Old Testament Study - Vol. III, No. 5

Old Testament Study - Genesis 20

Here, we continue our study in Genesis.

Abraham Stumbles Yet Again

¹Now Abraham moved on from there into the region of the Negev and lived between Kadesh and Shur. For a while he stayed in Gerar, ²and there Abraham said of his wife Sarah, "She is my sister." Then Abimelech king of Gerar sent for Sarah and took her.

³But God came to Abimelech in a dream one night and said to him, "You are as good as dead because of the woman you have taken; she is a married woman."

⁴Now Abimelech had not gone near her, so he said, "Lord, will you destroy an innocent nation? ⁵Did he not say to me, `She is my sister,' and didn't she also say, `He is my brother'? I have done this with a clear conscience and clean hands."

⁶Then God said to him in the dream, "Yes, I know you did this with a clear conscience, and so I have kept you from sinning against me. That is why I did not let you touch her. ⁷Now return the man's wife, for he is a prophet, and he will pray for you and you will live. But if you do not return her, you may be sure that you and all yours will die."

The Bible is true. It relates the true history of its heroes. We are shown the good side and the bad side of the great prophets of God. The veracity of the Bible is demonstrated in episodes like this one in Genesis 20. Abraham, though greatly blessed by God, though visited personally by God, though given magnificent gifts and promises by God, fails God here miserably. Moreover, Abraham stumbles in the same way he has stumbled before (see Gen. 12:10ff). He forgets the lessons that he learned the first time. His stumbling is all the more inexcusable this time because he is now a mature man of God, whereas in the previous episode, Abraham was (so to speak) a baby in the faith. We can all relate to Abraham, though. We all know the familiar feeling of failing our God. Even those of us who are mature in the faith, find ourselves stumbling into the same old sins over and over. Our old self is always with us. We can't seem to shake our sinful nature. Paul depicts our situation: "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do--this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God--through Jesus Christ our Lord!" (Romans 7:15-25).

Abraham's troubles began when he wandered out of the promised land: "Now Abraham moved on from there into the region of the Negev and lived between Kadesh and Shur." Abraham moved south to an area on the way to Egypt. This is significant. In chapter 12, when Abraham fell in the same sin, he "went down to Egypt to live there for awhile" (Gen. 12:10). Here in Gen. 20, Abraham moves towards Egypt. In the Bible, Egypt is a symbol of the world, so symbolically, Abraham stumbles here when he moves toward the world. We are not told why Abraham left Hebron. Perhaps he was despondent over the destruction of Sodom and wanted to get away from that area for a while. Perhaps there were lingering environmental effects from the destruction of Sodom, such as a smell of sulfur or some such thing. In any case, he wandered into the world (always a dangerous sojourn), and did not return untainted.

"For a while he stayed in Gerar, and there Abraham said of his wife Sarah, `She is my sister.'" Abraham patently lies about his relationship with Sarah, putting Sarah in jeopardy. As mentioned, Abraham's sin is the same that he perpetrated many years before in Egypt (see Gen. 12). Abraham's reason for lying, as explained in the earlier episode is two-fold: he feared the local inhabitants would kill him to get Sarah (see Gen. 12:12); he wanted to "be treated well" because of Sarah (Gen. 12:13). The surprising thing is that Abraham stumbles in his strong points. Abraham is known as a man of faith, yet he stumbles here in his faith, fearing that the Canaanites would kill him, lacking faith in God's ability to protect him. Abraham is also known as one who, though rich, desires heavenly riches over worldly ones, living in tents as a pilgrim on this earth. Yet, one of his motives for lying is so that he would be treated well for Sarah's sake.

This is a warning to us: "[I]f you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall!" (I Cor. 10:12). We need to always be on guard against temptation, even in our strong points (especially in our strong points!). Satan often tempts us in our strong points, because when we stumble in our strong points, we are all the more discouraged. Another reason this is a warning to us is that if Abraham, the great man of faith that he was, could stumble when tested, so certainly can we. Abraham was a great man of faith in Hebron, but among the worldly how did he fare? We can be great men of prayer, fervent at worship, studied in doctrine, yet fail miserably in the practical living out of our religion. Untested religion is unproven religion. We see the true Abraham here because his faith is challenged. "We possess no more religion than what we have in the time of trouble. It is comparably easy to trust God while everything goes along pleasantly, but the time of disappointment, of loss, of persecution, of bereavement, is the time of testing; and then how often we fail."[Footnote #1] Christ's example, thus, is all the more strong and impressive. He faced trouble, temptation and persecution--much more than we will--and yet He remained sinless.

