effect of a veil. can only be the second person feminine perf. Niph., although the daghesh lene is wanting in (Gesenius, 28, 4, and 65, 2), for to hold this form for a participle is scarcely possible, etc.9Keil: Since this word may be rendered adjudged as well as justified, we take it in a middle sense, and as designedly having a twofold meaning: convinced, placed right. This last word does not belong to the writer, but to Abimelech himself. With the pride of injured magnanimity, he declares that he, through his atoning present, would provide her with a veil, and designate her as a married woman. For the veil, see Winer.
3. Abrahams intercession(Gen 20:17-18). After this compensation Abraham intercedes (Gen 20:17), and God removes the sickness from Abimelech and his women. The author does not define the sickness more closely (as in Gen 12:17); according to Gen 20:6 it was such a sickness as indisposed to sleep. Compare the plague of the Philistines (1Sa 5:6-9; 1Sa 12:6; 1Sa 12:4, etc.) Knobel.And God healed Abimelech, and his wife, and his maidservants.Thus Abimelech was not only afflicted with some sexual disease, but indirectly, through his inability, his wife also, i.e., his wife in a peculiar sense, the queen; and his maid-servants, that is, his concubines (see Keil). [They bare means that they were again capable of procreating children. The verb is masculine, because both males and females were involved in this judicial malady. Murphy, p. 329.A. G.] [This is clear also, since the malady was sent to preserve the purity of Sarah. Abimelech was not suffered to touch her, see Gen 20:6.A. G.] Gen 20:18 contains the explanationFor the Lord (Jehovah) had fast closed up.[It is Jehovah who delivers Abraham, and preserves the purity of Sarah, the mother of Isaac the promised seed. Wordsworth, p. 93. Who urges also the use of the names of God in the chapter, against the fragmentary hypothesis, with great force.A. G.] Here the providence of Elohim is traced to the motives of Jehovah, the Covenant God of Abraham, who would protect his chosen. They were closed up; i.e., not as Knobel thinks, they could could not bring to the birth, but the whole household of Abimelech was unfruitful in consequence of his sickness. [The term here used for maid-servants, , denotes those held as concubines, and is to be distinguished from , servants. See 1Sa 25:41.Keil, p. 170.A. G.] This fearful fact for an ancient household was remarkable here, because the state remained after the free return of Sarah, until Abraham enters with his intercession. But this introduces the circumstance that he had interceded for Sarah also.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. See the preliminary remarks and the exigetical paragraphs. The preceding history is the history of sins crying to heaven. The history of Abraham in Gerar is a history of unconscious sins, concealed faults in the life of most excellent men, of the father of the faithful, and of a noble heathen king.
2. The first meeting between the house of Abraham and the Philistines. It serves to illustrate the fact, that the knowledge of God among the Philistines has sunken lower and lower in the lapse of time, while it has been more and more completely developed among the theocratic people.
3. Abraham in Gerar, in a certain measure, a counterpart to Lot in the caves. Lot fears the presence of men; Abraham appears to have sought a wider intercourse. Both fall into folly and sin, after the experience of the great judgment upon Sodom. The reaction from a state of great spiritual excitement reveals itself even in Abraham.
4. The repetition of the old saying of Abraham, is a proof that he, in his faith, thought himself justified in using it. We must take into account also, that Sarah also was his sister in the faith, and that she had accustomed herself, in her painful sense of her unfruitfulness, to style themselves brother and sister.
5. Abimelechs dream. In the night sleep, the spirit of revelation comes nearer to the heathen, as is shown also in the dreams of Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar. It is a medium of revelation also for children (Joseph, in the old covenant), and for laborers with the hand (Joseph, in the new covenant); and the prophetic disposition, enduring into the night or extending itself through its hours (Isaac, Jacob, Paul). Moreover, Pharaohs butler and baker (Gen 40:8); the Midianites (Jdg 7:13-15); the wife of Pilate (Mat 27:19, compare Wis 18:17-19), had significent dreams.
6. Abimelechs innocence and guilt. The moral standpoint of tradition, in its relation to the higher standpoint. Traditional morality and the morality of conscience. The religious susceptibility of Abimelech.
7. Abraham a prophet. There are different views as to the derivation of this word. A derivation from the Arabic, analogous form, explains the word to mean the bringer of knowledge, the foreteller or predictor (see Delitzsch, p. 634; a communication of Fleischer). The derivation from the Hebrew , ebullire, appears to us nearer at hand, and corresponds better with the idea of the prophet. In the reference of the word to the Niph., Redslob explains it in a passive sense, what is poured forth; W. Newmann and Hlemann, actively pouring forth, speaking. If we regard the Niph. as both passive and reflexive, then the prophet is a man who, because he has received communications poured into himself, pours forth. One who is a fountain. But the pouring forth designates more than the simple speaking. It is the utterance of that which is new, in the inspired, outpouring form; analogous to the out-pouring of a fountain, which is ever pouring out new, fresh water. The prophet pours forth that which is new, both in words and deeds; the miraculous words of prophecy, and the miraculous deeds of typical import. The derivation which Delitzsch proposes from , = , to breathe, the inspired, appears to be sought from dogmatic motives. Abraham was a prophet in the most general sense; the organ of the divine revelation, seer of the future. He was a prophet, priest, and king in one person, but preminently a prophet. And here God brings out distinctly his prophetic dignity, because he is in this especially commended as the friend of God, the object of his protecting care, with whose injury Abimelechs sickness was connected, and by whose intercession he could be healed. The peculiar order of the prophets, introduced through the prophetic schools of Samuel, was formed after the order of priests, and then the order of kings were severed from the general class or order of prophets.
8. Abimelechs character and his atonement. Through his noble and pious conduct he wins a friend in Abraham (Gen 21:22 ff.)
9. Abrahams intercession, a claim of his faith in the promise. His intercession for Abimelech and Gerar, a counterpart to his intercession for Sodom. The intercession of Abraham for Abimelech, his house, and kingdom, in comparison with his intercession for Sodom.
10. Abraham has, through his fear, and the prudential means which his fear bade him to use, twice directly brought about the very thing which he feared, the taking away of his wife, and perhaps would have incurred his death, either the first or second time, if God had not interfered. How fear first truly makes that actual which it seeks to hinder in ungodly ways, the history of Josephs brethren, who sold him that he might not rise above them; the conduct of Pharaoh towards Israel, which brings him and his hosts to destruction in the Red Sea; Sauls determination against David; but above all, the history of the crucifixion of Christ on the part of the Jewish Sanhedrim prove still more perfectly. How this same fact appears in proverbs, under various forms, e.g., in the saying of dipus, is well known.
11. The Philistines (see the Bible Dictionaries). Their first appearance in sacred history makes a favourable impression; Abimelech knows, or learns to know, the only true God. Later, the Philistines appear sunken in idolatry.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Any homiletic use of this chapter presupposes homiletic wisdom. Themes: Abraham in the repetition of his fall.Abraham and Abimelech.Abrahams character: reverent humility, moral pride.Abraham, the believer, in his weakness, exalted above the man of the world, in his strength. [The exaltation, however, a matter of pure grace.A.G.]
First Section.Abrahams and Abimelechs error (Gen 20:1-7) Abrahams reaction after his high spiritual experiences.The repetition of his old fault. 1. Causes: Recent experience of the corruption of the world, false prudence, exaggerated confidence, the brotherly relation to Sarah, the tolerable issue of the case in Egypt. 2. Natural results: Anxiety and danger, shame before a heathens princely court. 3. Gracious issue through the interference of God.10How self-will rushes into the danger which, with many plans, it seeks to avoid.How the believer endangers the promise of God, and how it is wonderfully guarded through the grace of God.Abimelechs integrity the point of union for the gracious providence of God.The author of sacred marriage is also its protector.The care of God for Sarah a care for the world.
Starke: Now God, in his providence, rescues Abraham again from his human weakness.(Gen 20:4. The Holy Spirit marks this doubtless, lest any one should say that Isaac was the son of Abimelech.) (Although God is a lover of life, yet still, according to his punitive righteousness, there may be ascribed to him, as here, a destruction, consumption, etc.)God suffers his saints to fall into folly and sin, that it may be clear how little they are able to do right by themselves.Cramer: God preserves the sacred marriage state.Osiander: Subjects are often punished on account of the transgressions of their rulers.
Gen 20:6. A simple and not evilly intended plan, even in a bad cause, if it proceeds from inconsideration, Or from ignorant zeal, is described by this wordsimplicity, in Holy Scripture (2Sa 15:11, etc.)
Gen 20:6. God hinders men from committing sin in many ways.God searches the heart, and knows what is done in integrity and what in pretence.Calwer, Handbuch: Gen 20:2. As there (in Egypt) so here, Abraham reaches the directly opposite point from that which he intended. Sarah was taken away, just because he said, she is my sister.Schrder: (V. Herberger.) Gen 20:1. Abraham will avoid the cross, (?) but he passes from the smoke into the flame, from the mud into the mire. There are in foreign lands misfortunes and adversities as well as where he has lived hitherto. Ah! Lord, help us, that we may sit quietly in our little space; the dear cross dwells yet nowhere, as everywhere, i.e., wherever we are.His sin appears greater here than at the first offence; he stands no longer as then (in Egypt), at the beginning of the divine leadings. After so many and such great experiences of Gods faithfulness, still such unfaithfulness to him. (?)(Calvin.) All those who will not, as is becoming, trust themselves to the providence of God, shall win like fruits of unbelief.
Gen 20:2. It is to be considered that an extraordinary beauty is ascribed to Sarah; then also, that notwithstanding her ninety years, she is in the first half of human life at that period of the world.Luther: Gen 20:3. It is impossible that a man who believes in the promises of God, should be forsaken.God would suffer the heavens to fall, rather than forsake his believing people.Thus God shows how displeasing adultery is to him.
Gen 20:6. Abimelech has sinned nevertheless, therefore God by no means concedes to him purity of hands, as the integrity of heart.Passavant: An old oak which loses a bough or twig, has not, therefore lost its crown.Pharaoh and Abimelech. Gen 20:4. Many a king who is called christian, has done what these two kings did, and even worse, and his people have necessarily suffered for it in various ways before his crumbling throne; in a thousand offences, sins, sorrows, etc. Kings may learn what the sins of princes are before God, and the people also may learn to hate and deplore the evil which descends from the upper ranks.The prosperity of the family depends upon the marriage state, and the welfare of society upon that of the family, and upon the society turns the good of the state.
Gen 20:6. It is a great grace when God guards any one from sinning, either against their fellows or against God.Thou knowest not how often God has kept thee and me (Psa 105:14-15; Zec 2:8).Schwenke: The Scriptures do not describe a saint in Abraham, but a man, who, although so good, is yet a sinner like ourselves, but who through faith was justified before God, and what he did as he went from step to step in the narrow path of faith stands recorded, that we with him might enter the school of faith.
Second Section.Abrahams confusion and shame, and Abimelechs atonement.(Gen 20:8-16). The castigatory speech of the heathen to the father of the faithful.
Gen 20:11. The judgment of faith concerning the world ought not to be a prejudice.The danger of life in Abrahams pilgrimage an apology for his swerving to his own way.
Gen 20:8. The zeal of Abimelech in the removing and expiating of his fault.His noble and pious integrity: 1. In the expression of his fear of God; 2. of his injured moral feeling; 3. his readiness to make his error good.
Gen 20:9. Abimelech knew that his royal sins fell upon his household and kingdom, as a burden and as guilt.
Starke: Gen 20:9. It is to the praise of this heathen king, who, however, was not without some fear and knowledge of God, that he held a breach of the marriage law to be so great a sin that the whole land could be punished.
Gen 20:10. Osiander: A pious ruler and a pious father of the household agree well, since they warn and keep their own in the fear of God.The praise of mildness and gentleness.Luther: The saints were gently punished and for their good.Bibl. Tb. Gen 20:9. We should amend our past faults without delay.Schrder: (Luther) He who was before a king (Abimelech) is now a bishop who spreads among his subjects the fear and knowledge of God, so that they also should learn to fear God and honor his word. Here indeed the Sodomites, and those who dwelt in Gerar, are held in broad contrast.
Gen 20:12. (Museums: Concerning Sarah as the sister of Abraham: recognize hero the type of Christ and the Church. The Church is the sister and the bride of Christ; sister through God the Father, bride through the mystery of the incarnation, and the truth of his espousal, etc.)
