Abraham: Same Lie, Different Country Series

Introduction: After the events of Genesis 19, Abraham left Mamre/Hebron and journeyed southwest towards the Mediterranean Sea. He entered the land of the Philistines and settled at Gerar, between Kadesh and Shur. While there, he told the same lie about Sarah; only to a different king (compare this chapter with chapter 12). The lie didn’t work in Egypt and didn’t work here, even though Abraham believed it would!

1 Déjà vu all over again; the lie and what happened next

Text, Genesis 20:1-2, KJV: 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.

Haven’t we seen something like this before? Why, yes, we have, 25 years before! Abraham was still Abram, and Sarah, Sarai, when they all (these two and their entire household) went down to Egypt (Genesis 12). They were hoping to find food after a famine hit the part of Canaan where they were then living.

And what did Abram do? As mentioned in my message “The First Test of Faith”, Abram had already failed—he never asked God what to do or where to go. He failed again when he lied, saying, “She’s my sister,” even though Sarai was his wife .Pharaoh, king of Egypt, soon found out the truth about Sarai after he had taken her into his house (and who knows what kind of plans he might have had). Abram had the not-so-pleasant distinctions of, first, being kicked out of Egypt and, second, hearing a pagan king say “go thy way”—the first such instance in the Bible!

After they returned to Canaan, Abraham and his household faced a number of challenges; these are recorded in Genesis 13-18. Some of these challenges were good, such as receiving God’s promise in Genesis 15 and the promise of a son in chapters 17-18. It goes without saying that some of these weren’t so good, such as seeing Lot and his household departing, and then settling near Sodom. Lot and many others were taken captive and marched a long ways north of Sodom but Abram rescued him and the others (see Genesis 14).

But after Sodom was destroyed, and Lot had fled, along with his two (surviving?) daughters, Abraham and his household all decided to leave Hebron/Mamre, where they had lived for a long time. They moved southwest towards the Mediterranean Sea, settling in Gerar in the land of the Philistines (compare verse 1 with Gen. 21:32). These people were friendly towards Abraham at this time, it seems—there is no mention in this chapter of any hostile action by the Philistines T this particular time.

Except for one thing: and that involved Sarah.

Abimelech heard Abraham say, “She’s my sister”—not, “She’s my wife,”—so Abimelech decided to take her away from Abraham and keep her for himself. This has always seemed strange to me, because Sarah was now 90 years old! Was she was still beautiful enough to capture a king’s attention, even at that age? On the other hand, Abimelech may have thought, “She’s single, so maybe I can take care of her better than her brother” or something to that effect. Who knows what was going through his mind?

And Abraham did or said nothing to protest this which is recorded in the text.

Does any of this, I ask again, sound familiar? Abraham should have known that the same lie he had told 25 years before wouldn’t work now, and he probably should have guessed that he and Sarah would face the same results!

Fortunately for Abraham, and is spite of his failures, God intervened in a mighty and miraculous way. The next few verses have one of the few times God spoke to a non-Hebrew in a dream.

And what a dream! I wonder if Abimelech ever forgot it.

2 The truth comes out: the dream and a conversation

Text, Genesis 20:3-8. KJV: 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. 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.