Genesis 19:27 ¶ And Abraham gat up early in the morning to
the place where he stood before the LORD: 28
And he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the
plain, and beheld, and, lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a
furnace. 29 And it came to pass, when
God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham, and sent
Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in the which
Lot dwelt.
Genesis
19:30 ¶ And Lot went up out of Zoar, and
dwelt in the mountain, and his two daughters with him; for he feared to dwell
in Zoar: and he dwelt in a cave, he and his two daughters. 31 And the firstborn said unto the younger, Our
father is old, and there is not a man in the earth to come in unto us after the
manner of all the earth: 32 Come, let us
make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve seed
of our father. 33 And they made their
father drink wine that night: and the firstborn went in, and lay with her
father; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose. 34 And it came to pass on the morrow, that the
firstborn said unto the younger, Behold, I lay yesternight with my father: let
us make him drink wine this night also; and go thou in, and lie with him, that
we may preserve seed of our father. 35
And they made their father drink wine that night also: and the younger
arose, and lay with him; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she
arose. 36 Thus were both the daughters
of Lot with child by their father. 37
And the firstborn bare a son, and called his name Moab: the same is the
father of the Moabites unto this day. 38
And the younger, she also bare a son, and called his name Benammi: the
same is the father of the children of Ammon unto this day.
For
Abraham’s sake, God saved Lot. I’ve already discussed what remembered means in this context in comments on 8:1. Whether or not
it is doctrinally true in the age of the church there have been many sermons
about adult children being drawn to Christ by the Holy Spirit because of the
fervent prayers and heart-felt love of a parent.
Lot
was afraid to say in Zoar. Perhaps, as he came out of Sodom, the terrified
people blamed him for the destruction, maybe believing in their gods’ anger
causing the destruction. But, he ended up in the mountain that he feared.
One
explanation for what happens next is that Lot’s daughters, in this vast scene
of utter destruction, felt completely alone and desolate and simply used their
father to provide them with children. They knew he would not do such wickedness
willingly so they got him roaring drunk.
Another
explanation is that Lot’s daughters were raised in the immoral and depraved
climate of Sodom where sex and religion were united. They thought that the ways
they had seen and known, the earth religion, was lost to them lest they take
action themselves. Notice the passage;
31 And the firstborn said unto the younger, Our
father is old, and there is not a man in the earth to come in unto us after the
manner of all the earth:
The
results of this godless and evil rape by the girls of their father are the
nations of Moab and Ammon, who will play roles later as the Hebrews try to
claim their Promised Land and then even later in the history of Israel.
Here
is an important point in understanding the Bible. God acknowledges the results
of sin without accepting the sin.
Deuteronomy
2:19 And when thou comest nigh over
against the children of Ammon, distress them not, nor meddle with them: for I
will not give thee of the land of the children of Ammon any possession; because
I have given it unto the children of Lot for a possession.
For
instance, God ordained that a marriage was to be between one man and one woman.
Genesis
2:24 Therefore shall a man leave his
father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one
flesh.
His
will was for Himself to be king over Israel but they wanted a human king like
other countries.
1Samuel
8:7 And the LORD said unto Samuel,
Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they
have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over
them.
And
yet God did not abandon the offspring of a king who had multiple wives, even a
son that was the offspring of adultery and murder.
1Kings
1:11 Wherefore Nathan spake unto
Bathsheba the mother of Solomon, saying, Hast thou not heard that Adonijah the
son of Haggith doth reign, and David our lord knoweth it not?
God
doesn’t create culture, the practices of a family, a community, or ethnic
group, and He didn’t create civilization. God modified culture and civilization
already created by man, bringing commandments to bear on it to alter it and
move it toward His standard, sometimes even in small ways. Your country, your
culture, your civilization is not holy, is not special, and is not blessed of
God just because you have a few churches in it and some of your people claim to
believe in Christ or a God of First Causes. But, in the Bible, God worked with
men and women where they were and in the conditions they inherited from their
forebears. Some of these conditions and cultural practices we find wicked today
and clearly against God’s will. God doesn’t justify a cultural practice by
acknowledging it and modifying it to be more merciful.