Gen 20:15. While the Egyptian invites Abraham in a complimentary way out of his land, the Philistine says, Behold my land is before thee.(Calvin): This distinction is due to the fact that the severely punished Pharoah experienced only fear, so that the presence of Abraham was intolerable. Abimelech, on the other hand, was, with the terror, at the same time comforted.Passavant: Gen 20:11. Christians excuses are oftentimes worse than their faults.But Abraham is the father of the faithful; God sees in him Isaac, the son of promise, conceived, born, reared in faith, etc.; he sees in him Jacob his servant, etc., Moses, Aaron, Joshua, but above all that one of the seed of David, Gal 3:16.The forefather bore already in himself, that seed of faith upon the Son of God from which should bloom the new hosts of saints and righteous of the old and new covenant, as the dew drops from the womb of the morning (Psalms 110).Schwenke: Thus the Lord knows how to make good what has been complicated, and endangered through human prudence.
Third Section.Abrahams intercession, the healing of Abimelech and his household. (Gen 20:17-18). Abraham believes still in the efficacy of intercession, although Sodom was destroyed notwithstanding his intercessory prayer.The connection of intercession, with the receptivity of those to whom it relates.Abraham as an intercessor for Sodom and for Gerar.The healing of Abimelech an illustration of salvation, and leading to it.Starke: A beautiful exchange between the worldly and spiritual state. That bestows gold and possessions, this recompenses with the knowledge of God and prayer.Osiander: If God punishes this king with such serious earnestness and severity, who ignorantly had taken another mans wife, how will they escape who knowingly and deliberately defame and dishonor other mens wives and daughters?Schrder: (Calvin.) Abraham arms and disarms the hand of God at the same time.(Roos): Thus God does not forsake his own in their need, although there are not wanting faults on their side.(Val. Hebberger: We know how to make what is good evil, since we are masters there, but how to make good again what is evil, that is the work of God.)Because Abraham and Sarah should laugh, they must first weep sound repentance. The martyr-week ever precedes the Easter-week with Christians.
Footnotes:
[1][Gen 20:1.. The region south of what was afterwards called Judah.A. G.]
[2][Gen 20:7., from , to cause to bubble up as a fountain. Keil, Delitzsch, and others derive it from a root and , to breathe, and thus make uabi to mean one inspiredwho speaks that which is inbreathed of God.A. G.]
[3][Gen 20:13. is plural in punctuation, agreeing grammatically with .Vav, however, may be regarded as the third radical, and the verb may then really be singular. Murphy, p. 325.A. G.]
[4][Gen 20:16., 2 pers. fem. sing. Niphal, an unusual form. See the Exegetical note.A. G.]
[5][Gen 20:18.Jehovah.A. G.]
[6][The term, however, may mean, dead as to progeny, which is rendered probable by Gen 20:17. God healed Abimelech. Jacobus.A G.]
[7][See Jer 27:18, referred to by Bush.A. G.]
[8][Wordsworth suggests all three sensesthat of a propitiation; of a provision for the purchase of a veil; and of an allusion to the usage of covering a bride with a veil, p. 92.A. G.]
[9][If, with Baumgarten, and according to the accents, we connect the with the last word, the sense can only be: and all this has been done or given that thou mayest be righted or redressed, p. 220. So also Murphy.A. G.]
[10][How thankful for the interference of God,A. G.]
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
DISCOURSE: 19
CALL OF ABRAM
Gen 20:1-4. Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy fathers house, unto a land that I will shew thee: And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. So Abram departed, as the Lord had spoken unto him.
OUR God has been pleased to teach us, no less by example than by precept: and the instruction to be gathered from the life and conduct of his saints, commends itself to us with peculiar force, as being less open to the evasions of criticism, or the objections of prejudice. Doubtless we must exercise a sober judgment in determining how far we are to follow the Patriarchs, Prophets, or Apostles; for there were many things in their conduct which were peculiar to their situation and circumstances. But we can never materially err, if we attend to the spirit of their actions: here they were patterns to us: and as far as relates to this, we are to be followers of them who through faith and patience now inherit the promises. We are bidden particularly to walk in the steps of our father Abraham: one of the most remarkable of which is that which is mentioned in our text.
We shall endeavour to observe that sobriety of interpretation, while we consider,
I.
The Call of Abram
The command given to him was most extraordinary
[The world had speedily relapsed into idolatry. Abram was brought up, it should seem, in the common superstition. But it pleased God to separate him from the idolatrous world, in order that he might be a living witness for Jehovah, and preserve in his family the knowledge of the true God. For this end God appeared to him, and commanded him to leave his country and friends, and to go into a land which should afterwards be shewn him.]
But however strange this may appear, a similar command is given to every one of us
[We are not indeed called to leave our country and connexions: but to withdraw our affections from earthly things, and to fix them upon things above, we are called [Note: Col 3:1-2.]. The whole world around us lies in wickedness [Note: 1Jn 5:19.]: and we are expressly forbidden to be of the world, any more than Christ himself was of the world [Note: Joh 17:14; Joh 17:16.]. We are not to love it, or any thing that is in it [Note: 1Jn 2:15-16.]. We are not to be conformed to it [Note: Rom 12:2.], or to seek its friendship [Note: Jam 4:4.]: we are rather to come out from it [Note: 2Co 6:17-18.], and be altogether crucified to it [Note: Gal 6:14.]. We are to regard it as a wilderness through which we are passing to our Fathers house; and in our passage through it to consider ourselves only as strangers and pilgrims [Note: Heb 11:13.]. If we meet with good accommodation and kind treatment, we are to be thankful: if we meet with briers and thorns in our way, we must console ourselves with the thought, that it is our appointed way, and that every step will bring us nearer home [Note: Act 14:22.]. Nothing good is to detain us; nothing evil to divert us from our path. We are to be looking forward to our journeys end, and to be proceeding towards it, whatever be the weather, or whatever the road [Note: Heb 11:14-16.]. The direction given to the church, is the same in every age; Hearken, O daughter, and incline thine ear; forget also thine own people and thy fathers house; so shall the King have pleasure in thy beauty [Note: Psa 45:10-11.]. There is no exemption, no dispensation granted to any, no difference allowed. Some from their occupations in society must be more conversant with the world than others: but in heart and affection all must be withdrawn from it; not partaking of its sins, lest they should receive also of its plagues [Note: Rev 18:4.].]
There will not appear to be any thing harsh in the command given to Abram, if we consider,
II.
The inducements offered him
These were far more than equivalent to any sacrifice he could make
[He was to be blessed in himself, and a blessing to others. In respect of temporal things, he was blessed in a very signal manner to the latest hour of his life [Note: Gen 24:1; Gen 24:35.]. He was loaded also with spiritual and eternal benefits, being justified and accounted righteous before God, and being exalted after death to the highest seat in his Fathers house. He was also a blessing to many: for his children and household were governed by him in a way most conducive to their best interests. The people amongst whom he sojourned could not but be edified by his instructions and conduct: and to this day the whole of his life affords a stimulus to the church to serve God after his example. But most of all was he a blessing in being the Progenitor of the Messiah, in whom all the nations of the earth were to be blessed [Note: Act 3:25, and Gal 3:8; Gal 3:16.]: and every person will be blessed or cursed according as he accepts or rejects that promised Seed.]
Similar inducements are offered to us also
[Everyone who, for Christs sake, will renounce the world, shall be blessed. He may not possess opulence and honour; but the little that he hath, shall be better to him than all the riches of the ungodly. In his soul he shall be truly blessed. View him in the state least enviable according to human apprehension; see him weeping and mourning for his sins; yet then is he truly blessed [Note: Mat 5:3-4.]: he shall have pardon and acceptance with his God: he shall experience the renewing and sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit: he shall have joys and consolations which the stranger intermeddleth not with: and in due time he shall be blessed with faithful Abraham, in the eternal fruition of his God.
He shall be a blessing too to all around him. View him in his family connexions; view him as a husband, a parent, a master, a friend; who so kind, so benevolent, so anxious to promote the happiness of those connected with him? View him in the church, or in the state; what blessings does he communicate by the light of his example! what evils does he avert by his prevailing intercessions! Suppose the Christian to be instrumental to the salvation of one single soul; the whole world is not equivalent to the good that he has done. Nor is it that individual soul only that shall acknowledge him as its benefactor; for, all the good that shall arise through the medium of that soul to the remotest posterity, shall be traced up to him as its author; and shall occasion thanksgivings to God on his behalf to all eternity.
Let these inducements be duly weighed, and how light will the vanities of this world appear in comparison of them!]
From a believing prospect of these benefits arose,
III.
His ready obedience
Notwithstanding all the obstacles in his way, he without hesitation obeyed the call
[His friends and relatives would consider his conduct as an indication of consummate weakness and folly: especially, when he could not so much as tell them whither he was going, they would be ready to pity him as insane. But as, on the one hand, he valued not the comforts of their society, so neither, on the other hand, did he regard their contempt and ridicule: every consideration gave way to a sense of duty, and a desire of the promised blessings. He believed, firmly believed, all that God had spoken. He believed especially that the Saviour of the world should spring from his loins; and that, through the merits of that Saviour, he himself, together with all his believing posterity, should possess that good land, even heaven itself, of which Canaan was a type and shadow. Under the influence of this faith he was contented to forego all the comforts that he could lose, and to endure all the sufferings that could come upon him [Note: Heb 11:8-10.].]
In this he was a pattern and example to all believers
[If we renounce the world for Christs sake, and set ourselves in earnest to seek the land of promise, we shall be despised and hated, even as Christ himself was [Note: Joh 15:18-20.]. But this we are not to regard. We are not to confer with flesh and blood; but instantly and perseveringly to pursue our destined course. What though we have never seen heaven, nor can even tell where it lies? it is sufficient for us to know that it is a land flowing with milk and honey, and that it is kept for us until the time appointed of the Father. Nor need we doubt but that it will far more than counterbalance all the sufferings that we can endure in our way to it [Note: Rom 8:18.]. Let us only exercise the faith of Abram, and we shall instantly set out to follow his steps.]
Address,
1.
Those who are at ease in their native land
[It may appear harsh to say, that, if you hate not father and mother, and houses and lands, yea and your own life also, you cannot be Christs disciple [Note: Luk 14:26.]: but this is the word of Christ himself. It is true, we are not to understand it in a literal sense; for we are not to hate even our enemies: but when our friends, or even life itself, stand in competition with Christ, we must act as if we hated them; we must sacrifice them all without one moments hesitation. On lower terms than these Christ never will accept us: We must forsake all, and follow him.]
2.
Those who have set out towards the land of promise
[Terah the father, and Nahor the brother, of Abram, accompanied him as far as Charran; and there (from what motive we know not) they all abode five years. God then renewed his call to Abram; but alas! his father was dead; and Nahor was weary of a wandering life; so that, on the recommencement of his journey, Abram had no associate but his Wife and Nephew. We pretend not to determine any thing of the spiritual state of Terah or Nahor; but their never entering into the land of Canaan may well be a caution to us to beware, lest, having received a promise of entering into Gods rest, any of us should seem to come short of it [Note: Heb 4:1.]. It were better never to have begun our journey heaven-ward, than to turn back, even in our hearts [Note: 2Pe 2:20-21; Heb 10:38-39.].]
Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)
CONTENTS.
The history of the patriarch Abram is re-assumed. In his journey (for he is still in the pilgrimage state) he is going towards the South. In Gerar, where he sojourned, Abimelech, the King of the place, beholdeth the beauty of Sarah, Abraham’s wife; and she is, in consequence thereof, taken into the King’s house. God, by the ministry of a dream, restrains Abimelech from his evil designs. Abimelech is informed of the relationship between Abraham and Sarah; he reproves Abraham, for not informing him of it himself; and sends him away from him, with his wife, and all that he had. Upon Abraham’s Prayer, God removes the affliction from Abimelech and his family.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night, and said to him, Behold, thou art but a dead man, for the woman which thou hast taken; for she is a man’s wife.
