On Genesis, Part 30: The Consequences of Covetousness

On Genesis, Part 30: The Consequences of Covetousness

Most modern White Europeans, whom today are often led to believe that they live in a post-Christian society, still take for granted the Christian values with which they were raised, or at least, with which their grandparents and great-grandparents were raised, without any conception of the degree of depravity which was prevalent throughout much of the pre-Christian or non-Christian worlds. Yet those Christian values, which had been shared by Europeans for well over a thousand years, have become ingrained within us through generations of childhood education and practice and they remain in us and in our laws even if we may no longer consider ourselves to be Christians. Then, with the advent of colonialism from about the 15th century, Europeans brought those values with them, by which they had governed all of their colonies abroad, as well as having transmitted them to the non-White races whom they had also come to govern. The non-White races, however, and especially the negro races, do not maintain them very well in post-colonial modern society, and in fact, they never really submitted to Christian values even when they were governed by them. Today, any Negros in Africa who maintain any semblance of Christian values do so only as long as there is wave after wave of White missionaries or international church officials dispensing rewards for their good behavior.

When I was a child, before 1970, there were no pickup bars because women were not permitted in most bars. Some bars had a back room with dining tables, even if they did not serve food, in which women were permitted if they had a man to escort them. Those rooms had separate entrances, and signs above or near the back door would explicitly label it a “Ladies Entrance”. Otherwise any ladies entering through the bar door or without an escort would never be served. My father could take me, even at five or six years old, through the front door to sit at the bar, but he could not take my mother. Back then, my father had also taught me not to even speak to a girl unless I had been introduced to her by her parents. And I would never think of making a sexual advance towards any girl. At least most, if not all, of the other boys I knew were raised with those same values. But then, of course, we were also instilled with other basic Christian values, such as not to steal or lie or abuse those weaker than ourselves. At least most of the other boys disdained perverts, and especially Sodomites, and if they did not disdain them they dare not make any mention of it or they would also become the targets of the same chastisement which the Sodomites had been.

But with the so-called “sexual revolution” of the late 1960’s, and the so-called “women’s liberation” movement which seemed to follow it almost immediately, by the time I was in my late teens, in the late 70’s, all those Christian ethics seemed to have broken down. It suddenly began to be acceptable, to a degree, to be a Sodomite, and they began to emerge from the proverbial closet. Their having been accepted began to multiply their numbers. Women began hanging out in bars, and the so-called pickup culture became a popular lifestyle option. When I was young, I often worked with my father, and he would always bring me to bars after work. Perhaps I was eleven or twelve when on certain occasions I witnessed women in bars, taking off their bras and flinging them or hanging them from fixtures. These women, who were often in their 50’s or 60’s, were gleeful that they could now hang out in bars and whore around with impunity. Young ladies, or really older girls, who were once expected to be virgins until they were married, all became targets for the covetousness of prowling men who were more than happy to make them numbers in their long lists of conquests. With the introduction of no-fault divorce and abortion clinics around that same time, and the more ancient but false concept that marriage only happened in a church, there was no longer any prohibition against unbridled concupiscence.

I was born in 1960, barely soon enough to remember what life was like before the depravity of the hippie culture of Woodstock and the 1960’s had fully spread throughout society, and barely old enough to have learned some Christian values, and come to appreciate them, before the whole world around me changed quite drastically over a period of perhaps ten or fifteen years. Even my own father, who had taught me better, had made some wrong turns once women became regular denizens of the bars which he had frequented.

Then at the end of that period of my life, another phenomenon I noticed, but not until I was in my early 20’s and had spent considerable time around them, is that Negros, and also the recently-immigrated Hispanics and other non-Whites, had never shared the values with which at least most of the White folks whom I knew had been raised, even where the non-White races had professed to be Christians, or at least Catholics. For example, the Hispanics claim to be Christians, and in their covetousness they worship the virgin rather than Christ. Therefore being accepted in large numbers among Whites in workplaces and at social events, something which was not common in the Northeast before the 1970’s, the White population slowly became a playground for an army of indubitably lustful and soulless beasts. Of course, we see the results of that today, as the situation continues to exacerbate. In retrospect, it seems to me that in the fifteen years from 1967 to 1982, dates which may seem arbitrary to others, the world of Mayberry was plunged directly into Sodom.

