Genesis 20

There are doubtless other reasons, easy to be discovered, for the perpetuation in the Book of God, of records revolting to a refined sense, and the occasion of stumbling to some : and there may be reasons in the divine mind, which we, who see all things that concern moral government and discipline “as through a glass darkly,” and as yet know but “in part,” still fail to discover. But are not the reasons we have presented amply sufficient for a justification of the ways of God? Are they not sufficient to secure that respectful and well-timed attention to these sad records, that the records themselves, taken with their setting in the history of which they form a part, justly challenge?

It is not necessary that every portion of the Bible should be treated as “devotional reading” by men in every age ; indeed we should be far from commending the wisdom of those among us who read, “in course,” the entire Old Testament history, around their home firesides. There is a place for all these historical portions of the Bible, but that is not the place. But a man who is familiar with the social and moral condition of certain races of men to day, might profitably turn to portions of Old Testament history which would furnish poor moral nutriment to “babes” within the circle of refined Christian homes in our own land, but which, read and explained “with great plainness of speech” to some full-grown Africans, might be as “sincere milk” as those men are yet able to digest ; quite on the level of their intelligence, sadly suited to the low plane of their experience. Herrick.

1. AND Abraham journeyed from thence toward the land of the South, and dwelt between 2 Kadesh and Shur ; and he sojourned in Gerar. And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, She is 3 my sister : and Abimelech king of Gerar sent, and took Sarah. But God came to Abimelech 4 in a dream of the night, and said to him, Behold, thou art but a dead man, because of the 5 woman which thou hast taken ; for she is a man’s wife. Now Abimelech had not come near 6 her : and he said, Lord, wilt thou slay even a righteous nation? Said he not himself unto 7 me, She is my sister? and she, even she herself said, He is my brother : in the integrity of 8 my heart and the innocency of my hands have I done this. And God said unto him in the 9 dream, Yea, I know that in the integrity of thy heart thou hast done this, and I also withheld 10 thee from sinning against me : therefore suffered I thee not to touch her. Now therefore re- 11 store the man’s wife ; for he is a prophet, and he shall pray for thee, and thou shalt live ; 12 and if thou restore her not, know thou that thou shalt surely die, thou, and all that are thine, 13 And Abimelech rose early in the morning, and called all his servants, and told all these things 14 in their ears : and the men were sore afraid. Then Abimelech called Abraham, and said unto 15 him, What hast thou done unto us? and wherein have I sinned against thee, that thou hast 16 brought on me and on my kingdom a great sin? thou hast done deeds unto me that ought not 17 to be done. And Abimelech said unto Abraham, What sawest thou, that thou hast done this 18 thing? And Abraham said, Because I thought, Surely the fear of God is not in this place ; and 19 they will slay me for my wife’s sake. And moreover she is indeed my sister, the daughter of 20 my father, but not the daughter of my mother ; and she became my wife : and it came to 21 pass, when God caused me to wander from my father’s house, that I said unto her, This is thy 22 kindness which thou shalt shew unto me ; at every place whither we shall come, say of me, 23 He is my brother. And Abimelech took sheep and oxen, and menservants and womens- 24 vants, and gave them unto Abraham, and restored him Sarah his wife. And Abimelech said,

16. Behold, my land is before thee : dwell where it pleaseth thee. 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. And Abraham prayed unto God : and God healed Abimelech, and his wife, and his maidservants ; and they bare children. For the LORD had fast closed up all the wombs of the house of Abimelech, because of Sarah Abraham’s wife.

Nothing is more worthy of admiration than the fidelity of the Scripture history. There is not a saint, however eminent, but his faults are reported as faithfully as his virtues ; and from the testimony given we are constrained to acknowledge that the best of men, when they come into temptation, are weak and fallible as others if they be not succored from above. Bush.—The falsehood of Abraham, the guilt and violence of David, were very different in their effect on character in an age when truth and purity and gentleness were scarcely recognized, from what they would be now. Then Abraham and David had not so sinned against their consciences as a man would sin now in doing the same acts, because their consciences were less enlightened. F. W. R.—I am called on not to walk in all the footsteps of father Abraham, but only in the footsteps of his faith. In this chapter he evinces a want of faith when, instead of trusting to God for his safety, he trusted to a device of his own. The God who delivered him in spite of this his perversity would surely have delivered him had he committed himself in all fearlessness and truth to His holy keeping. In the history of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, more especially in that of Jacob, we observe the intromission of human deceit with the proceedings and purposes of the divine administration. Nevertheless the counsel of the Lord shall stand, unaffected alike by the opposition of enemies and the waywardness or misconduct of friends. T. C.