By the ministry of dreams and visions of the night, in the early ages of the world, the Lord was pleased to convey many great and important discoveries, not only to the faithful, but (for the benefit of his people), to the profane also. Gen 41:1 etc. Dan 2:1 etc.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Abraham and Abimelech
Gen 20
Abraham went from Mamre to the south, and found a fertile country lying between two deserts, the desert of Kadesh and the desert of Shur. The earth is not all fertile, or we should think little of it; neither is it all desert, or we should be driven into despair. Abraham, the great man and prophet of the Lord, once more shows his littleness by giving way to a cowardly fear that strangely divided his heart with the noblest faith found in the ancient world. His fear in one direction was simply ridiculous and pitiful; when he came amongst a powerful people he was always afraid that they would kill him in order to get possession of his wife: on the face of it the thing would seem to be incredible; here is a man who left his kindred and his father’s house, who braved the hardships of the wilderness, who arose and pursued kings and slew them, and delivered the prey from the hand of the mighty, tottering like a weak old coward when he thinks that he may be killed. He made a mean figure before Pharaoh, and he makes a meaner still before Abimelech. In one sense I am glad that Abraham made such a fool of himself, for had he been without flaw or blemish, perfect and invincible in faith, and complete in the sanctification of his character, he would have awed me by his supernatural respectability, and I should never have thought of him as an example or a pattern. From his own account he told a white lie by keeping back part of the truth.
The thing that is most remarkable in the whole story is that God should apparently have taken Abraham’s part instead of humbling and punishing him in the sight of the heathen. To us the Almighty seems to have had just cause for contracting Abraham into Abram, and sending him back into his own country “a sadder but a wiser man.” In discussing a subject so delicate we must awaken the attention of our whole mind and heart, for the loss of a word may be the loss of a truth Observe, first of all, that if the Divine purpose is to be turned aside by the fault or blemish found in individual character, the Divine government of man is at an end, and human progress is an impossibility. Adam failed, so did Noah, so did Abraham, so did Lot. So clearly was it established as a sad and mournful truth that no individual man was perfect, that once and again God was moved to abolish the human race from the earth altogether. It was not Adam that sinned, or Noah, or Abraham; it was human nature that sinned. There seems to be little advantage of one man over another in this or that particular, but the advantage even when real is only partial. Pharaoh seemed to be a better man than Abram, but he was not so in reality. Take them bulk for bulk, character for character, Pharaoh was not to be mentioned with Abram. Esau seemed to be a brave and noble son of the soul, and Jacob seemed to be a sneaking and vile schemer, with the making of an assassin under his smooth skin; I admit this fully, but the judgment is not to be fixed at any one point; you must take the full stretch of time required by the Almighty in working out his purposes, and then it will be seen that under all appearances there was something undiscernible by the human eye, which made every man chosen to leadership and renown in the holy kingdom the best man that could have been chosen for the purpose. You say that Abimelech was better than Abraham; now let me ask you what you know about Abimelech? Nothing but what is stated in this chapter. Very well. You are so far right. You have seen Abimelech at his best and you have seen Abraham at his worst, and then you have rushed to a conclusion! This is not the right way to read history; certainly it is not the right way to read the Bible. We are not to set act against act, but life against life. If we were to set act against act, we should reverse the most solemn verdicts of history, and disennoble some of the very princes of human kind. You have seen a professing Christian in a bad temper, and you have seen a man who made no profession of Christianity unruffled and serene, and instantly you question the sincerity of the professor and sing the praises of the pagan. And you point to facts in justification. Now your reasoning may be wrong, your facts may be illusory, and your judgment may be most unjust and cruel. It is quite true that you have seen the one man in a stormy passion, and the other man without a flush of colour on his pale cheek, and it is quite possible that in the particular case referred to the professor may have been wrong and the pagan may have been right; but take them life for life, spirit for spirit, character for character, through and through, and no man who is without Christ can compare for true and lasting dignity of soul with the least in the kingdom of heaven.
This principle may help us to come to larger and juster judgments of human character and human history. We must not judge the universal by the local. When I think of the meanness of Adam, the drunkenness of Noah, the selfishness of Lot, the cowardice of Abraham, the cunning of Jacob, the sensuality of David, and the inconstancy of Peter, my first wonder is that such men should have a name in the Divine history at all. But therein I show my folly not my wisdom, and I may show my impiety, too, by my setting up my morality against the righteousness of God. It is easy for me to compare the flat and insipid respectability of some of my own acquaintance with the painful characteristics I have just named, and to depose the great historical characters in favour of my unimpeachable friends. But where would my unimpeachable friends have been in the same circumstances? And what have they ever done to show that they would have stood where Adam fell, and that they would have been bold where Peter shrank and lied?
This, then, is the point at which I find rest when I am disturbed by the evident and painful immorality of illustrious Bible characters, viz., human nature has never been perfect in all its qualities, energies, and services; the perfection of human nature can be wrought out only by long-continued and severe probation; in choosing instruments for the representation of his will and the execution of his purposes, God has always chosen men who were best fitted on the whole for such ministry, though in some particulars they have disastrously and pitiably failed. When I think I could have improved God’s plan, the mistake is mine, because my vision is dim and I never can see more than a very limited section of any human character.
In the next place consider, knowing human nature as we do, how beneficial a thing it was to the great men themselves to be shown now and again that they were imperfect, and that they were only great and strong as they were good as they were true to God. To be an illustrious leader, to have power and authority amongst men, always to be in high places, and to be absolutely without a fault of disposition, temper, or desire, is enough to tempt any man to think that he is more than a man; and even to be without actual social fault, that can be pointed out and blamed, is not unlikely to give a man a false notion of the real state of his own nature. We may learn quite as much from our failures as from our successes. I have seen more truly what I am by my faults than by my graces, and never have I prayed with so glowing a fervour as when I have seen that there was but a step between me and death and that I had nearly taken it! Speaking of faultless men I am reminded of Enoch. It is on record that “Enoch walked with God.” I fear that these words may not be always fairly applied. Let me point out to you the difference between a contemplative and an active life. It is clear from the very form of expression that Enoch was of a retiring and meditative character. He loved the quiet nook in the hill. You find him away under the whispering trees, with eyes now fixed on the ground and presently lifted towards heaven in tender and expectant prayer. Let me ask you, What has Enoch done for the human race? What dangers has he braved, what battles has he fought, what heroisms has he displayed? Compare the position of Adam with the position of Enoch! Compare the valour of Abraham with the peaceful disposition of Enoch! This, I contend, is the just and honourable course of criticism. When men return from the far-away battle-field, I shall stand upon the shore and watch their debarkation. The artist who has drawn the pictures shall pass in cordial silence; the literary correspondent, who has given graphic accounts of the bloody fray, shall have a friendly salute; the ornamental soldier, who returns without scratch or stain, shall have a look of suspecting wonder; but the grand old general who led the fight who has come home with battered helmet and dinted shield, maimed, torn, half the man he was when he went out, whose old likeness we have to search for through scars and seams that tell of heroic suffering when he steps forth, every war-mark shall make him dear to us, and, as his brave old limbs limp under him, we shall hail him as a patriot, a soldier, and a friend.
Do we, then, find any justification of our own evil-doing in these reflections? I answer, not one tittle of justification. God forbid! I am seeking to justify God, not to justify man. We are called to holiness, to honour, to purity, to nobleness: to all that is beautiful and resplendent in character. To this end Christ died; to this end the Holy Spirit works; to this end our whole being should move in one strenuous and hopeful effort. And yet in thought, or word, or deed; by fear, or unbelief, or selfishness; by suspicion, envy, jealousy, or uncharitableness, we may slip and even fall many times by the way. But if the root of the matter be in us; if, under all our faults and sins we have that true faith which is the gift of God, and that deep love which lives through our inconstancy amounting sometimes to treason, and if we press and strive towards better things, we shall find in the last result that God’s grace is greater than our sin, and that we shall be saved if only “so as by fire.”
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
XXV
THE LIFE OF ABRAHAM–(Concluded)
Gen 19:29-25:18
This chapter concludes the life of Abraham. It covers over five chapters of Genesis. The important events are varied:
1. Lot’s history after the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the incestuous origin of the Ammonites and Moabites.
2. Abraham’s dealing with Abimelech, the Philistine king.
3. The birth and weaning of Isaac.
4. The casting out of the handmaiden, Hagar, and Ishmael.
5. The great trial of Abraham’s faith.
6. The death and burial of Sarah.
7. The marriage of Isaac.
8. Abraham’s marriage with Keturah their children.
9. Abraham’s disposition of his property.
10. Death and burial.
11. Character.
All these events wonderfully illustrate Oriental life of that age.
Our lesson commences with Gen 19:29 : “And it came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the Plains, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in which Lot dwelt.” An examination question will be, To whom was Lot indebted for his rescue from the destruction of Sodom? Gen 19:30 gives the origin of two famous should say infamous nations: Moabites and Ammonites. They resulted from the incest with his daughters on the part of Lot. No nations have developed so harmoniously with their origin. They were immoral, untrustworthy, every way a blot upon civilization, the bitterest enemies of the Israelites, except the Amalekites and Philistines.
The twentieth chapter returns to Abraham. He located in the territory of the Philistine king. The Philistines, descendants of a son of Ham, originally located in Egypt. But they get their name from their migratory habits. Leaving the place that God assigned to them, they took possession of the southwestern coast of the land which derives its name from them, in our time called Palestine. They had not yet developed the confederacy of the five cities, like the Swiss cantons, which they established later. Abimelech is not a name, but a title, like Pharaoh. The Philistine king has more honor than any subsequent king. We have discussed the responsibility of Abraham, making Sarah say that she was his sister. She is eighty years old, but a most beautiful young woman. God has restored youth to her and Abraham. Abimelech takes Sarah, but is prevented from harming her through a dream God sent, warning him that she was the wife of one of his prophets, and that he would die if he did not return her. Abimelech justly rebukes them both. In Gen 19:9 he says to Abraham, “What hast thou done unto us? and in what have I offended thee, that thou hast brought on me and my kingdom a great sin?” Abraham makes a very lame excuse. Isaac repeats the very same thing with another Abimelech. To Sarah, Abimelech says, “Behold, I have given 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.” The wrong that had been done by her captivity was thus amply compensated. The text of the King James Version says she was reproved. I think it was a gentle rebuke. Note the healing of Abimelech in Gen 19:17 at the prayer of Abraham, just as we see the friends of Job forgiven at the intercession of Job, and Israel forgiven at the intercession of Samuel and Moses. What mighty power has the intercessory prayer of good men with God!
According to promise Isaac was born. Then Sarah becomes both inspired and poetical. Her Magnification sounds like that of the virgin Mary. She said, “God hath made me to laugh; every one that heareth will laugh with me.” The child was named Isaac, which means laughter. Some children are born to make parental hearts sing with joy. Many children cause the parental heart to ache.
We come to another incident: “The child grew, and was weaned.” And Abraham made a great religious festival in honor of the weaning of Isaac. Sarah saw the son of Hagar making sport and said to Abraham, “Cast out this handmaid and her son; for the son of this handmaid shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac.” It was a little hard on Ishmael. He had been the only child, much loved by his father. He was taking a pretty wide swing in affairs at the birth of Isaac, which, according to an old saying, “broke his nose,” and put him out of commission. So, although it was a religious ceremony, Ishmael mocked, sinning against God, the father, mother, and child. Sarah seems rather hard, but she was exceedingly wise. It was very difficult to bring up two seta of children in a house where there is already a spirit of jealousy. Ishmael would not have been a safe guide for his little brother. It hurt Abraham very much. That night God appeared to him in a vision and confirmed what Sarah had said. Paul quotes the words of Sarah in Gal 4 , “Cast out the handmaid and her son.” In that famous letter he says that Hagar and Sarah are allegorical, representing two covenants: one according to the flesh, Hagar, typifying Israel; the other according to the spirit, in which Sarah represents the Jerusalem which is above. All true spiritual children of Abraham are children of promise, born of the spirit. This interpretation throws a great light on the incidents recorded here.