From my own personal experience, I can honestly state that the rape of women and children, and sexual relations with prepubescent or barely pubescent girls and sometimes even boys, is common, and often even considered to be “normal”, in Negro and Hispanic communities, and it is only punished when it is noticed by the governmental institutions which were originally founded by White Christians. The sexualization of children in those same communities and at even younger ages is also normal, and there are countless examples of it in modern social media. This is why ever since its inception, the so-called LGBT movement has sought alliances with Marxists, Negro and Hispanic activists and those of other races in the so-called “Rainbow Coalition”. They are all natural allies, because Christian laws and principles are inimical to them all. It is also not a coincidence that the sexualization of children, and the commission of sexual acts with children as young as three years old, is expressly permitted in the Jewish Talmud. The rabbis of the Talmud had also claimed there were seven genders, as long as fifteen hundred years ago, in spite of the fact that only two genders are found in the Torah. So it is also not a coincidence that the so-called LGBT movement, of which Jews have always been at the vanguard, pushes for the legalization of pederasty and drag queen story hour.

So growing up just a couple of miles from downtown Manhattan, in what had quickly become, with the Immigration Act of 1965, the largest cesspool of multiculturalism in the West, seems in hindsight like witnessing the development of Sodom. But since there were a million-and-a-half Jewish immigrants in New York already by 1914, Jews whom many unsuspecting White Christians imagined were just like them in at least most respects, that cesspool was spilled out of a cauldron which had simmered for nearly a century before it actually became noticeable as the heat was turned up and it started to boil. Of course, rural folks and folks from small towns that managed to remain predominantly White for a much longer time generally did not have this same experience, and some rural people I have known have only stared incredulously as I tried to describe it to them. So even if they recognize the fact that things have changed, on one level or another, they remain ignorant as to why they have changed, because they cannot believe the true underlying reasons behind the change.

For those of us who are more aware, we may all lament the loss of some yesterday, as many older Christians recollect living in a better world which had existed in one place or another in decades past. But the truth is, that the groundwork for the circumstances which brought the Negro chimp-outs and the exhibitions of sexual depravity in the late 1960’s had been laid in the Civil Rights movements of the 1950’s, which in turn had been coming to a slow boil since Christian Southerners had rejected Yankee Reconstruction and sought to preserve their culture by instituting the so-called Jim Crow laws in the late 19th century. But before that, there was the so-called Civil War, and before that, there was the emancipation of Jewry and the introduction of a godless state in France which accommodated Jewry, and which popularized and propagated the false concepts of liberty, equality and fraternity in spite of the failures of France itself. Those ideals are impossible to attain, and represent the Jewish gaslighting of Christian society through which Jews have hoped to destroy that society. Then even earlier, there was the so-called Glorious Revolution which reopened England to Jewry in the 17th century, and the spread of the Jewish Kabbalah throughout European academia and the sciences in the 15th and 16th centuries. Without any of these things, today’s circumstances would not have been possible. So even aside from all of the wars, there were many lost yesterdays, and many lost memories of what was seemingly a “normal” society, and we can pick and choose earlier moments in the slide towards Sodom which have occurred throughout history all the way back to Genesis chapter 3, but for our White European race, we can go back no further than that. We have been simmering in a Lowcountry Boil, full of unclean beasts, ever since the pronouncements of Genesis 3:15. The problem is that we keep eating of the unclean beasts.

