And Abimelech said to Abraham,
"What have you encountered, that you have done this thing?" Abraham said, "Because I thought,
surely there is no fear of God in this place, and they will kill me because of
my wife. Besides, she actually is my
sister, the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother, and she
became my wife; and it came about, when God caused me to wander from my father's
house, that I said to her, 'This is the kindness which you will show to me:
everywhere we go, say of me, "He is my brother.”’” (Genesis 20:10-14 NASB)
In Genesis 12, Abram has Sarai claim
to be his sister while they are in Egypt, and the Pharaoh tries to take her as
a wife, and Abram is amply rewarded. The
resulting plagues on Pharaoh’s house incline him to give Sarah back and expel
them from Egypt. When I recently reviewed
that account, I proposed that Abram was actually shrewd rather than faithless. My reasoning went like this: Saying Sarah was his sister would lose her as
his wife; as her brother, if he tried to keep her from being married, he would
be in as much or greater danger than as her husband. So, actually trusting that Yahweh would protect
all that was his, Abram was confident that he could use this ruse and survive,
perhaps wealthier than he had been. In
fact, God does seem to defend and bless Abram in this activity.
In this passage I’m running out of
space to defend Abraham. First off,
where’s the danger? Sarah is 90 years
old and despairs of having the joy of her husband anyway, can she still be
thought of as a “looker”? Second,
Abraham has a much more detailed explanation for his actions here. In chapter 12, he said to Sarai that he was
afraid the Egyptians would kill him for her, but an answer to Pharaoh is never
recorded. Here he does not explain to
Sarah, he explains to Abimelech that he was afraid the people of Gerar would
kill him for his wife. But he also
explains that she is his wife. This is
where I have a problem. If she were
actually his “half-sister”, I would expect a note to that effect in Genesis 11.
In Genesis 11 the children of Terah
are listed descriptively. Terah has
three sons. The youngest of Terah’s sons,
Haran, seems to have died in his home country, but has three children; a son,
Lot, and two daughters, Milcah and Iscah.
The eldest daughter marries her uncle, Nahor, Terah’s middle son. Abram has a wife, Sarai, and the only
description of her is that she is barren.
If she had a filial connection, it seems that it too would have been
described since that sort of description was part of this account. I suspect that Abraham is lying here, and
I’ve may run out of room to defend him.
On the other hand, God seems to,
again, bless this line of behavior. God
stops Abimelech from going near Sarah, and instructs Abimelech to have Abraham
pray for him so that he will be healed.
Really? If this was something
involving lying, why does God seem to support it, defend it, and even
participate in it? Abimelech gives
Abraham a bunch of stuff to make it right between them, and Abraham does pray
for Abimelech. It’s truly strange.
So, what does this mean for me? I see a few things for my own use. First off, I learn that I don’t have as many
answers to Scripture and, therefore, the character of my Master as I would
like. This passage challenges me to
trust that the things in Scripture I do understand are still true, and that, in
this instance, I’m just not getting the whole story. I just have to trust that, because this looks
suspiciously like the Master of all matter and some Mesopotamian nomad are
scamming the Canaanite locals (Abraham claims this is just what he does,
everywhere). I just find that hard to
believe. Maybe it’s a cultural thing I
don’t understand or something. Anyway, I
need to continue to swing from the belief that my Master is the definition of
Good, Pure, Righteous, and Holy.
The second thing I see in this passage
is that my Master works with His people in odd ways. If Abraham is really afraid, it’s interesting
that he goes at all? Why not stay in
Hebron by the Oaks of Mamre where he spent over 10 years waiting on God to
speak? Whether it was Abraham just
wanting to see the rest of the land his Master was giving his descendants or
just because he needed more/different pasture land, God blesses him as he
goes. God seems to have used Abraham in
Hebron with Mamre and his brothers, and here in the desert of the Negev, God
seems to be using him again, this time to reach Abimelech. And the reaching is wildly effective. God used a lie to do it, whether it was God’s
idea or just His ability to weave mistakes of His creatures into His plan,
Abimelech speaks with God and is esteemed by God to be righteousness (or at
least honest), or at least they talk together – which is good.
I suppose, I need to widen my
understanding of how my Master works with His human creatures, what He might
use them for, and stop condemning other servants for what I disagree with in
their lives. I can call them on it, but
I have to leave room for God’s work in their lives. He may be using what looks disagreeable to me
for His wider, greater purpose.
So to sum up, I’m not as smart as I
want to be about my Master, I’m not as wise as I want to be about Scripture,
and I’m not as insightful as I want to be about my fellow followers of
Jesus. Well, okay then. I suppose I have a lot of growing to do…I
better get after it.
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