The story becomes still more pathetic when early next morning Abraham puts a goatskin full of water and some bread upon Hagar’s shoulder, and starts her and the boy off. She struck out, trying to find the way to Egypt. But she got tangled up in the desert. In a hot dry, sandy country it does not take long to drink all the water a woman can carry. The water gave out. Ishmael was famishing with thirst. The mother could not bear to see him die. So she put him under a little bush to shelter him as much as possible, and drawing off to a distance, wept and sobbed in anguish of spirit. And the angel of God spoke to her, “What aileth thee, Hagar? Fear not; for God hath heard the voice of the lad where he is.” The boy, too, was praying. Once in preaching a sermon to children I took that text. The other night my little boy asked me to repeat a scripture before we had family prayer. I told him of the boy born to be a wild man, against whom was every man’s hand, and whose hand was against every man. How that he and his mother had to leave home when he was a little fellow. That hot walk in the desert, the insatiable thirst, and the mother going off to pray. How it occurred to the little boy to pray, and how when he prayed God heard the voice of the lad himself. Instantly my little boy spoke up and began to tell of two or three times when he had prayed and God had heard him. I encouraged him in that thought. I told him whenever he got into trouble, no matter how small, to pray; just as a child to tell God, and while nobody on earth might hear him, his Heavenly Father would hear even a whisper. I tell you this that you may impress upon young people the fact that God heard the voice of the lad himself. At the Arkansas convention in Texarkana, I preached a sermon for Dr. Barton’s church. A mother came to me before preaching and said that she had two boys in whom she was very much interested, and wanted me to pray for them that day. I said, “Suppose you tell those boys to pray while I preach.” She told them, and at the close of the sermon they were happily converted. Dr. Barton baptized them that night, both at one time, holding each other’s hands. It made a very impressive sight. Having heard about this, when I returned later to Texarkana, another mother came and stated a similar case. I told her to ask the lad to pray himself. That boy was converted and joined the church at the close of the service. In lecturing to the Y. M. C. A. in the afternoon, before I commenced my talk, I raised the point that God could hear anybody in that audience of five hundred men. There were some very bad cases, men who had stained their homes, grieved their wives, darkened the prospect of their children. I told them that God would hear them even on the brink of hell, if they would turn to him and pray, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” One man stepped right up and gave me his hand. At night all the churches worshiped at one church. I preached to within ten minutes of train time, and left without knowing the result. But with two preachers to call out from the audience the people who would take God at his word, and judging from the seeming impression, there ought to have been a great many conversions there that night. I would be glad if every preacher would take that text, “I have heard the voice of the lad where he is,” and preach a sermon. Get it on the minds of the children that God will hear them. “God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water; and she went and filled the bottle with water, and gave the lad drink. And God was with the lad.” That is the second part of the text. First, I have heard the voice of the lad himself; second, God was with the lad.
His mother took him a wife out of the land of Egypt, and he became the father of twelve nations. I have told you about the Arabs, the descendants of Ishmael. They hold the ground where Abraham, Sarah, Jacob, Leah, Isaac, and Rachel were buried. There is an immense structure built at that place. Until 1869 they would not allow a Gentile to enter, but in that year the Prince of Wales was permitted to go inside. The remainder of the chapter states a remarkable covenant between Abraham and Abimelech. It became evident that God was with Abraham and nobody could harm him. Abimelech wanted a covenant with that kind of a man. In my preaching I used to advise sinners never to go into business with a backslidden Christian, for God will surely visit him with Judgments, and he may come with fire to burn up the store. Anyway, a backslidden Christian is an unsafe partner. But what a fine partner is a Christian who is not a backslidden one. Abraham said that he ought to rectify a certain offense. “I dug this well in order to water my stock and your servants took it.” Abimelech righted the wrong. They took an oath of amity toward each other, so that the place was called Beersheba, i.e., the well of the oath. That marks the southern boundary of Palestine as we regard it.
I am going to give you the salient points of the twenty-second chapter, which presents the most remarkable incident in the life of Abraham. God had said that in Isaac was all Abraham’s hope for the future. God determined to try the faith of Abraham. It has been forty years since his conversion, and he has been stepping up higher and higher until you would think he must have reached the heights and graduated. But the crowning touch to his faith is to come now. God said, “Take now thy sou, thine only son, whom thou lovest, even Isaac, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering.” It was a staggering request, and yet Abraham staggered not in unbelief. He thought, “What will become of God’s promise?” In Hebrews it is explained how he argued it out and trusted. If God said, “Put Isaac to death,” he would do it, but God had said that through Isaac was to come the Messiah. So it would be necessary for God to raise Isaac from the dead. They set out early. If they had waked Sarah and told her what they were going to do, there probably would have been a row. So they took their servant, a mule, and some wood, and started to distant Mount Moriah, where Jerusalem is. As they drew near the place, Isaac, who had been doing some thinking, says, “Father, here is the wood and the fire, but where is the lamb for the sacrifice?” It had not been mentioned what his part was. Abraham answered, “My son, the Lord will pro-, vide a sacrifice.” They reached the place near where Christ was later crucified. Abraham built the altar and placed the wood upon it. He commenced binding Isaac. The son, never saying a word, submitted. He stretched him over that altar, and drew his knife over the boy, and already in Abraham’s mind Isaac was dead. But just as the knife was about to descend, God said, “Abraham, Abraham, stay thy hand. Isaac shall not die.” He looked around and there in a bush was a ram caught by its horns. He took that and offered it.
There are two marvelous lessons to be derived from this incident. The most significant is that God made Abraham feel the anguish that God felt in giving up his only begotten Son to die for man. Abraham is the only man that ever entered into the sorrow of the Divine Mind in giving up Jesus to die. When he is bound on the cross and prays, “Save me from the sword,” the Father cries out, “Wake, O sword, and smite the Shepherd.” When he cries, “Save me from the enemy that goeth about like a roaring lion,” and when he prays, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me,” it was not possible if anybody was to be saved. The other thought is that as the Father consented to give up his Son, so the Son obediently submitted. Thus Isaac becomes the type of Christ. And Abraham called the name of the place Jehovah-jireh, “it shall be provided.” When I was a young preacher I preached a sermon on all the double names of Jehovah found in the Old Testament, such as Jehovah-Elohim, Jehovah-Tsidkena, Jehovah-jireh, etc.
Now we come to a passage that made a great impression on the mind of the author of the letter to the Hebrews. “And the angel of the Lord called unto Abram in a second time out of heaven, and said, By myself have I sworn, saith Jehovah, because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heavens, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice.” That matter is discussed in Hebrews, Romans, and Galatians. When I was a young preacher I used to delight in preaching from this passage, and I like it yet, Heb 6:16 , “For men verily swear by the greater; and an oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife. Wherein God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath: that by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us: which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil.” In order to assure every child of God that his hope is well grounded and that he cannot be disappointed, two things in which it is impossible for God to lie are joined and twisted together to make a cable which is fastened to the anchor of hope: one, the promise of God, the other the oath of God. In commenting upon that Paul said that, though it was a covenant with a man, because it was confirmed by the oath of God, it could not be disannulled.
In Gen 22:20 we find, “And it came to pass after these things, that it was told Abraham, saying, Behold, Milcah, she hath also borne children unto thy brother Nahor; Uz his firstborn, and Buz his brother, and Kemuel the father of Aram, and Chesed, and Hazo and Pildash, and Jidlaph and Bethuel. And Bethuel begat Rebekah.” That incident is put in to prepare for a subsequent chapter, showing where Isaac got his wife. My wife’s brother, when he was a little fellow, came to his mother and wanted to know who were the boys that milked a bear. She said she did not know. He said it was in the Bible, so he read, “Those eight did Milcah bear.” Then his mother told him of the old Hardshell preacher’s sermon on that text, to this effect: They got out of milk at a certain house. The only available source was a she bear, and so the sturdy boys roped her and brought in the milk.
The twenty-third chapter, which gives an account of the death of Sarah, and the purchase of a burial place by Abraham, is a very interesting historical account because it gives all the details of a noted business transaction, showing how Orientals dealt in their trades. Notice particularly the Gen 23:11 , what Ephron says, “Nay, my lord, hear me: the field I give thee, and the cave that is therein, I give it thee; in the presence of the children of my people gave I it thee: bury thy dead.” If an Englishman or an American had said that, it would have meant an outright gift, but for an Oriental or a Mexican, he expects the full price. If you enter a house in Mexico they will tell you everything is yours, cows, lambs, etc., but don’t you take for granted that it is so; it is just soft speech. Notice in closing this transaction that the currency was not coin, but weighed silver. Silver and gold were not put in pieces of money, but in any form; as, rings, bracelets, or bars, counted by weight; not numbered.
The twenty-fourth chapter tells how marriages were contracted in the East, and is an exceedingly interesting bit of history on that subject. Abraham brings out a revelation that God had previously made that we have no account of elsewhere, viz.: that God had told him not to marry his son to any of the idolaters of the land, but to his own people who were worshipers of God. So Abraham took Eliezer and swore him. The form of the oath is given, showing how these solemn oaths were taken between man and man. This head servant, taking ten camels, struck out from the southern part of Palestine, going to the Euphrates, a long trip, though common for caravans. He is much concerned about his mission and says to Abraham, “You tell me not to take Isaac there because God told you never to take your son back to that country.” There is another revelation, not previously recorded. “Now, suppose when I get there the girl won’t come to me?” Abraham said, “That will exempt you from your responsibility, but God will prosper you in this, his arrangement, and will govern you in everything.” We have a description of this old man falling on a plan by which a sign would be given. He sat down near a well and waited for the women to come and draw water. In this country men draw the water we don’t expect women to draw enough water for a herd of cattle. His plan was that he would steadily look at the women who came and fixing his mind on one, he would ask her to give him a drink, and if she inclined the bucket to him and said, “Let me water your camels,” she would be the one. Later we find Jacob falling upon the same method. In our time young men manage to find their wives without signs or omens. So when Rebekah, granddaughter of Nahor, brother of Abraham, came out, a beautiful virgin, and he asked her for a drink, and she let her pitcher down and held it in her hand, and then offered to water the camels, Eliezer knew she was the right one. He took a ring of gold, a half-shekel in weight, two bracelets for her hands, ten shekels in weight, and said, “Whose daughter art thou? Is there in thy father’s house a place for us to pass the night?” She told him who she was, and that there was a place and abundant provisions for him and his camels.
So when she got to the house she reported the case and her brothers came out. Her father was a polygamist, and the eldest of each set of children was the head. So Laban, Rebekah’s brother, came out and invited old Eliezer in. Food is set before him, but he says, “I will not eat until I have told my message.” Laban told him to tell it. And he said, “I am Abraham’s servant. And Jehovah hath blessed my master greatly; and he is become great; and he hath given him flocks and herds, and silver and gold, and men servants and maid servants, and camels and asses. And Sarah, my master’s wife, bare a son to my master when she was old; and unto him hath he given all that he hath.” That was a very fine introduction. Whenever you open negotiations with a young lady’s father for marriage in the case of a young man whose father is very wealthy and this son his only heir, you have paved the way for a fair hearing. He strengthened the case by stating that under the inspiration of God he was forbidden to take a wife from among the idolaters, but was commanded to come to this place for a wife, the idea of appointment by God, a match made in heaven. Some matches are made of sulfur, not in heaven. He gave his third reason. “Not only is my master’s son rich, and I am here under the arrangement of God, but after I got to this place, I let God give me a sign to determine the woman.” Having stated his case he says, “If you will deal truly and kindly with my master, tell me; and if not, tell me, that I may turn to the right hand or to the left.”
In the King James Version, Eliezer’s speech has a translation that used to be very famous as a text. He says, “I have come to seek a bride for my lord.” A Methodist preacher in Edward Eggleston’s Circuit Rider, preaching from that text before an immense congregation, says, “My theme is suggested by the twenty-fourth chapter of Genesis,” and gave a little of the history. “Now,” he says, “I am here to seek a bride for my Lord, to espouse a soul to God. And like old Eliezer, I am under an oath of God. Like him I am not willing to eat until I have stated my case. And like him I have come by divine appointment. And like him I have tokens of his spirit that somewhere in this congregation is the bride of God. And like him I commence wooing for my Lord by stating whose son he is. He is the Son of God. He is very rich. He is the heir of all things in the world.” Edward Eggleston, in telling that story, relates that Patsy, a beautiful girl, who had despised religion and circuit riders, was wonderfully impressed by the sermon. It was the custom in the early days of Methodism to demand that women should eschew jewels, basing it on a New Testament expression about bad worldly ornaments. So while the preacher was exhorting and pleading for a bride for his master, Patsy commenced taking off her earrings, loosening her bracelets, and putting them all on the table. Then she said, “I seek to be ornamented by the One to whom you propose to espouse me, even the Lord Jesus Christ. I lay aside the trappings of external wealth and splendour, and look for that quality of spirit that best ornaments a woman.” Paul says, showing that the Methodist preacher was not going out of the record, “I have espoused you to Christ.”