The result of Abraham's lie was that "Abimelech king of Gerar sent for Sarah and took her." Now, why would Abimelech[Footnote #2] take Sarah, who was over eighty years old, as his wife? True, Sarah was rejuvenated by God in preparation for bearing Isaac, and so undoubtedly did not look her age. Most probably though, the main reason that Abimelech took her as a wife was not her looks, but in order to set up an alliance with the very wealthy Abraham (whom he thought was her brother).

However, God intervened[Footnote #3]: "But God came to Abimelech in a dream one night and said to him, `You are as good as dead because of the woman you have taken; she is a married woman.'" One lesson here: don't mess with God's people. He will intervene. Here though, God seems a little harsh, especially since Abimelech did not know that Sarah was married. What we must remember, however, is that if Abimelech had consummated his relationship with Sarah, he could have jeopardized the fulfillment of God's promise to Abraham. Sarah, at this time, was probably no longer barren (God had promised that she would bear Isaac within a year, see Gen. 18:14). If Abimelech had impregnated her, what then? How could she then bear a son to Abraham? So, it was necessary that God intervene.

This may suggest a spiritual reason as to why Abimelech (and Pharoah, back in Gen. 12) took Sarah into his harem. Quite possibly, he was prompted in some way by Satan to do so. Satan certainly knew of the promise to Abraham regarding his offspring, and so worked to prevent the successful fulfillment of the promise. What better way than to have someone else take Sarah as wife. Throughout the Bible, we see Satan working against the fulfillment of God's promises to His people, especially promises concerning the ancestry of the Messiah. We see Pharoah destroying the infant sons of the Hebrews (Ex. 1), numerous assaults on the royal line of David (II Chron. 21:4; 21:17; 22:1; Isa. 36:1), Haman's plans to destroy all of the Israelites (Esth. 3:6), Herod's killing of the children in Bethlehem (Matt. 2:16); etc. All of these attacks, whose ultimate purpose was to thwart God's plan to save mankind through the Messiah Jesus Christ, culminated in Satan's temptations of Christ to give up His ministry and follow Satan (Matt. 4).

Abimelech (who "had not gone near [Sarah]") appealed to God on the basis of his innocence in the situation. First, he says: "Lord, will You destroy an innocent nation?" Abimelech was most likely indirectly referring here to God's destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, as if to say, "You destroyed Sodom. Will You now destroy an innocent nation?" If this was a reference to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, then it seems that it was common knowledge in the whole area that it was God Himself behind the destruction. Abimelech continues: "Did he not say to me, `She is my sister,' and didn't she also say, `He is my brother'? I have done this with a clear conscience and clean hands." Yes, it is true that Abimelech was innocent in this situation, but since God is holy, even sins of ignorance are an affront to Him. In the psalms, David prays: "Forgive my hidden faults" (Ps. 19:12). We need forgiveness from God even for sins that we are not aware of. The sad thing, of course, is that Abimelech was nearly led into sin as the result of the sin of a godly man. No man is an island, and so our sin often ripples causing others to sin. Our sin can cause others to sin in many different ways. Sometimes, it leads others into sinful situations (as with Abraham and Abimelech); sometimes others see us sin and, knowing that we are godly people, think that what we are doing is OK, and so follow our example; our sins are often passed on to other members of our family; etc. We must be careful: the effects of our sin are farreaching, more than we can ever imagine.

God, of course, knew of Abimelech's innocence: "Then God said to him in the dream, `Yes, I know you did this with a clear conscience, and so I have kept you from sinning against Me. That is why I did not let you touch her.'" God, in His grace, intervened to keep Abimelech from sin. In my life, I have seen God's hand as He prevents me from sinning, and I praise Him that He cares for me so much that He would intervene and work to hinder me from stumbling. It is a valuable and effective prayer to pray: "[L]ead us not into temptation" (Matt. 6:13).

