Genesis 20:1-18

PART THIRTY-THREE
THE STORY OF ABRAHAM: SOJOURN IN THE NEGEB

(Genesis 20:1 to Genesis 21:34)

1. Abraham and Abimelech (Genesis 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 man's 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 man's 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 wife's 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 father's 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, Abraham's wife.

(1) The Negeb, Genesis 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. Genesis 10:19; Genesis 12:9; Genesis 26:1-6). (See Nelson Glueck's 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 (1 Samuel 14:47 ff.), the victories of David over the Edomites (1 Kings 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 (1 Kings 9:26; 1 Kings 22:48; 2 Kings 14:22). The persistent animosity of the Edomites was motivated by the struggles to control this trade (cf. Ezekiel 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 (Genesis 16:7; Genesis 20:1; Genesis 25:18; Exodus 15:22; Numbers 33:8), the way followed by the Patriarchs (Genesis 24:62; Genesis 26:22), by Hadad the Edomite (1 Kings 11:14; 1 Kings 11:17; 1 Kings 11:21-22), and probably by Jeremiah in escaping to Egypt (Genesis 43:6-12), and later by Joseph and Mary (Matthew 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 (Genesis 26:18-25; Joshua 15:18-19; Judges 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) Abraham's 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. Genesis 12:9-10; Genesis 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. Genesis 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. Psalms 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 (Exodus 15:27, Elim; Genesis 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 (Genesis 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, Revelation 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 (Genesis 21:32; Genesis 21:34; Genesis 26:1; Genesis 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, Genesis 10:14, 1 Chronicles 1:12; Caphtor is identified as the land from which the Philistines came, Jeremiah 47:4, Amos 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 (1 Samuel 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. Judges 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 Egypt's 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 patriarch's arrival within the region of which his capital, Gerar, was the dominant city. We must realize that the nomads of Abraham's 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. Genesis 17:17, Genesis 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 Abraham's conduct, generally speaking, was below the level of integrity manifested by the Philistine king. Certainly Abimelech's 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 (Deuteronomy 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) Abimelech's Dream (Genesis 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. Genesis 12:10-20), namely, the declaration that Sarah was his sister, a declaration which Sarah herself confirmed (Genesis 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. Genesis 16:2, Isaiah 66:9,1 Samuel 1:5-6), or by producing barrenness (cf. Genesis 29:31, Genesis 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. Pharaoh's dreams (Genesis 41:1), Nebuchadnezzar's (Daniel 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 (Genesis 12:7, Genesis 15:1, Genesis 18:1), and to Jacob (Genesis 28:13, Genesis 32:24), and the visions granted to Daniel (Daniel 7:1-28; Daniel 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 Pharaoh's butler and baker (Genesis 40:8), the Midianites (Judges 7:13-15), the wife of Pilate (Matthew 27:19), experienced significant dreams,) (Cf. also the vision granted Isaiah of the Lord sitting upon a throne (Isaiah 6:1-5); Daniel's vision of the Ancient of Days (Daniel 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 (Revelation 1:18; Revelation 4:1; Revelation 11:19; Revelation 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 man's 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 king's harem, but God's silence must not be taken as approval, cf. Acts 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. 2 Samuel 24:17, 1 Chronicles 21:17, Jeremiah 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 king's 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 (Psalms 105:15, Amos 3:7, 2 Peter 1:21), one who speaks by divine afflatus (Deuteronomy 13:2; Deuteronomy 18:15-19; Judges 6:8, 1 Samuel 9:9,1 Kings 22:7) either to announce the will of God to men (Exodus 4:15; Exodus 7:1) or to intercede with God for men (Genesis 20:7; Jeremiah 7:16; Jeremiah 11:14; Jeremiah 14:11); (2) that he, Abraham, would pray for Abimelech (1 Samuel 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. Genesis 28:12; Genesis 31:24; Genesis 37:5; Genesis 40:8; Genesis 41:1; Genesis 1 Ki. 3:51; Jeremiah 23:25, Jeremiah 23:28, Jeremiah 23:32; Daniel 2:1; Daniel 4:5).

(6) Abraham's 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 Abraham's statement in Genesis 20:12 is directly related to his statement in Genesis 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 husband's half-sister, i.e., Terah's daughter by another wife than Abraham's 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 Leviticus 18:9; Leviticus 18:11; Leviticus 20:17; Deuteronomy 27:22. Whom Terah had first married or perhaps married after he had married Abraham's mother, we cannot determine (EG, 589-590).

(7) Abimelech's Response (Genesis 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, Abimelech'S, 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 Sarah's honor was now fully rehabilitated.

(8) Abraham's Prayer (Genesis 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 king's 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 (Psalms 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 Genesis 12:10-20 and Genesis 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 Genesis 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 Genesis 20:18? The answer is that Genesis 20:18 demonstrates the fine propriety one often encounters in relating these two names. Genesis 20:18 states Yahweh's 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 Genesis 20:17.Other authorities explain that in Genesis 20:3, we have Elohim without the article, that is, Deity generally; but Abimelech recognizes the Lord, Adonai, i.e., God (Genesis 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 (Genesis 20:3; Genesis 20:6; Genesis 20:11-12; Genesis 20:17), except in the last verse (Genesis 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-' (Genesis 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 (Genesis 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 Pharaoh's gifts and plagues, he sets forth in more detail the cause of Abraham's 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 (Genesis 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 father's house-' (Genesis 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, Abimelech's 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 (Genesis 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 (Genesis 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, 579-580) 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 patriarch's 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 Saul's 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 1 Samuel 23:19; 1 Samuel 26:1; 1 Samuel 24:6; 1 Samuel 26:9, with Genesis 12:19; Genesis 20:2; Genesis 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 Pharaoh's stinging indictment (Genesis 12:20), he has here a great deal to say to Abimelech in self-defense (Genesis 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 Sarah's personal charms, but simply by a desire to -ally himself with Abraham, the rich nomad prince-' (as Delitzsch puts it).

2. New Light on Abraham's Deceptions

(Explanatory: I have purposely withheld, for presentation at this point, certain evidence from recent archaeological findings which throws an entirely new light on Abraham's conduct toward Pharaoh and Abimelech, and have gone along, so to speak, with the traditional concept of Abraham's 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 God's 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 Abraham's kinsmen.) The Hurrian culture was not known until 1928-1929 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 father's disposition of his household gods (images, Genesis 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 husband's sister, regardles of blood ties. Such cases are attested by two separate legal documents, one dealing with the marriage and the other with the woman's 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 Pharaoh's 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 Durant's great work, Our Oriental Heritage, pp. 164-170, 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 164-166). Obviously, then, Abraham's 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 author's 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 Genesis 21:22-24.