The custom was for the betrothal to take place at the house of the bride’s father, and Eliezer comes in the name of his master and the betrothal is undertaken. The marriage is consummated whenever the bride is taken to the bridegroom’s house, and he meets and takes her in. The virgins of Mat 25 are all espoused, but the bridegroom has not yet come to take them to his house. When Eliezer had stated his case the father and brother say, “This thing proceeds from Jehovah, and it is a question we cannot answer. Behold Rebekah is before you. Take her and go, and let her be the wife of thy master’s son.” As soon as the betrothal is completed, Eliezer according to custom, takes the lady to his camel and hands out the presents sent by the bridegroom. “And the servants brought forth jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment, and gave them to Rebekah, and he gave also to her brother and her mother precious things.” We perpetuate that somewhat in our marriage festivals when friends bring bridal presents. According to an Eastern custom a bridegroom makes presents to the bride’s mother and family. As these samples of the richness of Abraham were displayed, they felt still better satisfied about the judiciousness of the marriage.
Next morning Eliezer wants to start right home, but they said, “Let the damsel stay awhile. You stay a couple of weeks or months.” But Orientals always expect the answer, “No, I am in a hurry. I must go.” So they proposed to leave it to the girl. I have often wondered if they were going to leave anything to her. They called Rebekah and she said, “I will go.” That leads me to remark what a singular thing it is that a girl raised in a loving family, sheltered by parental care from even a cold breath of air, the pride and light of the house, all at once, on one night’s notice, pulls up stakes and leaves the old home, saying to a man pretty much what Ruth said to Naomi, “Where thou goest I will go. Where thou lodgest I will lodge. Thy God shall be my God, and thy people shall be my people, and God do so to me, if I ever cease from following after thee.” And yet, it is God’s providence. So Rebekah and her maids, and the servant of Abraham and his men struck out from Haran on the Euphrates, on that long pilgrimage, south to Damascus; to the headwaters of the Jordan; then down either side of the river until you come to Hebron, where the bridegroom was. Just before Rebekah gets to Hebron, it happened that Isaac was out, taking a walk for meditation. In such a period of a young man’s life, he is given to meditation. When you see a young fellow that has always wanted to be surrounded by a crowd of boys, getting up early in the morning and taking a long walk by himself, there is something up. So Isaac was out on this meditating expedition, and Rebekah saw him. She instantly slipped down from the camel and put the veil over her face. The bridegroom could never see the face of the bride until he took her into his house. That part I do not think I would like. In the East the women are secluded until after their marriage.
The next chapter gives us an account of Abraham we hardly expect. Sarah has been dead sometime, and he took another wife, Keturah. Then there is a statement of their children and the countries they inhabit. They become mostly Arabs. We find this in Gen 25:5 : “And Abraham gave all that he had unto Isaac. But unto the sons of the concubines, Hagar and Keturah, that Abraham had, Abraham gave gifts; and he sent them away from his son Isaac, while he yet lived, eastward unto the east country.” Though he made provisions for all, his general estate went to the child of promise.
Abraham lived 175 years and died in a good old age, full of days. Brother Smith used that expression in conducting the funeral of President Brooks’ father. Going from the funeral I asked my wife, who is a good listener to a sermon of any kind, what Brother Smith said. She said, “He had the usual things to say on such occasions, but brought out the biblical interpretation I am not sure about. He interpreted ‘full of days’ to mean ‘satisfied with his days.’ ” I said, “He certainly is right. Old age and full of days are distinguished thus. A man might live to be an old man and not be full of days. Every retrospect of his life might bring him sorrow.” I am afraid few people, when they come to die, can say with Paul, “The time of my exodus is at hand, and I am ready to be poured out full of days. I have fought a good fight. I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up a crown which God the righteous judge shall give to me.”
The next noticeable expression is, “He was gathered to his people.” That does not mean that his body was deposited in the family burying ground. As yet no member of his family was in the cave of Machpelah except his wife. In the Old Testament the expression refers to the soul and is one of those expressions that teach the belief in the immortality of the soul and the existence of the soul separate from the body. Next, Isaac and Ishmael bury him. The last time we saw Ishmael was at the weaning of Isaac, when he was mocking. Both are married. Ishmael has a large family. The fathers of these nationalities that are to be distinct until the second coming of Christ, come together at the father’s grave. It is very touching that these two boys whom the antagonism of life had parted, whom the very trend of destiny had led separate, when the father died, came back without antagonism to bury him.
The chapter then gives a brief account of the generations of Ishmael, which constitutes one of the sections of the book of Genesis. Note the fact that according to the promise made to Ishmael, he becomes the father of twelve tribes. He died at the age of 137. Gen 25:18 says, “Before the face of his brethren he abode.” That expression means that he dwelt in the sight of his brethren, yet separated from them, living his own independent life.
Abraham is now dead. Here is a question I put to every class in Genesis. Analyze the character of Abraham and state the constituent elements of his greatness. I give you some hints.
(1) His mighty faith, the father of the faithful, whose faith took steps and staggered not through unbelief, no matter how often or hard it was tried. That is the supreme element of his greatness.
(2) His habit of religion. He took no “religious furloughs” when he travelled, as some men do. Wherever he stopped he erected an altar to God. Some years ago at Texarkana, some young men got on the train, and among them a Baptist preacher, and all were drinking. Finally one of them turned to him and said, “I won’t drink with you any more unless you will promise to quit preaching.” He was away from home and thought nobody knew him.
(3) His capacity for friendship. He was one of very few men counted the friend of God. Christ says concerning some of his people, “I call you not servants. I call you friends, and ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you.” Abraham was also a friend of his fellow men. No man or woman, no matter what the external conditions, who is not capable of great, strong, undying friendship, can be very great.
(4) His love of peace. He said to Lot concerning the strife between the herdsmen, “Let there be no strife between us. Though I am the older and came here first, you can take the land you want and I will take what is left.” Lot selected the fertile plain of the Jordan and pitched his tent. Wherever Abraham went there were warlike, quarrelsome tribes, men who lived with swords on and daggers in hand, yet he had no quarrels.
(5) But as we have seen, when necessary to make war, he struck fast, hard, and effectively. He evinced great courage.
(6) His independence of character. He would not accept a gift from Ephron the Hittite a burying place for his dead. He would not accept as much as a shoestring from the spoils of the Sodomites, which he had recovered in battle from the Babylonians, lest the king of Sodom should say, “I have made Abram rich.”
(7) His justice. In an old reader there is a legend that a stranger, lost and in trouble, came to his tent. Abraham cared for his stock, washed his feet, gave him food and a place to sleep. But when the man started to lie down, Abraham seized him and said, “You cannot sleep under my tent. You propose to lie down without thanking God for these blessings!” He put him out and the man went to sleep outside of the tent. In the night came a voice from heaven, “Abraham, where is the guest I sent?” “Lord, he came; I treated him kindly, but when I saw how unthankful to thee he was, I cast him out.” “Abraham, I have borne with that man many years. Could you not bear with him one night? I sent him that you might lead him to me.” Abraham, weeping, went out, and brought the man back in his arms.
(8) Governing his family. “I know Abraham, that he will command his children after him.”
(9) His unswerving obedience.
(10) His affection and provision for his family. He loved his wife very much, and made provision for every member of his family before he died. These are some of the characteristics of the greatness of Abraham. They are homely virtues, but they are rare on that account.
QUESTIONS 1. To whom was Lot indebted for his rescue from the destruction of Sodom? Proof?
2. What was the origin of the Moabites and Ammonites and how does their history harmonize with their origin?
3. In whose country does Abraham locate after the destruction of Sodom, of which son of Noah were they descendants and what the origin of their name?
4. Who was king of this people, what was Abraham’s aim here and what notable example of intercessory prayer?
5. Recite Sarah’s Magnification and give a New Testament parallel.
6. What was the occasion of Ishmael’s sin that drove him and his mother from home, what was the sin itself, the wisdom of Sarah, the divine approval and the New Testament use of this incident?
7. Tell the story of Hagar and Ishmael as outcasts, what text cited in this story, and what the application?
8. Whom did Ishmael marry, how many nations of his descendants and who are his descendants today?
9. What was the covenant between Abimelech and Abraham and what advice to businessmen is based thereon?
10. What great trial of Abraham’s faith and how did he stand the test?
11. What two marvelous lessons from this incident?
12. What blessing from heaven on Abraham because of his obedience in this test and what New Testament impress of this passage?
13. In the great trial of his faith when Isaac was offered, how was Abraham a type of the Father?
14. Why the incident of Gen 22:20-24 , given here, and what the text and Hardshell sermon cited?
15. What of particular interest in the twenty-third chapter, what Oriental custom here exemplified and what was the medium of exchange?
16. What two new revelations in Gen 24 , and tell the story of how Isaac got his wife.
17. What famous text is in this passage and what noted sermon cited on it?
18. What was the custom of Oriental marriages and what New Testament scripture does it illustrate?
19. What part of the Oriental marriage do we perpetuate in our marriages and with what modifications?
20. What part did Rebekah have in this affair and what eastern custom does she comply with upon her first sight of Isaac?
21. Who was Abraham’s second wife and who were his descendants by this wife?
22. How old was Abraham when he died and what is the meaning of “full of days”?
23. What is the meaning, both negatively and positively, of the expression: “He was gathered to his people,” what touching thing occurred at his funeral and what was the meaning of “Before the face of his brethren he abode”?
24. Analyze the character of Abraham and state the constituent elements of his greatness.
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
Gen 20:1 And Abraham journeyed from thence toward the south country, and dwelled between Kadesh and Shur, and sojourned in Gerar.
Ver. 1. And Abraham journeyed from thence, &c. ] Either as grieved at the sight of Sodom; or annoyed by the ill air thereof; a or as loathing Lot’s incest; or driven out by a famine; or desirous of doing good to many. Whatever it was that occasioned his removal, we find him ever and anon journeying from one place, and sojourning in another. God’s people are a brood of travellers. This was Abram the Hebrew, of Heber, which signifieth, pilgrim or stranger. They look toward heaven as their home, as Ulysses is said to do toward Ithaca, b as a bird looks to her nest on the highest rocks.
a Inde tam gravis halitus manat, ut eum nulla animalia perferant, cuius solo olfactu intereant .
b Plin. lib. viii. cap. 28.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Gen 20:1-7
1Now Abraham journeyed from there toward the land of the Negev, and settled between Kadesh and Shur; then he sojourned in Gerar. 2Abraham said of Sarah his wife, “She is my sister.” So Abimelech king of Gerar sent and took Sarah. 3But God came to Abimelech in a dream of the night, and said to him, “Behold, you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is married.” 4Now Abimelech had not come near her; and he said, “Lord, will You slay a nation, even though blameless? 5Did he not himself say to me, ‘She is my sister’? And she herself said, ‘He is my brother.’ In the integrity of my heart and the innocence of my hands I have done this.” 6Then God said to him in the dream, “Yes, I know that in the integrity of your heart you have done this, and I also kept you from sinning against Me; therefore I did not let you touch her. 7Now therefore, restore the man’s wife, for he is a prophet, and he will pray for you and you will live. But if you do not restore her, know that you shall surely die, you and all who are yours.”
Gen 20:1 “Abraham journeyed from there” Abraham left his campsite at the oaks of Mamre (cf. Gen 18:1) or Hebron (cf. Gen 13:18). Abraham lived a nomadic life, as did Job (same time frame).
“the Negev” This refers to “the south country” (BDB 616), which was a semi-arid desert, including the city of Beersheba to the south. This same area is mentioned in Gen 13:1. The Patriarchs, Abraham, and Isaac spent most of their time in this general area.
“Kadesh” This oasis was also known as Kadesh-barnea (cf. Gen 14:7; Gen 16:14), which is about 50 miles south of Beersheba. It is interesting that the term Kadesh (BDB 873 II, means “sacred”) is related to the Hebrew word for “holy,” which is kadosh (BDB 871).
“Shur” The term (BDB 1004 III) means “wall,” possibly referring to the line of Egyptian fortresses (cf. 1Sa 15:7; 1Sa 27:8). This is referred to in Gen 16:7 as the place where the angel of the Lord spoke with Hagar. We do not know where it is located geographically, but it is obviously south of Beersheba on the road to Egypt (cf. Gen 18:25).
“then he sojourned in Gerar” There is obviously a two-stage migration recorded here, for Gerar is north of Kadesh. The first VERB in Gen 20:1 “journeyed” (BDB 652, KB 704) literally means “to pull up tent pegs,” but this one, “sojourned” (BDB 157, KB 184), implies a long stay (cf. Gen 12:10; Gen 21:23-24; Gen 26:3; Gen 32:6; Gen 35:27; Gen 47:4). This was an area that would later be a stronghold of the Philistines (cf. Gen 10:19). We learn from later history that it was near Gaza, one of the five major walled cities of the Philistines.