It
must be remembered that the Bible is about God’s reconciliation of man to
Himself and not about justifying your social order or nation-state’s policies,
a nation that will one day cease to exist.
But,
the point is that what happened with Lot and his daughters happened and there
is no way around it. It was wicked but God wove the consequences of it into His
plans, something He knew and did from before He created the world without
justifying it or preventing it. The Holy Spirit paints a picture of mankind in
the Bible, warts and all. This picture shows a vile and wicked creature,
degenerate in his practices and lacking in faithfulness toward God. But, God is
merciful in spite of man’s wickedness. Our Creator is merciful
to the created thing that turned on Him. I am thankful for that.
Genesis, chapter 20
Genesis
20:1 ¶ And Abraham journeyed from thence
toward the south country, and dwelled between Kadesh and Shur, and sojourned in
Gerar. 2 And Abraham said of Sarah his
wife, She is my sister: and Abimelech king of Gerar sent, and took Sarah.
As
proof that Sarah was still desirable to look at in an age where people lived
longer and were more youthful looking longer and as further evidence of the
customs of the time, the king of Gerar places Sarah in his harem. Abraham
repeats his same, what we would call today cowardice, practice as in chapter 12
in Egypt in protecting himself from possible murder but not his wife from this
humiliation.
This
shows us the dangers of travel in those days particularly if you had a wife
other men might desire. Abimelech king of
Gerar is used here as Pharaoh king of
Egypt is used in 41:46 and in other verses. The question then arises as to
whether or not Abimelech is a
Philistine title for a king or whether it is a name. Isaac will repeat this
behavior in a few chapters and dwell in this same city for a time. In 26:8 this
king of Gerar is called the king of the Philistines.
We
see two characteristics of life in the ancient world. One, the molestation of
visitors to a city as revealed in the story of Sodom and later in Judges 19
and, two, how ancient kings might forcibly take a man’s wife and kill him if
they felt like it.
This
also shows us the political powerlessness of women, used without their consent
as commodities, sexual resources, or just instruments to produce progeny. The
woman had no right to say no to any of this. Her value was in her usefulness to
men, much like a farm animal, modified only by affection and a sense of moral
custom. But, when God’s directive will was involved, by these cultural
practices, women in the Bible were blessed by being part of God’s plan of
producing the line that He came to earth through in His work of reconciliation
of man to Himself. A woman’s lot in life, based on the consequences of Adam and
Eve’s sin and man’s prevailing cultural custom, was ameliorated only by the
affection her husband might have toward her and the love of and for her
children, sons of which might care for her in her old age if She was widowed.
Keep
in mind again that man invents culture and civilization and God permits him to
do so by God’s permissive will. God alters and modifies to lead man’s effort to
an end He has ordained. Imagine that while slave ships and ships for conquest
went out a couple of hundred years ago missionaries went out as well. And while
many missionaries were simply instruments of the conquering country or
institutional church a minority simply went out as God’s instruments to save
souls. We need to reorder history in our minds to see how God intervenes and
directs. When you include God’s actions in the course of history and cease
thinking of Him as simply a first cause or standing on the sidelines waiting
for a prayer you get a different picture of history. Of course, you get a
different picture of everything from biology to literature if you haven’t
accepted the mental condition of modernity that removes God from every
equation.
Genesis
20:3 ¶ But God came to Abimelech in a
dream by night, and said to him, Behold, thou art but a dead man, for the woman
which thou hast taken; for she is a man’s wife. 4 But Abimelech had not come near her: and he
said, Lord, wilt thou slay also a righteous nation? 5 Said he not unto me, She is my sister? and
she, even she herself said, He is my brother: in the integrity of my heart and
innocency of my hands have I done this. 6
And God said unto him in a dream, Yea, I know that thou didst this in
the integrity of thy heart; for I also withheld thee from sinning against me:
therefore suffered I thee not to touch her. 7
Now therefore restore the man his 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.
There
are other times that God speaks to men in dreams as to Jacob, Laban the Syrian,
to Joseph, etc.