Therefore it is not a coincidence, that the common denominator which has ignited or empowered all of these events throughout history is the Jew, and in his own literature the Jew is proud of his accomplishments as he endeavors to eradicate Christianity completely. In the end, they will all end up just as Sodom and Gomorrah as it is described here in Genesis chapter 19. We have been warned, as we are told by Yahshua Christ Himself in the Revelation, that the current world would indeed resemble Sodom and Egypt. Sodom represents sexual corruption and depravity, and Egypt represents the oppression and captivity of the children of God in this evil world system which He Himself had called Mystery Babylon. So it is no coincidence that the methods of operation in the plan for Jewish world supremacy are outlined in the Babylonian Talmud, and have been instilled into willing Christian dupes through mystery cults such as the lodges of Freemasonry or the Jesuit organization which has embedded itself within the Roman Catholic Church. So the Jew, the descendant of the ancient Nephilim who were at least partly responsible for Sodom and Gomorrah, is the driving force today behind what the Revelation identifies as Sodom and Egypt, “where also our Lord was crucified.” While we do not know at what time it will be, or precisely how it shall happen, it is indisputable that one day soon we shall once again see The End of Sodom, and this final time it will be ended for good, as the true children of Israel are once again delivered from captivity.

Now in the life of Abraham at the commencement of Genesis chapter 20, in the aftermath of the destruction of Sodom we have some examples of the consequences of covetousness, in which there are also lessons which are relevant today as well as being relevant to understanding some aspects of the pre-Christian world.

1 And Abraham journeyed from thence toward the south country, and dwelled between Kadesh and Shur, and sojourned in Gerar.

There was a Kadesh which had been mentioned in Genesis chapter 14 which was among the places smitten by the kings of Elam and Mesopotamia before they had looted Sodom. That Kadesh was evidently in Galilee, and may be identified with the “Kedesh in Galilee” which was later a part of the inheritance of the tribe of Naphtali, and also a Levitical city of refuge, mentioned in Joshua chapters 20 and 21. Where the phrase “Kedesh in Galilee” appears, the name is always spelled with an ‘e’ as the second letter, rather than an ‘a’, but otherwise the name is spelled either way.

The name Kadesh, or Kedesh, is from a Hebrew word קדש or קדוש, transliterated as qadesh, qadash or qadosh, which means holy or separate (Strong #’s 6918, 6942-44), and therefore Kadesh as a place name designates a place which was considered holy, so it most likely was the site of an ancient temple or a center of worship for some pagan cult. This Kadesh here in Genesis chapter 20 is not in Galilee, but in the south, and it is also sometimes spelled Kedesh in the typically inconsistent King James Version. It was situated in the southern portion of the land which had later fallen by lot to the tribe of Judah, as it is described in Joshua chapter 15. In that same chapter, and on other occasions, such as in Numbers chapters 32 and 34, it is also called Kadeshbarnea.

The name Shur, from a Hebrew word שור or shur, which means wall (Strong’s # 7793), certainly must refer to the ancient fortification called the Prince’s Wall. The Prince's Wall is known from the ancient Egyptian Story of Si-nuhe, or Sinuhe, which is dated to the first half of the 20th century BC [1], and also from other historical sources. So it existed at least a hundred years before the birth of Abraham. It was a fortified wall that controlled access into and out of Egypt from the east, and it was built along the eastern side of the Nile Delta, running southwards from Pelusium. Ancient Pelusium was a city east of the easternmost branch of the Nile, at the corner of the Delta on the Mediterranean Sea. It was sometimes called Per-Amun by the Egyptians, or sometimes Sena, and therefore in the Bible the city was sometimes called Sin [2], from a word of uncertain meaning which was evidently a transliteration of Sena, and the land around it was called the “wilderness of Sin”, for example in Exodus chapters 16 and 17.