If we suppose that the Divine commendation of certain Old Testament personages indicates the Divine approval of the particular conduct of those personages, our moral standards are hopelessly confused. If, on the other hand, we recognize the truth, that God judges men by their inner spirit toward himself even though they may be at fault in their mode of exhibiting that spirit, we are at no loss to see how a man’s spirit may be approved of God, while his conduct in many things is rightly disapproved of men. Abraham shows his faith in God by leaving his land and his people at the call of God ; and he proves his fidelity toward God by never swerving from the worship of Jehovah, even while surrounded by idolaters. In view of this proof of his faith, Abraham is commended of

God as one of his children at heart, notwithstanding his polygamy and his untruthfulness—in accordance with the practice of his day. Esau despises spiritual privileges in contrast with indulgence of his appetite. Jacob gives the first place to blessings in the line of God’s promises. God commends Jacob in and for this choice ; but he does not thereby show his approval of Jacob’s deceit and falsehood in his outreaching to secure the promised blessings. So all the way through the inspired record. S. S. T.

1. Sojourned in Gerar. No reason is assigned by the sacred historian for so sudden a removal. What is certain is, that he did soon after the overthrow of Sodom break up the settlement near Hebron which for fifteen years had been his home. He moved farther to the south-west and nearer to the desert. After halting at various points in the “Negeb” or South-land of Canaan, he finally attempted a more permanent encampment close to the headquarters of a stranger tribe. Gerar was the capital of a Philistine people allied to the Egyptians, whose five subdivisions at a later period occupied the Shephelah, or strip of level land along the southern coasts, whence they waged with Israel an incessant border warfare. To that coast-strip they lent their own name of Philistia or Palestine, which in much later times came to be inaccurately extended to the whole land. Dykes.

Gerar was not far from Gaza and Beer-heba. Its site has probably been identified by Rowlands with the traces of an ancient city now called Khirbet-el-Gerar, near a deep Wady called Jurf-el-Gerar, about three hours to the south-south-east of Gaza. E. H. B.—Here he and his descendants dwelt for a long time at BEERSHEBA, at the south-western extremity of the maritime plain, upon the borders of the desert. This was Abraham’s fourth resting-place in the Holy Land. It continued till the latest times to be the southern boundary of the Holy Land, so that from Dan to Beersheba became the established formula to indicate the whole country. In this district the Philistines had already begun to form settlements, and a warlike king of this race, whose hereditary name was ABIMELECH (Father-King), reigned in the valley of Gerar. P. S.—Beersheba lies some twelve hours’ march to the south west of Hebron. Though at that time included within the range of pasturage claimed by the Philistine flock-masters, it ultimately fell to the dominion of Israel, and in fact constituted their frontier station on the extreme south. The district was admirably adapted for grazing. Just where Abraham’s well was dug, the fertile land begins to shade off by insensible degrees into a sterile and unfriendly desert. Before it to the south stretches the most extensive plain in Palestine; while on either hand as well as northward are smooth and rolling hills, free from either rock or forest. Dykes.

Beersheba is on many accounts the most interesting locality in the South country. Its position admits of no doubt—the well-known Bir-es-Seba. Long lines of foundations mark the ancient city, or rather village, for it seems to have always been what Jerome describes it in the fourth century—a very large unwalled place, with a garrison. The ruins are about half a mile in extent, but scattered. H. B. T.

Approaching Palestine from the southern desert, we came upon an open undulating country; green grass was seen along the lesser water-courses, and almost green sward; while the gentle hills, covered in ordinary seasons with grass and rich pastures, were now burnt over with drought. On the northern side of the bed of a torrent, close upon the bank, are two deep wells, still called Bir-es-Seba,—the ancient Beersheba. These wells, which are circular, and stoned up with solid masonry, are some distance apart; one 12½ feet in diameter, and 44½ deep, to the surface of the water; the other 5 feet wide, and 42 deep. The water in both is pure and sweet, and in great abundance. Here, then, is the place where the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, often dwelt. Robinson.

One feature marks Beersheba as still the boundary between the desert and the uplands. This is the cultivation of large portions of unfenced lands for corn by the Arabs. The 7 wells vary from five to thirteen feet in diameter. The water stood at 38 feet from the surface in the one at which we were camped. Above the rock (34 feet down) it was built with finely squared large stones, hard as marble; and the ropes of water-drawers for 4000 years have worn the edges of the hard limestone with no less than 143 flutings, the shallowest of them four inches deep. The ancient marble troughs were arranged at convenient distances round the mouth in an irregular circle. All day long, our men or the Bedouin herdsmen and their wives were drawing water in skins, and filling these troughs for the horses, camels, cattle and sheep, recalling many a scene in the lives of the patriarchs, of Rebecca and of Zipporah. We are by the very well Abraham digged. Hence he journeyed with Isaac to Mount Moriah. Hence Jacob started on his lonely travel to Padan Aram. Here he sacrificed to the Lord before setting out to join his son Joseph in Egypt. Here Samuel made his sons judges. Here Elijah parted with his faithful servant before wandering into the wilderness. Over those wide rolling hills, covered with verdure and carpeted with spring flowers, the Patriarchs used to gaze on their thousands of flocks and herds. H. B. T.

