I
have long fancied that the Book of Genesis was written in part to discourage
the Israelites from the practice of ancestor worship. Although the Patriarchs of the Old Testament
are certainly regarded as Heroes of Faith and great men, they had their bad days
and Genesis does not always show them at their best. It’s embarrassing enough when, as in the case
of David and Bathsheba, a prophet of the Lord comes along to point out their
ethical lapses; it’s even worse when they get called out by a heathen.
One
such instance --- or three, depending on
your point of view – is the story of Abraham and Abimelech. Well, actually Abimelech doesn’t come into it
until later. I just like the saying the
name Abimelech. The story starts out in
Egypt.
A
severe famine has hit the land of Canaan.
Abraham, still called Abram at this point, has not quite settled down
into the land God has promised to him and his descendants, so he takes his
family and livestock south to Egypt. We
tend to think of Egypt as all desert and pyramids, but the fertile Nile River
valley was an important agricultural center of the region in ancient
times. This will not be the last time
that the people of Israel will go to Egypt fleeing famine, war or political
problems. But Abram has a potential
problem ahead of himself as well.
As he was about to enter
Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai [Sarah], “I know what a beautiful woman you
are. When the Egyptians see you, they
will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they
will kill me but will let you live. Say
you are my sister, so that I will be treated will for your sake and my life
will be spared because of you.’ (Genesis
12:11-13 NIV)
Is
Abram crazy here? Keep in mind that
Sarah would have been in her mid-60s at this point. But ancient Jewish Tradition assures us that,
yes, Sarah really was That Hot; even when she was pushing 70. She was the original Matriarch I’d Like to…
um… Fool around with.
At
least Abram thought so; and he wasn’t alone.
The Pharaoh’s flunkies are also impressed by her beauty. Jewish tradition expands on the story to say
that Abraham hid Sarah in a box when he entered Egypt, but she was discovered
when he tried smuggling her through Customs.
The border officials were so struck by her beauty that they tried to
out-bid each other for who would get her.
Pharaoh hears about her beauty and has Sarai brought to his palace to
add to his collection. After all, single
chick and all, she’s fair game, right?
Oh, and Pharaoh gave favor to the Hot Babe’s brother Abe and gifted him
with more livestock, but the fact remained that Abram’s wife is now stuck in
the Pharaoh’s harem. I guess he didn’t
really think that part of the plan through.
Shortly
afterwards, Pharoah’s household is struck by serious diseases. Obviously this must be Divine Punishment for
something, but what? Pharaoh puts things
together pretty quickly.
So Pharaoh summoned
Abram. “What have you done to me?” he
said. “Why didn’t you tell me she was your wife? Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that
I took her to by my wife? Now then, here
is your wife. Take her and go!” (Genesis
12:18-19)
Abram
gets booted out of Egypt. He does get to
keep all the sheep, cattle, servants and camels that the Pharaoh had given him
earlier, but still it departure is not a dignified one and I can’t imagine
Sarai was very happy about the whole situation.
Some
years pass. Abram has other
adventures. He receives a covenant with
God and changes his name to Abraham, “father of nations;” and his wife takes
the name of Sarah. He lives for a while
in the Negev, an arid region south of Canaan and at one point moves to the city
of Gerar, just a few miles southeast of the city of Gaza. And when they get to Gerar, Abraham starts
worrying again about Sarah fatal beauty.
Once
again he tells people that she’s his sister; and once again the local king, a
guy named Abimelech, decides to take her for his own.
In
this case, God comes to Abimelech in a dream and spells out the situation: “You
are as good as dead because of the woman you have taken; she is a married
woman.” (Genesis 20:3)
Abimelech
freaks. He protests innocence; that he
had no idea the chick was already taken.
“Did he not say to me, ‘She is my
sister,’ and didn’t she also say, ‘His is my brother’? I have done this with a clear conscience and
clean hands.” (v.5) Well, today we would observe that he could
have asked if Sarah actually wanted to become one of his wives, but she didn’t
really have that option at the time.
Abraham could have refused to give her to Abimelech if he had more of a
spine, but if that were the case he wouldn’t have lied about his wife in the
first place.
