Old Tricks

GETTING STARTED

Today’s passage may have a familiar ring. As when Abraham entered Egypt, he now enters Gerar and asks his wife, Sarah, to pose as his sister—just like he did in Egypt. This repeat performance is even more difficult to understand, given the fact that Abraham had just received God’s promise that his lineage would continue through a son born to Sarah. You have to wonder… What was Abraham thinking?

READ THE WORD: GENESIS 20:1-18 (ESV)

^20:1 From there Abraham journeyed toward the territory of the Negeb and lived between Kadesh and Shur; and he sojourned in Gerar. ²And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, “She is my sister.” And Abimelech king of Gerar sent and took Sarah. ³But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night and said to him, “Behold, you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is a man’s wife.” ⁴Now Abimelech had not approached her. So he said, “Lord, will you kill an innocent people? ⁵Did he not himself say to me, ‘She is my sister’? And she herself said, ‘He is my brother.’ In the integrity of my heart and the innocence of my hands I have done this.” ⁶Then God said to him in the dream, “Yes, I know that you have done this in the integrity of your heart, and it was I who kept you from sinning against me. Therefore I did not let you touch her. ⁷Now then, return the man’s wife, for he is a prophet, so that he will pray for you, and you shall live. But if you do not return her, know that you shall surely die, you and all who are yours.”

⁸So Abimelech rose early in the morning and called all his servants and told them all these things. And the men were very much afraid. ⁹Then Abimelech called Abraham and said to him, “What have you done to us? And how have I sinned against you, that you have brought on me and my kingdom a great sin? You have done to me things that ought not to be done.” ¹⁰And Abimelech said to Abraham, “What did you see, that you did this thing?” ¹¹Abraham said, “I did it because I thought, ‘There is no fear of God at all in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife.’¹²Besides, she is indeed my sister, the daughter of my father though not the daughter of my mother, and she became my wife. ¹³And when God caused me to wander from my father’s house, I said to her, ‘This is the kindness you must do me: at every place to which we come, say of me, “He is my brother.”’”

¹⁴Then Abimelech took sheep and oxen, and male servants and female servants, and gave them to Abraham, and returned Sarah his wife to him. ¹⁵And Abimelech said, “Behold, my land is before you; dwell where it pleases you.” ¹⁶To Sarah he said, “Behold, I have given your brother a thousand pieces of silver. It is a sign of your innocence in the eyes of all who are with you, and before everyone you are vindicated.” ¹⁷Then Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech, and also healed his wife and female slaves so that they bore children. ¹⁸For the Lord had closed all the wombs of the house of Abimelech because of Sarah, Abraham’s wife.

DIGGING DEEPER

RESPOND TO GOD

Despite God’s promise, Abraham failed to trust God and took matters into his own hands. The plan may have seemed reasonable to Abraham, but it put Sarah’s purity and his future lineage at risk. God intervened to ensure that his plan, as always, was not thwarted.