Gen 20:2 “She is my sister” This is the same thing that happened in Gen 12:17-18 with the Pharaoh in Egypt. It will happen to Isaac and Rebekah in Gen 26:1 ff. The only explanation we have concerning this is in Gen 20:13, where it seemed to be the normal operating procedures for Abraham and Sarah after they left Ur of the Chaldeans. It is quite possible that they were truly half-brother and sister (cf. Gen 20:12), but it is also possible that Abraham simply adopted her in a ceremony that we learn from the Nuzi Tablets which describe Hurrian culture.
“So Abimelech the king of Gerar sent and took Sarah” Does this mean that Sarah was still physically attractive? This is entirely possible, based on Gen 12:14. Some say that God rejuvenated her body to allow her to conceive and that she became beautiful again. Other commentators have assumed that, because she was almost ninety years, this was only a cultural way of sealing the friendship covenant between Abraham and Abimelech.
Gen 20:3 “God came to Abimelech in a dream” Abimelech (BDB 4) is a title for the leader of a country, such as Pharaoh, Caesar, or Czar. It apparently means “father is king” or “the king is my father.” We see this general name for the kings of the Philistines found in the introduction to Psalms 34.
The fact that God appeared to him in a dream, as he did to Laban in Gen 31:34, shows something of this man’s relationship to God. This can specifically be seen where he calls God Adonai (Gen 20:4) and shows that he may have had some understanding of the covenant God (YHWH), as did Melchizedek (Genesis 14), another non-covenant person.
Gen 20:4-6 We see here the discussion between God and Abimelech where Abimelech reminds God that he acted innocently, without knowing all of the facts. The metaphor in Gen 20:5, “innocence of my hands”(CONSTRUCT BDB 667 and BDB 496), refers to a Hebrew idiom of open-handedness, i.e., “nothing to hide.” It is parallel with “in the integrity of my heart” (CONSTRUCT BDB 1070 and BDB 523, cf. 1Ki 9:4; Psa 7:8; Psa 101:2). In Gen 20:6 God said that He kept him from sinning (cf. 1Sa 25:39; Job 33:18; also note Psa 19:13).
Apparently this refers to some kind of disease which fell upon Abimelech and his family (cf. Gen 20:17-18; Gen 12:17). I think that it is important to see that God was actively involved in His world in the care of a non-covenant member. This can also be seen in His dealings with Hagar and Ishmael. This should be a great encouragement to all human beings (cf. Eze 18:23; Eze 18:32; Joh 3:16; Rom 11:32; 1Ti 2:4; 1Ti 4:10; Tit 2:11; 2Pe 3:9; 1Jn 2:1; 1Jn 4:14).
Gen 20:4 “Lord, will You slay a nation, even though blameless? This shows the same understanding of God’s justice that Abraham had in Gen 18:23. Apparently the king saw his death as a prelude to the destruction of the entire tribe (a plague, cf. Gen 20:17). He asserts (by the use of the term “blameless” or “righteous,” BDB 843) that he had committed no act of sexual consummation toward Sarah and that he was acting out of ignorance, not known sin. From this verse it is obvious that adultery was considered a serious violation of God’s standards even in this early stage of history (cf. Gen 12:17-19; Gen 26:7-11) because it affected inheritance rights.
SPECIAL TOPIC: HUMAN SEXUALITY
Gen 20:7 The VERBAL forms are striking in this message from God given to Abimelech in a dream.
1. “restore the man’s wife,” BDB 996, KB 1427, Hiphil IMPERATIVE, interestingly this is the same VERB used so often in the OT for “repent.”
2. “he will pray for you,” BDB 813, KB 933, Qal IMPERFECT (possibly used in a JUSSIVE sense). Note God’s forgiveness depended on Abraham’s intercessory prayer (much like Job 42:8). This highlights the special status of Abraham!
3. “you will live,” BDB 310, KB 309, Qal IMPERATIVE
4. “if you do not restore her,” Hiphil PARTICIPLE (see #1)
5. “know,” BDB 393, KB 390, Qal IMPERATIVE
6. “you shall surely die,” the INFINITIVE ABSOLUTE and IMPERFECT VERB of the same root (BDB 559, KB 562) denote intensity. Sin is associated with “death” (Gen 2:17; Exo 10:17; Num 18:22).
“he is a prophet” This is the first use of this term in the Bible and the only occurrence in Genesis. The term “prophet” (BDB 611) refers to one who receives and gives God’s revelation (cf. Num 12:6). However, in this context it seems to be connected with intercessory prayer (cf. Gen 20:7; Gen 20:17). This is possible because of other biblical references (cf. 1Sa 7:5; 1Sa 12:19; 1Sa 12:23; Job 42:8; Jer 7:16; Jer 11:14; Jer 14:11; Jer 27:18). Some say that it refers to passing on the revelation of God to his children (cf. Gen 18:19).
SPECIAL TOPIC: OLD TESTAMENT PROPHECY
“you and all who are yours” Again we have the emphasis on corporality, which is so common in the OT (cf. Gen 17:27; Gen 19:12). We do not really see an individual element until Ezekiel 18 and Jer 31:31-34, which will characterize the New Covenant.
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
south = the Negeb. See Gen 12:9; Gen 13:1.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Chapter 20
Abraham journeyed from there toward the south country, and dwelled between Kadesh and Shur, and he sojourned in Gerar ( Gen 20:1 ).
So Abraham was living in the area of Hebron, but now he is still sort of a nomadic person. If you go over to Israel today, you’ll see the Bedouins living in their tents and they are nomadic people. They’ll live for awhile in an area and then they’ll get up, pack their tents and move and live in another area. And Abraham was living in tents. He never had a house to dwell in, dwelt in tents as a Bedouin, as a stranger, as a sojourner.
It is interesting that Lot sought to settle down in a city, whereas Abraham always realized that he was just a sojourner, “he was looking for a city which hath foundation, whose maker and builder was God” ( Heb 11:10 ). And he counted himself just a stranger and a pilgrim upon the earth. So Abraham now is moving over into the country of the Philistines. Gerar is the area of the Philistines.
And so Abraham said of Sarah his wife, She is my sister: and Abimelech the king of Gerar sent, and took Sarah into his harem ( Gen 20:2 ).
Now this is a second time this has happened. Abraham did it when they went to Egypt years earlier, and he was rebuked by the Egyptian Pharaoh for doing such a thing. Now again he’s doing the same thing and this certainly says something about Sarah because she’s about ninety years old at this point and still retaining her beauty. So if we could only discover the kind of creams and all that she could use, that she used, we can probably make a fortune. She is still so beautiful that Abraham is afraid that they’re going to kill him in order that they might take his wife.
And so he says now you just say you’re my sister so that they won’t kill me. And so Abimelech saw her and took her into his harem and Abimelech had not come near her.
But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night, and said unto him, You’re a dead man ( Gen 20:3 ),
Or “you’re dead”, man. It’s all how you put the punctuation. And in reality, if you notice that’s exactly what God said. That “art but” is inserted. You notice it’s in italics, it means that the translators inserted that because they didn’t know the way we talk today. And God said, “Hey, you’re dead, man”, and so Abimelech, he said,
because of the woman which you have taken; she’s another man’s wife. But Abimelech had not come near her: and he said, Lord, will you also slay a righteous nation? Said he not unto me, She’s my sister? and even she herself said, He is my brother: it was in the integrity of my heart and innocency of my hands I have done this ( Gen 20:3-5 ).
God evidently smote him with some kind of a deadly plague and says, “Hey, you’ve had it, man. You’re dead man because you’ve got a woman there who is another man’s wife”. And so he said, “Hey, Lord, I’m innocent. Hey, I didn’t know it. She’d said she was the sister and that’s what he said about her and I’m innocent, Lord. I didn’t really know”. And God said, “Yes, I know that you did it in the integrity of your heart for I also have withheld you from sinning against me. Therefore I did not allow you to touch her”. So God’s hand working in the background, God not allowing him to touch Sarah.
Now therefore [God said] restore the man his wife; for he is a prophet, and he will pray for you, and you will live: and if you don’t restore her, know that you will surely die, and all that are yours. And therefore Abimelech rose early in the morning, and he called all of his servants, and he told these things in their ears: and the men were very frightened. Then Abimelech called Abraham, and said unto him, What have you done to us? and what have I done to you, that you’ve brought upon me and my kingdom this great sin? And thou hast done deeds unto me that ought not to be done. And Abimelech said unto Abraham, What sawest thou, that you’ve done this thing ( Gen 20:7-10 )?
In other words, what did I do to you that you do this to me? Why did you do this to us? And he’s challenging the man of God.
Abraham is known as the father of those who believe. He is used throughout the Scripture as the classic example of men who believed God and the word of God. And whenever the Bible wants to use a classic example of faith, it always points to Abraham, because “Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness” ( Jas 2:23 ).
But you know, I like the honesty of the Bible. The Bible doesn’t pretend at all that Abraham’s faith was perfect. It tells us even of these lapses of faith. It is not faith for Abraham to say, “Hey, she’s my sister”. That’s not really having faith in God; that’s a lapse of faith. And somehow I get comfort from it because if Abraham’s faith were totally perfect, then I think “Oh, there’s no chance for me”. You know if the guy was in everything just absolutely perfect, you say, sure look how God blessed him, and no wonder God blessed him the guy’s perfect. God blesses perfect people.
But Abraham was not at all perfect, though he is used as a classic example of those who believe in God. What does it mean? It means that God will honor my little faith, too. And God will bless me though I am imperfect also. It doesn’t mean that my faith has to be perfect and constant and steadfast at all times, never wavering, never doubting, never fearing, never questioning. It means that God can bless me and God will bless me just because of my simple trust in Him as faltering or as failing as it might be at times in certain circumstances.
There are a lot of tests that I fail. God has put me to a lot of tests where I failed miserably. I went out of classroom with an “F”, but He let me take the test again. And some of them I failed two or three times before I passed. God is gracious and God is patient. And Abraham our father of those who believe was a man who had great faith in God that brought him recognition in history, and yet the faith was not perfect.
Here we find him deceiving the king concerning his wife because of fear. Twice he was put to this test; twice he failed on this particular test of faith. In the supreme test of faith, man, the guy passed with flying colors. Isn’t it interesting how that we can have such great faith in some areas and then just turn right around and get totally wiped out. It makes us realize that even the faith that we have has come to us as a gift from God so that we can’t boast in that.
So the king is rebuking Abraham. “What have you done, man? What have I ever done to you that you’d do this kind of a thing to me? How come you said she’s your sister?”
Abraham said, Because I thought, Surely the fear of God is not in this place; and they will slay me for my wife’s sake ( Gen 20:11 ).
He looked around and said, “Man, these people don’t fear God. They’re going to kill me for my wife”.
And [he said] indeed she is my sister; for she is the daughter of my father, but she’s not the daughter of my mother ( Gen 20:12 );
So she was a half-sister to Abraham.
and she became my wife. And it came to pass, when God caused me to wander from my father’s house, that I said unto her, This is the kindness which you will show to me; every place where we go, say that he is my brother. And Abimelech took sheep, and oxen, and menservants, and womenservants, and he gave them to Abraham, and restored Sarah his wife. And Abimelech said, Behold, my land is before you: dwell wherever you’re pleased. And to Sarah he said, Behold, I have given your brother a thousand pieces of silver: behold, he is to thee a covering of the eyes, unto all that are with thee, and with all others: thus she was reproved. So Abraham prayed unto God: and God healed Abimelech, and his wife, and the maidservants; and they bare children. For the LORD had caused a barrenness to come to the house of Abimelech, because of Sarah Abraham’s wife ( Gen 20:12-18 ).
Sarah could have been with him for a period of time before this all took place. And yet he had never come to her intimately though she was a part of the harem. “
Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary
Once again we have to face Abraham’s deflection from faith. We see him journeying south to Gerar. This was the center of a race of men who, having driven out the original possessors of the land, were becoming more and more warlike, and were afterward to be known as the Philistines.
As Abraham approached, an old fear recurred and a former failure was repeated.
These deflections from faith in the life of Abraham did not occur in the great fundamental things, nor in the main essentials of his walk with God; but rather in the application of the principle of faith to the smaller details of life.
As we have said, this was the second time Abraham attempted by his own supposed cleverness to steer clear of a danger he feared; and once again, as in the former case, he ran on the very rocks he dreaded. The result was that the man who stood as a witness for Jehovah was seen by the heathen practicing deceit, and thus suffering the degradation of being censured by Abimelech, the heathen king.