God
is unusually understanding about the whole situation. In the dream, God tells Abimelech that he
knows the king did not intend this transgression and that for that reason God
saw to it that Abimelech has not yet had the opportunity to bed her. But now God is telling him to give Sarah
back. “…return the man’s wife, for he is a prophet, and he will pray for you
and you will live. But if you do not
return her, you may be sure that you and all yours will die.” (v. 7)
Abimelech
is pretty angry about the deal. He
summons Abraham and asks him what the hell he was thinking of. “How
have I wronged you that you have brought such a great guilt upon me and my
kingdom?” (v.9)
Abraham
replies with what has to be one of the lamest excuses in all of Scripture:
Abraham replied, “I said to
myself, ‘There is surely no fear of God in this place, and they will kill me
because of my wife.’ Besides, she really
is my sister, the daughter of my father though not of my mother; and she became
my wife. And when God had me wander from
my father’s household, I said to her, ‘This is how you can show your love to
me: Everywhere we go, say of me, “He is my brother,”’”. (Genesis 20:11-13)
Oh,
so technically, she really is his
half-sister; so technically, he was
telling the truth. It all depends on how
you define the word “Is”. And the reason Abraham employed this misleading
half-truth is because he was sure that Abimelech was immoral. Abraham, you jerk.
Abimelech
turns out to have more class than expected.
He gifts Abraham with cattle and slaves and grants permission for him to
stay wherever he likes on his lands. This is pretty magnanimous of him, but perhaps
Abimelech figured that since Abraham was obviously favored by the Divinities,
that he ought to be nice to the guy.
Then
Abimelech does something really remarkable.
He apologizes, not to Abraham, (who doesn’t deserve it), but to Sarah.
To Sarah he said, “I am
giving your brother a thousand shekels of silver. This is to cover the offense against you
before all who are with you; you are completely vindicated.” (v. 16)
It
is unfortunately rare in Scriptures that we see a woman publicly acknowledged
to have been wronged and publicly vindicated.
And the guy who did it was not prophet or a follower of the God of
Abraham, but a heathen king, a guy who, Abraham thought, had no respect for the
laws of God. As I said, Abimelech in
this story is a much classier guy than Abraham.
As
a weird coda, the text mentions that Abraham does pray to God, and the Lord
heals Abimelech and his household.
Apparently, the Lord had stricken Abimelech, his wife and his slave
girls all with infertility because of the Sarah business, but now he fixed that
all up. Since Sarah hadn’t been in his
household all that long, I’m not sure how Abimelech would have known this was a
problem, but in any case, God put it all to rights.
You’d
think that would be the end of it. But
no.
Many
years later, Abraham and Sarah have died, and their son Isaac runs the family
business. Once again, famine strikes the
land, and as before, Isaac relocates to Gerar.
The king at this time is also named Abimelech; possibly the grandson of
the previous one. The text describes him
as “king of the Philistines”, who ruled the coastal regions of Palestine for
much of this period. Presumably
Abimelech père was a Philistine too; the earlier
story doesn’t say.
Like father, like son. When
the men on Gerar notice his wife Rebekah and ask who the cute girl is, he
panics and says she is his sister. In
Isaac’s behalf, let me say that this does not seem to have been a premeditated
fib, as in Abraham’s case, but something Isaac said on the spur of the moment. And fortunately, the king does not right away
say, “Hot puppies!” And immediately drag
her off to his harem as some other randy kings might.
But some time later, Abimelech happens to look outside his palace
window and spot Isaac and Rebekah canoodling, and he figures out the
truth. (My NIV translation notes that
the word in Hebrew, which the NIV renders as “caressing” and the KJV as
“sporting” is a form of the verb “to laugh” or “to mock”, from which Isaac’s own
name was derived; so the text is essentially making a pun).
As before, Abimelech rebukes Isaac for misleading him. “One of
the men might well have slept with your wife, and you would have brought guilt
upon us.” (Genesis 26:10)
What are we to make of these three narratives? I’ve always had the suspicion that the writer
who compiled the Book of Genesis found himself with three different versions
from different sources of the same story, and didn’t know which ones to throw
out, so he included them all. The fact
that two of the stories include guys named Abimelech and are set in the town of
Gerar, suggests that they are the same story.
And after all, you would think that after the first incident in Egypt
that Abraham would have known better than to pull the same bonehead stunt a
second time.
Or would he? Remember, in
the lame-o excuse he gave to Abimelech, Abraham claimed that “… when God had me wander from my father’s household, I said to
her, ‘This is how you can show your love to me: Everywhere we go, say of me,
“He is my brother,”’”. (Genesis 20:13) This suggests that Abraham was passing his
wife off as his sister all the time and that in these two instances it came
back to bite him. And if Isaac grew up
in a family where Dad was always telling strangers that Mom was his sister,
maybe it’s not that surprising that he would do the same.
Nevertheless,
whether it’s three stories or just one told three times, the Man of God winds
up looking pretty cowardly and the Foreign King with the Harem by comparison
looking virtuous and moral.
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