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<\/a><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
You might say that Gen. 20 is a rerun, including the same fearful behavior of Abraham, having his wife say she is his sister. But here in this chapter we learn this is not a bald-face lie,\u00a0 Sarah is in fact the daughter of Terah, though not the daughter of Abraham\u2019s mother.\u00a0 The problem however is this is at best a half-truth, because though Sarah may be Abraham\u2019s half sister, she is also his sole wife.\u00a0 Once again, we see an important Biblical figure who is blessed by God behaving in a dishonest manner.\u00a0 Again we should not expect even the positive characters in the OT story to behave like a Christian, or even like a good Hebrew all the time.\u00a0 They too are sinners.<\/p>\n
In this case, we are told that Abraham once again left the Hebron area and journey towards the Negev, this time going to Gerar a Canaanite city state in the western part of the Negev ruled by a king named Abimelek, which literally means \u2018my father the king\u2019.\u00a0 There is no explanation as to why Abraham goes there, unlike the earlier Egypt story where we hear they went to Egypt due to famine.\u00a0 In this case, Abimelek is sent a night dream by God warning him not to touch Sarah.\u00a0 In fact there is a strong threat \u2018you are a dead man if you touch Sarah because she\u2019s another man\u2019s wife.\u2019\u00a0 \u00a0One wonders why King David didn\u2019t get a similar threat when he summoned Bathsheba.\u00a0 Fortunately, he had not touched her, and in a sense he question\u2019s God\u2019s justice saying would you destroy an innocent people?\u00a0 He even says that with a pure heart and clean hands he has taken Sarah, only after hearing she is Abraham\u2019s sister.\u00a0 \u00a0God says he has kept Abimelek from offending, and at the end of the story we learn how\u2013namely he shut up all the wombs in that city-state, presumably including Sarah\u2019s.\u00a0 The story ends positively with God healing all those wombs and even the wombs of the slaves (which may suggest Abimelek had slave concubines).\u00a0 \u00a0God tells Abimelek send back Sarah to Abraham because he is a prophet who will intercede for you.\u00a0 \u00a0A prophet who is not entirely honest, but nevertheless, these are the people God has to work with, people with fears.<\/p>\n
Quite properly Abimelek assembles the people and Abraham the next morning and tells his people about the threat against their very existence, and then quite rightly berates Abraham saying \u201cwhat have I done that you should bring upon this kingdom so great an offense? Things that should not have been done, you did.\u00a0 And then Abraham explains once again about his fears. Now we might have expected at this juncture the king might just banish Abraham, but presumably because he is a prophet he is instead honored.\u00a0 Perhaps Abraham feared that since Gerar was a pagan city it would be seriously immoral like Sodom, but it is not. Abimelek is a man of integrity.\u00a0 Alter notes the special pleading of Abraham on the basis of a technical detail in the Hebrew\u2013\u00a0 \u2018but in point of fact, she is my father\u2019s daughter\u2019. So by later Israelite standards, this is an incestuous marriage.<\/p>\n
So instead of banishing Abraham, he gives him livestock and slaves, he tells him to settle wherever he likes in the Gerar region, and to Sarah he says \u2018I\u2019m also giving 1,000 pieces of silver to protect you from censorious eyes and you are now publicly vindicated.\u00a0 At this juncture Abraham interceded with God, who then reopened the wombs of Abimelek\u2019s family and kin group.\u00a0 \u00a0Perhaps, they had previously suffered from impotence. In any case the opening of the wombs here, prepares us for the climactic story in Gen. 21 when finally Sarah\u2019s womb is open for business and she becomes pregnant.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 You might say that Gen. 20 is a rerun, including the same fearful behavior of Abraham, having his wife say she is his sister. But here in this chapter we learn this is not a bald-face lie,\u00a0 Sarah is in fact the daughter of Terah, though not the daughter of Abraham\u2019s mother.\u00a0 The problem […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":91,"featured_media":68563,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[15188,15191],"class_list":["post-69101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-2nd-verse","tag-same-as-the-first"],"yoast_head":"\n
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