The word Shur is "wall" and it is mentioned six times in Scripture, in Genesis, Exodus and 1 Samuel. This wall figures prominently in understanding the reasons for the crossing of the Red Sea and in determining the route of the Exodus. The area east of the wall was considered the "wilderness of Shur", which is mentioned in Exodus chapter 15 (15:22). That passage serves to demonstrate the fact that the crossing of the Red Sea must have been at some point in the Gulf of Suez, and it was necessary to get around the Prince’s Wall. Having made the crossing, the children of Israel would have turned right, or north, into the wilderness of Shur because they would next have to go around the Gulf of Aqaba to proceed into Palestine, which was their destination. In some contexts it might appear that "Shur" also may have been the name of a town in the same area. So we read in Genesis chapter 25, of the death of Ishmael: “17 And these are the years of the life of Ishmael, an hundred and thirty and seven years: and he gave up the ghost and died; and was gathered unto his people. 18 And they dwelt from Havilah unto Shur, that is before Egypt, as thou goest toward Assyria: and he died in the presence of all his brethren.” The ancient Greek historian Diodorus Siculus described remnants of what was called the Prince’s Wall in Book 1 of his Library of History where he wrote in part that “the wall extended through the desert from Pelusium to Heliopolis, and its length was some fifteen hundred stades.” [3] That would be a distance of over 170 miles, if Liddell & Scott are correct in measuring a Greek stadion at 606.75 English feet. [4] Unless the wall took a winding path, the distance by straight line is actually only about a hundred miles.

As we shall learn later in this chapter, Abimelech, whom Abraham shall encounter here in this chapter, was a Philistine, and the Philistines were a seafaring people, so therefore it is evident that Gerar would have been somewhere on the coast between the site of the ancient cities of the Philistines and the Prince’s Wall which terminated at Pelusium, or Sin. Modern attempts to identify the site of ancient Gerar with a site in the south of Judah called Tel Haror [6] are both contrary to Scripture and to the characteristics of the Philistines. It is much more likely that Gerar should be identified with some city near Gaza. Much later, Gerar and its cities are mentioned in 2 Chronicles chapter 14, where after Israel had suffered an invasion of Cushites, called Ethiopians in the King James Version, having repelled them the children of Israel pursued them to Gerar, and spoiled the cities thereof, which were described as having had “exceedingly much spoil”, so they must have been quite wealthy. Many years later, there was a Judaean employed by the queen of the Ethiopians, or Cushites in Gaza, who was therefore called a “eunuch”, as it is recorded in Acts chapter 8. Since the word gaza is a Persian word which is said to mean treasure [5], it is apparent from these passages that Gerar was an ancient name for Gaza. So Cushites, or Ethiopians, as the Greeks called them in both Mesopotamia and Africa, must have had a presence in Gaza for many centuries after the Philistine period. This also seems to agree with the assertion that Gerar must have been on the coast, and not deep in the interior, which was only wilderness.

[1 Ancient Near Eastern Texts Related to the Old Testament 3rd edition, James Pritchard, editor, 1969, Harvard University Press, p. 18; 2 Pelusium, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelusium, accessed September 21st, 2023; 3 Library of History, Diodorus Siculus, 1.57.4, see https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diodorus_Siculus/1C*.html, accessed September 21st, 2023; 4 Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon Founded Upon the Seventh Edition of Liddell & Scott’s Greek-English Lexicon, Oxford University Press, Clarendon, 1889, 1999, p. 741; 5 ibid., p. 159; 6 Gerar, BiblePlaces.com, https://www.bibleplaces.com/gerar/, accessed September 21st, 2023.]

Now, in a very concise account, Abraham encounters the Philistine king:

2 And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, She is my sister: and Abimelech king of Gerar sent, and took Sarah.

There is a longer version of this verse in the Greek Septuagint, which Brenton translates as follows: “2 And Abraam said concerning Sarrha his wife, She is my sister, for he feared to say, She is my wife, lest at any time the men of the city should kill him for her sake. So Abimelech king of Gerara sent and took Sarrha.”

In Part 22 of this commentary, titled The Sojourn, we discussed an episode very similar to this one, which is found in Genesis chapter 12. There, Abraham went to Egypt and was caught in a situation with the pharaoh which is identical to this one with Abimelech. An older Isaac will be caught in a similar circumstance with a Philistine king named Abimelech, who was not necessarily this Abimelech but perhaps his son or grandson or some other successor, later, in Genesis chapter 26. These accounts are sometimes dismissed by critics as fabrications, since they are almost repetitive. However they fully reflect the arrogance of ancient kings, the absolute power which they had within their own kingdoms, their ability to fulfill their covetousness, the limits of their concupiscence in the shadow of fear of a god of judgment, to at least some degree, and also the fact that Yahweh God can and will do anything to ensure the outcome and veracity of His promises.