God not only kept Abimelech from sinning, He also gave him the remedy to the situation: "Now return the man's wife, for he is a prophet, and he will pray for you and you will live. But if you do not return her, you may be sure that you and all yours will die." Ironically, this verse contains the first use of the word "prophet" in the Bible. Sadly, Abraham the "prophet" was not a very good witness for God in this situation. We normally don't think of Abraham as a prophet, but God's labelling him as such aids our understanding of the word "prophet" as it is used in the Bible. When we think of a "prophet", we usually think of a person who foretells the future. In the Bible, however, a prophet is any person who is chosen by God to speak for Him. Yes, many times this entails foretelling the future, but many times it entails other things, such as exhortation, encouragement, condemnation, etc.

Excuses, Excuses

⁸Early the next morning Abimelech summoned all his officials, and when he told them all that had happened, they were very much afraid. ⁹Then Abimelech called Abraham in and said, "What have you done to us? How have I wronged you that you have brought such great guilt upon me and my kingdom? You have done things to me that should not be done." ¹⁰And Abimelech asked Abraham, "What was your reason for doing this?"

¹¹Abraham replied, "I said to myself, `There is surely no fear of God in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife.' ¹²Besides, she really is my sister, the daughter of my father though not of my mother; and she became my wife. ¹³And when God caused me to wander from my father's household, I said to her, `This is how you can show your love to me: Everywhere we go, say of me, "He is my brother."'"

¹⁴Then Abimelech brought sheep and cattle and male and female slaves and gave them to Abraham, and he returned Sarah his wife to him. ¹⁵And Abimelech said, "My land is before you; live wherever you like."

¹⁶To Sarah he said, "I am giving your brother a thousand shekels of silver. This is to cover the offence against you before all who are with you; you are completely vindicated."

¹⁷Then Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech, his wife and his slave girls so they could have children again, ¹⁸for the LORD had closed up every womb in Abimelech's household because of Abraham's wife Sarah.

The dream deeply affected Abimelech: "Early the next morning Abimelech summoned all his officials, and when he told them all that had happened, they were very much afraid." Abimelech did not waste any time. He rose early and obeyed God's command to return Abraham's wife. Ironically, in this episode, it is the pagan king who readily listens to and obeys God. You might say: "Well, yeah, if I had a dream from God, I would obey, too." But wait. We have much more than a dream: we have the sure Word of God, the past work of God in our lives, the Spirit of Christ dwelling in our hearts, and much more. We have little excuse for not rising early and obeying God.

Abimelech, appropriately, did not return Sarah without giving Abraham an ear full: "What have you done to us? How have I wronged you that you have brought such great guilt upon me and my kingdom? You have done things to me that should not be done. . . What was your reason for doing this?" It is truly a sad day when a pagan is able to rightly rebuke a true prophet of God. Abimelech's behavior was commendable: patient, forgiving, Christlike. Abraham at this point should have repented and asked for forgiveness from Abimelech and from God. Instead, he attempts to excuse his behavior.

Excuse 1: "Abraham replied, `I said to myself, "There is surely no fear of God in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife."'" Abraham's first excuse was that fear led to his lying. This really is not a very good excuse for Abraham. First, his fear was based on faulty misconceptions concerning Abimelech and his people. Abraham thought that "there is surely no fear of God in this place." The response of Abimelech to the dream that God sent demonstrates that Abimelech indeed did fear God. Second, Abraham should not have been afraid, but should have trusted in God for protection. After all, God had just promised him that Sarah would bear his son within a year. God was not going to let anything happen to Abraham. God was going to fulfill His promise to Abraham. Abraham stumbled in his faith. Though he walked with God for so long, he at that time had a limited view of God and His ability to protect him. "How often those who are not afraid to trust God with their souls, are afraid to trust Him with regard to their bodies!"[Footnote #4]

Excuse 2: "Besides, she really is my sister, the daughter of my father though not of my mother; and she became my wife." Apparently (unless Abraham is lying here too), Sarah was Abraham's half-sister. So, he excuses his deceit by saying that he really, technically, did not tell a lie. This is no excuse, though. By saying, "She is my sister" and stopping at that, Abraham was effectively saying, "She is not my wife." By allowing Abimelech to take Sarah without informing him that she is his wife was deceitful, despite the fact that, technically, Abraham's tongue did not speak an untruth. We must be careful. We often excuse ourselves, saying, "Well, technically, I did not sin." God looks at the heart, though. One is not innocent before God unless his heart can withstand God's scrutiny.