Abimelech
is not the sort of man that the previous Pharaoh that Abram and Sarai
encountered was. God dealt with that Pharaoh by visiting sickness on his house
to cause him to bring no shame on Sarai/Sarah while God kept Abimelech’s
household from conceiving as revealed later in verse 18. But, Abraham has
misjudged Abimelech. God reveals to us that this king has integrity and wants
to do right. He had not touched Sarah and truly thought she was Abraham’s
sister. So, God moved in him to prevent him from having any relations with her.
It was God who prevented this sin of ignorance that was possible but not
completed.
God
made provision for dealing with sins of ignorance, just not realizing what you
were doing, in the Law given to Moses. You can read examples of this in the
context of Leviticus, chapter 4, for example. But God does restrain us from
following our “natural” impulses at times, our desires, as He did when he kept
David and his men from killing, as Abigail believed, even though David
considered it and felt justified by Nabal’s treatment of him and his men.
1Samuel
25:26 Now therefore, my lord, as the
LORD liveth, and as thy soul liveth, seeing the LORD hath withholden thee from
coming to shed blood, and from avenging thyself with thine own hand, now let
thine enemies, and they that seek evil to my lord, be as Nabal.
God
has restrained you from doing things that you thought were the right thing to
do because you didn’t have all of the facts. How often have you thanked Him for
that mercy? You have held your tongue when you really wanted to blast someone
with your words only to find out that you were operating off incomplete
understanding. We should always be careful and not to repeat the errors of
Job’s friends in assuming we have knowledge we do not. A friend may get a
serious illness, lose their job, have marital difficulties, or have a
rebellious child and you assume there must be some secret sin in their life
that they are being judged for but, if God is merciful to you, you managed to
refrain from the evil of misrepresenting God and telling your friend what you
think before you have all the facts. Of course, you may never have all of the
facts so it is a good idea just to shut up and minister to your friend in their
grief.
But,
remember, as here, you may have some difficulty related to your intention to
shoot your mouth off and hurt your friend. Think about what God is telling you.
Abimelech’s household were having some problems with Sarah around. Something
wasn’t right. Before God’s dream came to the king came the problem with
conceiving. As you were intending to speak out of turn someone was saying
things about you they had no knowledge of and this should have been a warning
as God eventually prevented you from damaging your relationship with your
friend. To see how God works in our lives we have to be sensitive to His
guidance. This is very hard for you if you have adopted the modern sense of God
not participating in your life on a moment by moment basis.
My
problem has always been about assuming I knew someone’s intentions and motives
when I did not. If that is your problem have you found yourself on the
receiving end of someone accusing you of motives that you did not have as you
contemplated the same error on someone else, even the same person? Did God
prevent you from speaking your mind or, perhaps, did you not speak your mind in
this instance and not realize that God had prevented you?
Think
about when you don’t say something, did you really prevent yourself?
In
God’s warning to Abimelech He refers to Abraham as a prophet. As Abraham,
Isaac, Jacob, the 12 heads of the tribes of Israel, and Israel itself went
about doing God’s will, even if they had to be steered by God because of their
stubbornness in not completely trusting and doing things their own way they
received God’s protection.
Psalm
105:8 ¶ He hath remembered his covenant
for ever, the word which he commanded to a thousand generations. 9 Which covenant he made with Abraham, and his
oath unto Isaac; 10 And confirmed the
same unto Jacob for a law, and to Israel for an everlasting covenant: 11 Saying, Unto thee will I give the land of
Canaan, the lot of your inheritance: 12
When they were but a few men in number; yea, very few, and strangers in
it. 13 When they went from one nation to
another, from one kingdom to another people; 14
He suffered no man to do them wrong: yea, he reproved kings for their
sakes; 15 Saying, Touch not mine anointed, and do my
prophets no harm.
Genesis
20:8 ¶ Therefore 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 what have I offended 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 I thought, Surely the fear of God is not in
this place; and they will slay me for my wife’s sake. 12 And yet indeed she is my sister; she is 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 shew unto me; at every place whither we shall come,
say of me, He is my brother.
This
Philistine king does not delay early in the morning to calling his servants
together and telling them how God spoke to him in this dream. Apparently, the
righteousness of this individual king is reflected in the culture of his
household.
Proverbs
1:7 The fear of the LORD is the
beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.
Understand
God’s involvement in and control of every moment of your life and realize how
badly you need to pray for His mercy and how happy you should be that He loves
you.