Our deflections from faith occur most often through our failure to allow God to undertake in all the small matters of life. Some trivial business worry, or home difficulty, or personal danger, will drive us to acts that dishonor our Master. The highest activity of faith is that which completely confides in God, not only in crisis, but in the commonplaces of Me.
Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible
Abraham Again Denies His Wife
Gen 20:1-18
It is wonderful that Abraham should fall like this. He had walked with God for so many years, and experienced so many deliverances, that we should have expected him to have reached an unassailable position. But the best of men are men at the best; and God, who knows us better than we know ourselves, remembers that we are dust. He often steps in by His providence to intercept the full consequences of our wrongdoing, provided always that our heart is really true to Him. There is delightful reassurance in the words, I withheld thee. God may have to chastise His children for their backslidings, but He will not hand them over to the will of their enemies, nor allow His covenant to fail. He rebukes kings for the sake of His people. See Psa 105:15. There is a high-toned morality in some who are outside our religious pale, which may put us to shame. It crops up in unexpected places, as here in Abimelechs remonstrance. It was terrible that He was compelled to address Abraham as in Gen 20:9. God has direct dealings with such men, but they need our prayer and help. See Gen 20:3; Gen 20:17.
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary
Gen 20:11
The true fear of God was at that moment in Abimelech’s heart, and not in Abraham’s; it was Abimelech who was playing the Christian part, that of the child of the light and of the day; Abraham for the moment was the child of fear, darkness, and night.
I. Consider first the origin of the habit of harsh judgment. There are two main sources from which it springs. (1) The first a heathen Roman can illustrate for us: “With a great sum obtained I this freedom” (Act 22:27-28). The thing has cost us much; we feel it is hard to believe that it can be widely shared. Abraham had made a terrible sacrifice to assure his calling. As for those easy, jovial, prosperous heathen, surely the fear of God was not there. (2) A second source of this harshness of judgment is the predominance in all of us of the natural aristocratic principle over the Christian principle of communion. Men naturally believe in election. But with rare exceptions, they naturally believe themselves to be the elect. It is hard indeed to believe that a private possession gains instead of loses by being shared by all mankind.
II. The histories of Scripture are a perpetual warning against narrow and selfish judgments of men. It is as if the Spirit had resolved that the virtues of those outside the pale should be kept clearly before the eyes of men. God is no respecter of persons, and He keeps hold in ways, of which we little dream, of the most unlikely human hearts.
III. The true Christian policy in judging mankind: (1) let your personal fellowship be based on the clear explicit manifestation of that which is in tune with your higher life and Christ’s; (2) as for those who are without, believe that God is nearer to them than you wot of, and has more to do with them than you dream.
J. Baldwin Brown, The Sunday Afternoon, p. 402.
References: Gen 20-Parker, vol. i., p. 226; R. S. Candlish, Book of Genesis, vol. i., p. 336.
Fuente: The Sermon Bible
CHAPTER 20 Abraham in Gerar
1. Abraham in Gerar (Gen 20:1)
2. Second denial of Sarah (Gen 20:2)
3. Gods dealing with Abimelech (Gen 20:3-7)
4. Abimelech and Abraham (Gen 20:8-18)
Note Abrahams going down to Egypt in chapter 12 and now going to Gerar and denying again Sarah. In chapter 26 Isaac goes also to Gerar and denies Rebekah. It shows what the flesh is.
But Abraham is greatly honored by the Lord. The Lord called him a prophet. Abraham prayed and God healed Abimelech.
Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)
am cir, 2107, bc cir, 1897
from: Gen 13:1, Gen 18:1, Gen 24:62
Kadesh: Gen 14:7, Gen 16:1, Gen 16:7, Gen 16:14, Num 13:26, Num 20:16, Deu 1:19, Deu 32:51, 1Sa 15:7, Psa 29:8
Gerar: Gerar was a city of Arabia Petrea, under a king of the Philistines, 25 miles from Eleutheropolis beyond Daroma, in the south of Judah. From Gen 10:19, it appears to have been situated in the angle where the south and west sides of Canaan met, and to have been not far from Gaza. Jerome, in his Hebrew Traditions on Genesis, says, from Gerar to Jerusalem was three days’ journey. There was a wood near Gerar, spoken of by Theodoret; and a brook – Gen 26:26, on which was a monastery, noticed by Sozomen. Gen 10:19, Gen 26:1, Gen 26:6, Gen 26:20, Gen 26:26, 2Ch 14:13, 2Ch 14:14
Reciprocal: Gen 21:34 – General Gen 25:18 – Havilah Gen 26:3 – Sojourn 1Ch 16:20 – they went Psa 105:14 – General
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
ABRAHAM AT GERAR
Why Abraham took the journey in Gen 20:1 is not stated, but perhaps to better his pasturage, for he remained in the vicinity for some time (Gen 21:34). Why he employed the same subterfuge about Sarah as before also is not stated except in a general way (Gen 20:12), but it resulted as it did then (Gen 20:2). The chapter illustrates certain principles of Gods dealings with different men:
1.Imputed righteousness, while instantaneously giving man a right standing before God, does not make that man instantaneously righteous in his own character. If it did, Abraham would not have been guilty of this falsehood, if it were such.
2.God can reveal Himself to the heathen as clearly as to one of His own people. Abimelech had no doubt that he had received a revelation from the God of Abraham.
3.The sin of a heathen is against God, no matter what religion he professes or what gods he worships: I withheld thee from sinning against Me.
4.God is the conservator of His own truth, and man cannot be trusted with it. Twice has He interposed against Abraham himself for the protection of his wife, in whom were deposited the hopes of the whole human race. These hopes would have been disappointed if Abraham had controlled them (Psa 105:13-15).
5.Natural graces of disposition are not a ground of acceptance with God. Abimelech commends himself to us by his expostulation with Abraham (Gen 20:9-10), his restoration of Sarah and his generous treatment of both (Gen 20:14-16), and yet it is Abraham (whose conduct suffers by comparison) and not Abimelech who has the privilege and power of intercession: He is a prophet, and he shall pray for thee, and thou shalt live (Gen 21:7).
6.God deals with His own people, those to whom His righteousness is imputed, on a different principle from that on which He deals with others. Abraham suffers no punishment for this repeated offense, although in the course of his life he had his share of chastisements and corrections, but God is dealing with him not as a criminal before a judge, but as a child before a loving father.
ABRAHAM AND ABIMELECH IN COVENANT (Gen 21:22-34)
The circumstance in this section belongs to that of the previous one, although it seems to have taken place at a later time and subsequent to the birth of Isaac. Notice how God blessed Abraham in such a way as to glorify Himself (Gen 21:22), and recall the teaching in an earlier lesson that this was His purpose in the whole history of Israel, which their disobedience at the present time has defeated. Abraham must have had much influence and power for Abimelech to have found it worth while to make a covenant with him (Gen 21:23), but his kingdom was very likely limited to the city of Gerar and the surrounding territory. Abraham takes advantage of the occasion to present a claim for damages, as we would say (Gen 21:25), and serious damages, too, when we reflect on the value of wells in an oriental country to the possessor of sheep and cattle. In Gen 21:27-30 we have a repetition of the transaction in chapter 15. Beer-sheba means the well of the oath. This now becomes the dwelling place of Abraham for some time (Gen 21:34). What new name is ascribed to God in the verse?
QUESTIONS
1.How does this lesson teach that the ground of our righteousness is objective rather than subjective?
2.What encouragement does it afford in preaching the Gospel to the unsaved?
3.How does it illustrate Gods faithfulness to His promises?
4.How does it exhibit the difference between the natural and the spiritual man?
5.Can you find here an illustration of Mat 5:16?
Fuente: James Gray’s Concise Bible Commentary
When Abraham Failed to Trust God A book that only claimed to be from God would not record the failings of a great man like Abraham. since the Bible is from God, it tells us of a second time Abraham failed to trust in God’s care (20:1-18). Ironically, God got him out of the trouble in which he placed himself. Despite Abraham’s lack of trust, the next chapter tells us God kept his word. Sarah had a child exactly when God said she would. In fact, the child was born at the very time God had set (21:1-2).
Fuente: Gary Hampton Commentary on Selected Books
Gen 20:1-2. And Abraham sojourned in Gerar Which belonged to the Philistines. We are not told upon what occasion he removed; whether terrified by the destruction of Sodom, or, as some of the Jewish writers say, because he was grieved at Lots incest with his daughters, and the reproach which the Canaanites cast upon him for his kinsmans sake. The king of Gerar sent and took her To his house, in order to the taking of her to his bed.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Gen 20:1, Gerar, in the tribe of Simeon, then a royal residence. Abimelech was the common name of the kings that reigned there.
Gen 20:2. She is my sister. It is not said whether Sarah was daughter of Terah, Abrahams father, by a second wife, or whether she was daughter of Haran, and sister of Lot. The Jews are divided here, for brevity in the text seems to occasion obscurity. Yet being called daughter-in-law of Terah, Gen 11:31, she must, it would seem, have been the daughter of Haran. How then could she be the daughter of Abrahams father? Because grandchildren are often called children in the holy scriptures, and the cousins of our Saviour are called his brethren. The scriptures having thus marked the weakness of Abrahams faith, his fault needs no further comment.
Gen 20:3. A dead man. Sarah was pregnant with Isaac when Abimelech took her, which he probably did with some design of forming an alliance with Abraham: add to this, that she was ninety years of age. The crime of taking a mans wife from his bosom by wily seduction, we here learn merits the punishment of death. Ten thousand deaths did not excuse it when Helen was carried away from Greece to Troy. No doubt, Sarah was a fine person, bearing the bloom of youth beyond meridian days.
Gen 20:13. God caused me to wander. The God of glory had appeared to him in Mesopotamia, and said, Get thee out of thy country.
Gen 20:16. A thousand shekels of silver, as the Chaldaic reads. These gifts were acceptable fruits of repentance, and grounds of future friendship. A heart which generously recovers from an error, shows a fortitude against a future relapse. It is a consolation to find these traces of the religion of Noah. But alas, idolatry was daily gaining the ascendency, and truth and worth very much expired with those who had revered and worshipped the true God. Religion and its doctrines should never be left to the caprice of men.
REFLECTIONS.
What an idea must Abraham have had of the wickedness and tyranny of the petty princes, that he should have made this weak and unjustifiable agreement with Sarah, on leaving Chaldea to say, that she was his sister! How grateful should we be for a great and paternal government, and for the salutary operation of long established laws, in the protection of persons and property.
How grateful also should we be that in giddy youth, and in the hour of temptation, God has withheld us from sin. Esau, when withheld from killing Jacob; and David, when prevented from killing Nabal, blessed God for his restraining hand. We owe our preservation, not to nature, but to grace.
We learn also that sins of ignorance are with God great and grievous sins; for no man should take a doubtful step without enquiry and caution. Hence he did not accept of Abimelechs plea, that Sarah was Abrahams sister.
God graciously warned the king against the crime by a dream; and he warns all men in the hour of danger, either by misgivings of mind and reproaches of conscience, or by his revealed word, and friendly admonition; and they who reject the voice of warning, shall be compelled to hear the voice of judgment.
The cattle and gold given to Abraham, though they changed not the nature of the crime, were evident and acceptable fruits of repentance. It is well for a man who has sinned to repair his fault as far as he can, and then to ask forgiveness of the Lord.
Consequently we ought to be cordially reconciled to such a penitent, and pray for him as Abraham did, that his and our future life may be crowned with every blessing of the new covenant.
If God, according to St. Paul, reproved kings for the sake of the patriarchs, then christians, while wandering in the desert land, have no need to equivocate through the fear of man; rather let us be simple and confident as little children, for our heavenly father watches over our safety and defence. Happy is the man who has faith so to rely on the divine protection.
Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Genesis 20
We have two distinct points in this chapter: first, the moral degradation to which the child of God sometimes subjects himself, in the view of the world; and, secondly, the moral dignity which always belongs to him in the view of God. Abraham again exhibits the dread of circumstances, which the heart can so easily understand. He sojourns in Gerar, and fears the men of that place. Judging that God was not there, he forgets that He is always with him. He seems to be more occupied with the men of Gerar than with the One who was stronger than they. Forgetting God’s ability to protect his wife, he has recourse to the same stratagem which, years before, he had adopted in Egypt. This is very admonitory. The father of the faithful was carried away, by taking his eye off God. He lost, for a little, his centre in God, and, therefore, gave way. How true it is, that we are only strong as we cling to God in the sense of our perfect weakness. So long as we are in the path of His appointment, nothing can harm us. Had Abraham simply leaned on God, the men of Gerar would not have meddled with him; and it was his privilege to have vindicated God’s faithfulness in the midst of the most appalling difficulties. Thus, too, he would have maintained his own dignity, as a man of faith.