Excuse 3: "And when God caused me to wander from my father's household..." Here, Abraham implicitly blames God for leading him into this situation in the first place. The difficulty of our situation is never an excuse for sin. When we get in a difficult situation, we see it as an excuse to sin, thinking either that we need to sin to extricate ourselves from the situation (as Abraham did), or arrogantly thinking that, since our situation is difficult, we have some sort of extra right to sin. This is not true. God will never lead us into a situation that will require sin in order to escape. Paul tells us: "No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it" (I Cor. 10:13).

Excuse 4: "And when God caused me to wander from my father's household, I said to [Sarah], `This is how you can show your love to me: Everywhere we go, say of me, "He is my brother."'" Abraham planted the seed for his failure way back when he first departed from Ur. Abraham long ago preprogrammed himself to fail. He decided that he was going to fail, and so he did. Abraham's problem here was that he forgot God, but remembered his former way of life. As Abraham started to walk with God, he should have abandoned these old, worldly schemes, and turned to God in his fear. Abraham's excuse here is that, well, this sin began before he really knew God, so somehow it should be excused. We all have skeletons from our former way of life that are still hanging on. And when they rear their heads, rather than turn to the power of Christ to battle them, we let ourselves be tripped up by them, excusing ourselves by saying: "Well, that was just part of my old self that I haven't been able to fix yet." Many times, the problem is that we don't want to fix that part of our life yet.

After Abimelech patiently listened to all of Abraham's excuses, he did something that many people wonder about: "Then Abimelech brought sheep and cattle and male and female slaves and gave them to Abraham, and he returned Sarah his wife to him. And Abimelech said, `My land is before you; live wherever you like.' To Sarah he said, `I am giving your brother a thousand shekels of silver. This is to cover the offence against you before all who are with you; you are completely vindicated.'" Why did Abimelech reward Abraham for deceiving him? This reflects Abimelech's fear of God. God Himself told Abimelech that Abraham was His prophet. Abimelech was also scared by the dream and, thus, thought that he would try to stay on God's good side by rewarding his prophet. Life is not fair, sometimes. Unfortunately, sin is often rewarded materially. From this we can learn that material blessing does not imply sanction from God. Just because someone is rich, it does not mean that God approves of his life. "Lest riches should be accounted evil in themselves, God sometimes gives them to the righteous; and lest they should be considered as the chief good, He frequently bestows them on the wicked."[Footnote #5]

"Then Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech, his wife, and his slave girls so they could have children again." God chooses to work mainly through the prayers of His people. Although God could have healed Abimelech and his household at His own will, He chose to have Abraham pray for this healing (see vs. 7). This also shows us the grace of God: He still hears our prayers after we sin. Sometimes, after we sin, we think, "Oh, God won't listen to me for a few days." Perish the thought. The best thing that we can do after we sin is to get on our knees as soon as we can, ask for forgiveness, make a clean slate, then get on with our relationship with God.

Oh Father, we praise You that You hear our prayers, even the prayers of us sinners. Forgive us for our unfaithfulness; we praise You for Your faithfulness. Help us, by Your Spirit, to get rid of all the slime that is still clinging to us from our former way of life. Rather than turning to our old ways of deliverance, may we turn to You, the Rock of our salvation. We pray these things in the name of Jesus, Amen.

Footnotes:

1. Pink, Gleanings in Genesis, pg. 193-194.

2. The name "Abimelech" was most likely a general name for the ruler of that part of Canaan (just like "Pharoah" was the general name for the ruler of Egypt). This is supported by the fact that "Abimelech" means "father-king".

3. This is the first of many times in the Bible that God directly reveals Himself to someone who is not one of His covenant people. This also happens to: Pharoah in the time of Joseph, Balaam, Nebuchadnezzar, Pilate's wife, et. al.

4. Pink, op. cit., pg. 195.

5. William Secker, cited in Spurgeon, A Treasury of David, Vol. I, pg. 41.