2. Abimelech.** The official title borne by their successive chieftains was Abi-melek. Like the Padi-shah of the Persians, the name signifies “My father the king,"—fit title for a pastoral sheik, who wielded over his clansmen a kindly although irresponsible authority. Dykes.—Father king, the common title of the Philistine kings, as Pharaoh was of the Egyptians. In Abimelech we see a totally different character from that of Pharaoh; the character, namely, of a heathen imbued with a moral consciousness of right and open to receive a divine revelation, of which there is no trace in the account of the king of Egypt. It is not to be wondered at that the same danger should twice have occurred to Sarah, if we remember that the customs of the heathen nations, among which he was sojourning, were such as to induce Abraham to use the artifice of calling his wife his sister. E. H. B.

In what had God failed him that he should begin now to doubt of his faithfulness or power? Could the Philistines touch a hair of his head without the divine permission? 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. Had the Philistines come suddenly upon him, and threatened to put him to death for his wife’s sake we should the less have wondered that they were prevailed upon to conceal their relation to each other. But he had done the same thing many years before and had thereby ensnared Pharaoh king of Egypt, nor was he then delivered without a divine interposition, and a just rebuke from the injured monarch. Surely he ought to have profited by past experience. Bush.

See the parallel account (ch. 12). Sarah was now about ninety years of age, and her beauty must have been considerably impaired since the time she was taken in a similar manner by Pharaoh, king of Egypt; but she was probably now chosen by Abimelech, on the account of forming an alliance with Abraham, who was very rich. This circumstance was sufficient to cause his friendship to be courted; and what more effectual means could Abimelech use in reference to this than the taking Sarah to be his concubine, or second wife, which in those times had no kind of disgrace attached to it? A. C.

4. Will thou slay also a righteous nation?** These words appear to contain a reference to the recent awful event of Sodom’s overthrow, which must have greatly impressed the surrounding country. Bush.—A righteous nation, i.e. a nation guiltless as regards this act of their king; but it may be, that the people of Gerar were really exempt from the worst vices of Canaan, and living in a state of comparative piety and simplicity. E. H. B.—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. Bush.—See what confidence a man may have toward God, when his heart condemns him not. If our consciences witness to our integrity, and that, however we may have been cheated into a snare, we have not knowingly and wittingly sinned against God, it will be our rejoicing in the day of evil. He pleads with God as Abraham had done (ch. 18:23). Will thou slay a righteous nation, a nation which in this matter was innocent?

6. God allows his plea, and admits that what he did he did in the integrity of his heart, Yea, I know it. Further, he lets him know that he was kept from proceeding in the sin, merely by the good hand of God upon him. I withheld thee from sinning against me. There is a great deal of sin devised and designed, that is never executed. As bad as things are in the world, they are not so bad as the Devil and wicked men would have them. It is God that restrains men from doing the ill they would do; it is not from him that there is sin, but it is from him that there is not more sin, either by his influence upon men’s minds, checking their inclination to sin, or by his providence, taking away the opportunity to sin. H.

Against me. The truth emphasized here needs to be indelibly graven upon our deepest and most controlling convictions: That every wrong or evil done against men is primarily and essentially sin against God. So David affirms in confessing to Jehovah his supreme crime against Uriah, “Against thee, thee only, have I sinned.” B.

7. God had raised His servant to be a

“prophet.” With him God held such intimate intercourse as was not granted to other men, even in an age when Heaven lay more open to the eye of earth than it does now. This constituted him a mediator through whom the divine will and favor could reach his contemporaries. Quite recently it had emboldened him to stand as intercessor between the sinful towns and the justice of Heaven. Even Abimelech was to be indebted for the pardon of his unwitting fault to the prayers of the very man who had misled him into it. “He is a prophet,” said the Voice in his dream, “and he shall pray for thee, and thou shalt live.” Dykes.