It is often a source of sorrow to the heart to mark how the children of God dishonour Him, and, as a consequence, lower themselves before the world, by losing the sense of His sufficiency for every emergency. So long as we live in the realisation of the truth, that all our springs are in God, so long shall we be above the world, in every shape and form. There is nothing so elevating to the whole moral being as faith: it carries one entirely beyond the reach of this world’s thoughts; for how can the men of the world, or even worldly minded Christians, understand the life of faith? Impossible: the springs on which it draws lie far away beyond their comprehension. They live on the surface of present things. So long as they can see what they deem a proper foundation for hope and confidence, so long they are hopeful and confident; but the idea of resting solely on the promise of an unseen God, they understand not. But the man of faith is calm in the midst of scenes in which nature can see nothing. Hence it is, that faith ever seems, in the judgement of nature, such a reckless, improvident, visionary thing. None but those, who know God, can ever approve the actings of faith, for none but they really understand the solid and truly reasonable ground of such actings.
In this chapter we find the man of God actually exposing himself to the rebuke and reproach of the men of the world, by reason of his actings, when under the power of unbelief. Thus it must ever be. Nothing but faith can impart true elevation to a man’s course and character. We may ,it is true, see some, who are naturally upright and honourable in their ways, yet nature’s uprightness and honour cannot be trusted: they rest on a bad foundation, and are liable to give way at any moment. It is only faith which can impart a truly elevated moral tone, because it connects the soul in living power with God, the only source of true morality. And it is a remarkable fact, that, in the case of all those whom God has graciously taken up, we see that, when off the path of faith, they sank even lower than other men. This will account for Abraham’s conduct in this part of his history.
But there is another point of much interest and value brought out here. We find that Abraham had harboured an evil thing for a number of years: be had, it seems, started upon his course with a certain reserve in his soul, which reserve was the result of his want of full, unqualified confidence in God. Had he been able fully to trust God in reference to Sarah, there would have been no need of any reserve or subterfuge whatever. God would have fenced her round about from every ill; and who can harm those, who are the happy subjects of His unslumbering guardianship? However, through mercy, Abraham is enabled to bring out the root of the whole matter – to confess and judge it thoroughly, and get rid of it. This is the true way to act. There can be no real blessing and power till every particle of leaven is brought forth into the light and there trampled under foot. God’s patience is exhaustless. He can wait. He can bear with us; but He never will conduct a soul to the culminating point of blessing and power, while leaven remains known and unjudged. Thus much as to Abimelech and Abraham. Let us now look at the moral dignity of the latter, in the view of God.
In the history of God’s people, whether we look at them as a whole, or as individuals, we are often struck with the amazing difference between what they are in God’s view, and what they are in the view of the world. God sees His people in Christ. He looks at them through Christ; and hence He sees them “without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing.” They are as Christ is before God. They are perfected for ever, as to their standing in Christ. “They are not in the flesh but in the spirit.”
But, in themselves, they are poor, feeble, imperfect, stumbling, inconsistent creatures; and, inasmuch as it is what they are in themselves, and that alone, that the world takes knowledge of, therefore it is that the difference seems so great between the divine and the human estimate.
Yet it is God’s prerogative to set forth the beauty, the dignity, and the perfection of His people. It is His exclusive prerogative, inasmuch as it is He Himself who has bestowed those things. They are only comely through the comeliness which He has put upon them; and it is, therefore, due to Him to declare what that comeliness is; and truly He does it in a manner worthy of Himself, and never more blessedly than when the enemy comes forth to injure, to curse, or accuse. Thus, when Balak seeks to curse the seed of Abraham, Jehovah’s word is, “I have not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither have I seen perverseness in Israel.” “How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, and thy tabernacles, O Israel. Again, when Satan stands forth to resist Joshua, the word is, “The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan,…..is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?” Thus He ever puts Himself between His people and every tongue that would accuse them. He does not answer the accusation by a reference to what His people are in themselves, or to what they are in the view of the men of this world, but to what He Himself has made them, and where He has set them.
Thus, in Abraham’s case, he might lower himself in the view of Abimelech, king of Gerar; and Abimelech might have to rebuke him, yet, when God comes to deal with the case, He says to Abimelech, “Behold, thou art but a dead man;” and of Abraham he says,” He is a prophet, and he shall pray for thee.” Yes, with all “the integrity of his heart, and the innocency of his hands,” the king of Gerar was “but a dead man;” and, moreover, he must be a debtor to the prayers of the erring and inconsistent stranger for the restoration of the health of his household. Such is the manner of God: He may have many a secret controversy with His child, on the ground of his practical ways; but directly the enemy enters a suit against him, Jehovah ever pleads His servant’s cause. “Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm.” “He that toucheth you, toucheth the apple of mine eye.” “It is God that justifieth, who is he that condemneth? No dart of the enemy can penetrate the shield, behind which the Lord has hidden the very feeblest lamb of His blood-bought flock. He hides His people in His pavilion, sets their feet upon the rock of ages, lifts their heads above their enemies round about, and fills their hearts with the everlasting joy of His salivation.
His name be praised for evermore!
Fuente: Mackintosh’s Notes on the Pentateuch
Gen 12:1 to Gen 25:18. The Story of Abraham.In this section the three main sources, J. E, P are present. Gunkel has given strong reasons for holding that J is here made up of two main sources, one connecting Abraham with Hebron, the other with Beersheba and the Negeb. The former associates Abraham with Lot. (For details, see ICC.) On the interpretation to be placed on the figures of Abraham and the patriarchs, see the Introduction. The interest, which has hitherto been diffused over the fortunes of mankind in general, is now concentrated on Abraham and his posterity, the principle of election narrowing it down to Isaac, Ishmael being left aside, and then to Jacob, Esau being excluded.
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
ABRAHAM EXPOSED AND REPROVED
Now we return to Abraham’s history. He journeyed toward the south, which is typical of pleasant circumstances, but nearly always having danger in it. He dwelt between Kadesh and Shur. Kadesh means “set apart for a purpose,” which beautifully describes God’s work with Abraham, and is true also of all Christians. However, Shur means “point of observation.” Does this not tell us that, though we know we are set apart for God, we sometimes look the other way to observe what others may be doing? They may be doing more work, seemingly for the Lord, than we are. They may have apparent public success in a way that surpasses us. They may have attractive programs and entertainments. But whatever it is, the child of God should remember that he is set apart for a special purpose as the Lord’s possession, and should always be guided by the Lord, not by his observation.
Is it surprising that following this he sojourned in Gerar? Gerar, a Philistine city, means “dragging away.” If we are led merely by our personal observation, it is always likely that we shall be dragged away from the place of devoted separation to God. We can be thankful, however, that it was only a temporary visit in Gerar. But it involved a humiliating experience for Abraham. He fell into the same snare as when he went down into Egypt (ch.12:10-13), saying that Sarah was his sister rather than his wife (v.2). A Christian, when he fails to walk by faith, will always give the wrong impression as to his true relationships. Let us be unafraid, unashamed to let it be known that we belong to the Lord Jesus, therefore are set apart for the purpose of pleasing Him.
Just as in Egypt, it was the king who took Sarah into his house. It may seem amazing that, at 89 years of age, Sarah had retained such beauty that a king was attracted by her. Whether she was pregnant with Isaac at this time we do not know, but Abraham did know that Sarah was to have a son, which seems an added reason that he should not think of denying that she was his wife.
We have before noted that Sara pictures the covenant of God’s grace (Gal 4:22-31). The beauty of grace far outshines the vanity of the law of works, and it is the true possession of the man of faith. Though unbelievers may commend its beauty, grace cannot be their possession, for they hold to the principle of works of law. Believers are sometimes afraid to stand firmly for the truth that grace alone gives us any true relationship with God, and we may leave the impression with the world that we depend on good works rather than on the pure grace of God. In this case our faith has faltered, as did Abraham’s.
God again mercifully intervened, not this time by plagues, as He did with Pharaoh, but directly speaking to Abimelech in a dream, telling him he was a dead man because of the woman he had taken, for she was a man’s wife. Why did God not directly reprove Abraham? Was it not because the reproof he received from Abimelech would cause him to feel ashamed before the face of the man he had wronged?
Thou Abimelech had Sarah in his house, he had not come near her, so that he protests to the Lord, would He kill a nation that was blameless? The Lord had not said He would kill the nation, or even Abimelech, but rather that Abimelech’s condition was one of virtual death because he had Sarah in his house, even though, as he said, both Abraham and Sarah had deceived the Philistines.
It was true enough that Abimelech had not been guilty of wrong in his treatment of Sarah, and God acknowledges this to him, but adds also that also that He Himself had kept Abimelech from sinning against Him, in not allowing him to touch Sarah (v.6). How gracious indeed is our God and Father in the way He protects us even when we put ourselves in compromising positions! Yet this is no excuse for our failure, and we must not dare to count upon God’s protection when we deliberately do wrong.
Then the Lord tells Abimelech to restore Abraham’s wife to him, and because he was a prophet he would pray for Abimelech. This itself would be humbling for Abraham and instructive for Abimelech. Even if one is ignorantly involved in a wrong, he requires the grace of God. But then the Lord tells him that if he would not restore Sarah to her husband, he would certainly die, together with his household. Now that he knew the truth he must act on it.
Abimelech rose early the next morning, first to acquaint his servants with what God had told him, which frightened them, for they were members of his household (v.8). Then he called Abraham and protested strongly against Abraham’s treating him and his kingdom so unfairly in the deceit he had practiced. Had Abimelech sinned against Abraham that he should deserve to suffer in this way? What had Abraham seen among the Philistines to move him to do such a thing? (v.10).
Abraham’s explanation sadly shows the weakness of his faith in the living God. If God had led him to that place, then whether the fear of God was in the place or not, he would be sustained by God. But he says he thought the fear of God was not in the place, and reasoned that he might be killed for his wife’s sake, so that he concealed the truth that Sarah was his wife. However, he wanted Abimelech to understand that he had not told an outright lie, for Sarah was actually his half sister, and had become his wife. But his deception obtained the same result that a deliberate lie would have. When we practice deceit it will likely led us to embarrassing trouble, for it stems from weakness of faith.
Also, Abraham exposes the sad fact that he had planned with Sarah to adopt this subterfuge wherever they went (v.13). We only read of two cases where Sarah was taken into the household of another, but we may wonder why Sarah did not strongly object to having part in such deception. However, our fear will make us do strange things.
Abraham found that he was wrong in thinking that the fear of God was not in Gerar. It was the fear of God that prompted Abimelech, not only to restore Sarah to her husband, but to accompany this with presents to Abraham of sheep and oxen and servants, both male and female (v.14). The very receiving of such gifts would be a reproof to Abraham’s fear, but a kind reproof. In fact, Abimelech also gave Abraham permission to live wherever he wanted to in the land (v.15).
Sarah also was reproved by Abimelech (v.16). Since she illustrates the grace of God she is a picture of the church in marriage relationship to the Lord. Her beauty should be really for Him, not for the admiration of others (Psa 45:11). So Abimelech says he was giving to “her brother,” a thousand pieces of silver for a covering for her eyes, a veil for Sarah to conceal her beauty from others rather than display it. This reminds us of Rebekah, when she saw Isaac, covering herself with a veil (Gen 24:65). If Sarah had done this in Gerar, the king would not have noticed her.
Then Abraham prayed for Abimelech and his household, and the Lord reversed the governmental infliction he had placed upon them. None of the wives in all the court of Abimelech had been able to bear children because of Sarah’s being taken into his household. Typically this reminds us that, though religious systems, claiming to be Christian, apparently like the idea of bringing the grace of God into their ritual, still they only see it as an addition to their principle of law-keeping, and this kind of mixture of law and grace is abhorrent to God. “If it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace” (Rom 11:6).
Fuente: Grant’s Commentary on the Bible
20:1 And Abraham journeyed from thence toward the south country, and dwelled between Kadesh and {a} Shur, and sojourned in Gerar.
(a) Which was toward Egypt.