Abimelech
blames Abraham for deceiving him and bringing the possibility of great sin upon
his household. He insists he has done nothing to deserve this treatment and
wants to know why Abraham did it, what he saw in Abimelech that suggested this
sinful deception was necessary. Abraham admits that he assumed that Abimelech
was a godless reprobate who did not fear God. So, we can assume that this was
the normal state of kings and kingdoms as Abraham knew. He had every reason to
believe that Abimelech, as we have understood the customs of the time, would
kill him and take his wife. It must have been a common concern of men.
Abraham
then sort of halfway justified himself. “Well, what I said really wasn’t a lie.
She is also my half-sister.” This scene makes a mockery of the times when we
justify a lie, dissembling, insisting that since it was partly true it wasn’t
really a lie. Oh, how many times I have heard that argument from a child, a
teenager, or a grown person. The intent was deception but when found out we
think we are so clever in that part of it was really true.
Finally,
he says that this was what he told her to do everywhere they went where there
was some danger. But, we see that Abraham’s lack of trust in God’s protection
was unwarranted because even though he tried to deceive Abimelech for his own
safety’s sake God revealed Himself to the king and warned him. In the two
situations we see that Pharaoh, though wicked, was wise enough to know that,
with the sicknesses brought on his house, he wanted to be rid of Abram and
Sarai and even blessed them with abundance. But here, God, knowing Abimelech’s
heart, revealed Himself, but protected Abraham.
Abimelech
is a model of a righteous Gentile king.
2Samuel
23:3 The God of Israel said, the Rock of
Israel spake to me, He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of
God.
Genesis
20:14 ¶ And Abimelech took sheep, and
oxen, and menservants, and womenservants, 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, he is to thee a
covering of the eyes, unto all that are with thee, and with all other: thus she
was reproved. 17 So Abraham prayed unto
God: and God healed Abimelech, and his wife, and his maidservants; and they
bare children. 18 For the LORD had fast
closed up all the wombs of the house of Abimelech, because of Sarah Abraham’s
wife.
The
graciousness of a heathen king should cause many so-called Christian leaders
shame. He not only did what God told him to do, restoring Sarah, but he made
Abraham even wealthier than he was. Not only did he offer Abraham material
wealth but he gave him the right to live in his kingdom wherever he wished.
Abimelech
then scolds Sarah, calling Abraham her brother, as she and Abraham had
dissembled regarding. He has rewarded Abraham and tells Sarah, in so many
words, to stay faithful to Abraham, her husband, to not risk other men’s
intentions toward her. She is never to call Abraham her brother again. Both
have been reproved in this. Reproof, from which reprove comes, is correction.
See the synonyms to reproof in this verse and do a word search to see the phrases
and words it is linked with elsewhere to confirm.
2Timothy
3:16 All scripture is given by
inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for
correction, for instruction in righteousness:
Remember,
as you read Abraham’s journey, that the Bible is the story of God’s work in
reconciling man to Himself. Reproof is an essential part of that correction,
that instruction in righteousness, and fundamental to that doctrine.
It
is important to note here that Abraham prayed for Abimelech, whom he had
wronged. Prayers of supplication for others are important, as God reveals
throughout the Bible. Christians are commanded to pray for each other.
James
5:16 Confess your faults one to another,
and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer
of a righteous man availeth much.
We
are to pray for kings and all those in authority. As there were no Christian
kings when this was written we are called to pray for the heathen leaders, that
they come to Christ but for mercy and grace to be applied to them, as well.
1Timothy
2:1 ¶ I exhort therefore, that, first of
all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for
all men; 2 For kings, and for all that
are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness
and honesty. 3 For this is good and
acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; 4
Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the
truth.
We
are to pray even for those who abuse us for our faith. Notice the context of
God’s perfection here.
Matthew
5:43 ¶ Ye have heard that it hath been
said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. 44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless
them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which
despitefully use you, and persecute you; 45
That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he
maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the
just and on the unjust. 46 For if ye
love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the
same? 47 And if ye salute your brethren
only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so? 48 Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father
which is in heaven is perfect.
God
honored Abraham’s prayer and healed Abimelech’s household.
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