This is the first time we meet with the word prophet; and Abraham is the first that is honored with this name. It signifies one admitted to a nearer intercourse with God; so as to be allowed to consult Him, and to declare His mind and will to others; and also to prevail with Him by prayer to confer blessings upon them. Patrick.—Abraham is said to be a prophet, occupying a place of especial favor, so that his intercession would avail with God. And no less remarkable are those that follow, in which the heathen king reproves the prophet, the Friend of God, by an appeal to those first principles of moral right which bind prophets and heathens alike: “thou hast done deeds with me that ought not to be done.” Abimelech shines throughout this narrative. His public announcement of the facts to his servants is the act of an injured man conscious of his own rectitude and desirous thoroughly to clear himself. Alf.—This king of the Philistines knows the true God, as Melchizedek also did; in dreams he even receives communications from him; recognizes in Abraham a “prophet,” or interpreter of the divine will—one gifted with the higher vision, and permitted to hold familiar intercourse with the Lord; and obeys with alacrity the intimations of God. He displays in this transaction a highly honorable character; while Abraham, to his humiliation, is constrained to listen to his just reproaches. C. G. B.

9,10. The serious reproof which Abimelech gave to Abraham. His reasoning with Abraham was strong, and yet very mild. Nothing could be said better; he does not reproach him, but he fairly represents the injury Abraham had done him. 12. He excused it from the guilt of a downright lie, by making it out, that, in a sense, she was his sister. But they to whom he said, She is my sister, understood that she was so his sister as not to be capable of being his wife; so that it was an equivocation with an intent to deceive. H.

Some tell us, the God of the Old Testament takes the lie of Abraham under His special protection, for Abraham comes out of these two situations honored and enriched. But in both cases the sacred historian evidently takes the part of the two heathen kings against Abraham; for he transmits to us at full length the energetic reproaches which both the monarchs address him: “What is this that thou hast done unto me? why didst thou not tell me that she was thy wife?” And Abraham answers not a word, which signifies that he recognizes his guilt. “What hast thou done unto us? Thou hast done deeds unto me that ought not to be done,” said the king of the Philistines. And Abraham does not seek to justify himself; he only endeavors to palliate his fault by explaining to Abimelech that his statement was not so complete a falsehood as at first sight it seemed. The biblical hero, the father of Israel, is, therefore, rebuked on both occasions by the two heathen princes, and this in two reproofs which have been preserved by the sacred writer. That is how Abraham comes out of these adventures justified! As to the gifts presented to Abraham by the two kings, they too had their sin to atone for in this transaction. If it be not permitted to take from a man his wife, it is equally forbidden to take his sister. If for this act of violence they impose upon themselves a reparation toward Abraham, it is mere justice. The only one who comes out of this narrative glorified is God, who interferes to save His elect from the false position in which he has placed himself by his own fault, and who preserves from crime the two comparatively innocent heathen kings. Godet.

16. A thousand pieces of silver.** This is explained subsequently, when Abraham buys the field and cave of Machpelah for four hundred shekels of silver, which, it is added, “he weighed to Ephron, current money with the merchant.” These transactions bring out three points; that in ancient times silver appears to have been the money metal, gold being reserved more for ornament; that for a long period still money was not coined and stamped, but weighed—the Lydians being among the first to use coin, and that perhaps a thousand years afterward; that even then the merchant, the travelling tradesman was at his business of exchange. S. C. B.

17. So Abraham prayed unto God.** Abraham by his prevarication had brought distress on Abimelech and all his household. Being now humbled by the rebuke he had received, he prayed to God for the removal of the judgments which he had been instrumental in procuring. By this means, as far as in him lay, he counteracted and reversed the mischief that he had done. It is but seldom that we can cancel in any degree the evil we have committed; but the course adopted by Abraham is open to us all. We may pray for those whom we have injured. We may beg of God to obliterate from their minds any bad impressions which either by word or deed we may have made on them. Bush.—Comparing merely the natural position of Abraham in this transaction with that of Abimelech, the Patriarch would have appeared under great disadvantage, and therefore God points out that by grace and calling he occupied another and a much higher place, from which he was not removed even when, through the weakness of his nature, he lost so much of his personal dignity. Yet while Abimelech stands so much higher than the Patriarch in point of natural dignity and moral strength, the latter has to intercede for him, that the sin, of which without knowing its full extent he had become guilty, might be forgiven, and that the plague, with which he and his household had been afflicted, might be removed. K.

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. 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 which made every man chosen to leadership in the holy kingdom the best man that could have been chosen for the purpose. You say that Abimelech was better than Abraham; but you know nothing about Abimelech but what is stated in this chapter. 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 not the right way to read the Bible. We are not to set act against act, but life against life. Take 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. 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 and my impiety, by my setting up my morality against the righteousness of God. It is easy for me to compare the insipid respectability of some of my own acquaintance with the painful characteristics just named, and to depose the great historical characters in favor of my unimpeachable friends. But where would my friends have been in the same circumstances?

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 pitifully failed. Consider, too, 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. We are called to holiness, to honor, 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 toward 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.” J. P.