Sunday, December 8, 2013

Abraham and Abimelech


Genesis 20

Once again, Abraham starts lying about his relationship with his wife, Sarah. After travelling to Gerar, Abraham claims that Sarah is his sister (remember, this is a half-truth), and King Abimelech takes her.

Genesis 20:7, NIV “Now 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.”

Okay, since Abraham is a prophet, he can pretty much get away with anything. Lying, shmying. Who cares? He’s God’s favorite! I truly don’t see how this meshes with an all-loving God, when the Abraham story shows multiple time that God has his own elite crew, plays favorites with them, and threatens to kill the people who fall for Abraham’s lies. Abraham plays the part of a fool perfectly, over and over again, and God defends him every single time. Or, Chapter 20 is the same story that is in Genesis 12, retold in a different way, with a slightly different ending.

In this version of the Sarah-as-sister scam, Abimelech confronts Abraham, and asks why he lied, so this time we get to find out the reasons behind it. Abraham was apparently in fear for his life, because “there is surely no fear of God in this place” (Gen 20:11). Sounds to me like Abimelech’s kingdom practices a different religion. So much for cultural diversity. It also happens to be the exact same fear that Abraham mentioned in Chapter 12 when entering Egypt.

The author of this chapter throws in a real zinger at the end. After everyone makes up, Abraham receives oodles of treasures for lying—again—we find out that God had closed the womb of every single woman in Abimelech’s household because of Abraham’s wife, Sarah.


The Bible continues to use a person’s ethnicity, nation, or town, to make a judgment call about them. Sounds about right for documenting the beliefs of a historical period, but not as divine inspiration.

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