Furthermore, there have been other critics of these accounts who claim that Abraham and Isaac had willingly given their wives up to these kings in order to gain some advantage for themselves, as if they were callous Jews. These critics are absolutely ignorant of ancient history, and the rights which were asserted by kings in the ancient world, which were commonly recognized by the subjects of those kings. So if any of the personalities in these accounts exhibited typically Jewish behavior, it is the pagan kings, and neither Abraham nor Isaac. It is quite credible, that if Sarah and Rebekah were the beautiful women which they were describe to have been, that ancient kings would have lusted after them, and moved to fulfill that lust without consequences once they heard that the women were maidens.

Here Abraham had told the same half-truth which he had earlier told to the pharaoh in Egypt, and he must have thought that it had helped him then, in spite of the fact that his having lied by his omission was revealed, perhaps because it delayed any trouble he may have suffered until Yahweh God would intervene on his behalf. So Abraham made the same omission here, and while in reality it was certainly not necessary, Abraham, within the limits of his own knowledge and experience, must have thought it to be expedient. So for that we cannot judge Abraham, not having walked in his shoes. In the end, Yahweh did not judge Abraham for having done that. Isaac will follow with this same half-truth, as it is recorded in Genesis chapter 26.

As we had also discussed in our presentation of The Sojourn, which we had elucidated from the ancient Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh, ancient kings had asserted the right to any maiden in their kingdom, to take them for themselves. This is also found later, even in the kingdom of Israel. In 2 Samuel chapter 11 we read of David, king of Israel: “2 And it came to pass in an eveningtide, that David arose from off his bed, and walked upon the roof of the king's house: and from the roof he saw a woman washing herself; and the woman was very beautiful to look upon. 3 And David sent and enquired after the woman. And one said, Is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite? [The word חתי or hittite is also an adjective meaning “fearsome”, and Uriah, having been an Israelite and one of David’s mighty warriors, the epithet should have been translated as “Uriah the Fearsome”.] 4 And David sent messengers, and took her; and she came in unto him, and he lay with her; for she was purified from her uncleanness: and she returned unto her house.” David would never have been able to do this and get away with it, which is to take a married woman from her house and lay with her, except that he was the king, and it is also fully evident that Bathsheba had no power to protest. So David, even a man after Yahweh’s own heart, as it is attested in Acts chapter 13 (13:22), in a moment of weakness had taken a married woman, or perhaps, at least, a betrothed woman, simply because he found her desirable, because he lusted after her. He was rebuked through the prophet Nathan and punished by God, to some degree, but being king he was not punished by men. Later, David would have several wives, Abigail, Ahinoam, and Michal the daughter of Saul (1 Samuel chapter 25), as well as Bathsheba, and ten concubines (2 Samuel 15:16). But after him and in much greater excess, Solomon his son was said to have had 700 wives and 300 concubines, as it is related in 1 Kings chapter 11. Surely, as it was in the case of Bathsheba, and also in the cases of Sarah and Rebekah, not many of them could have had a choice in the matter. As we see here in Genesis with Hagar, a concubine was no better off than a slave.

As for Sarah, she is 89 years old at this point in Genesis, and she must have still been quite attractive in spite of her advanced age. While we do not know the age of this Abimelech, he obviously had no qualms with having sexual relations with such a woman, although he could not have been aware of her age when he took her. Believing that she was Abraham’s sister, he may have even thought that she was still a virgin, since a woman who never married would be kept in the care of a brother or another male relative once her father died. While she may or may not have been pregnant with child already, as she was promised a child within a year not long before Sodom had been destroyed, it is certainly too soon for it to have been apparent that she was pregnant. However in Genesis chapter 21 we read “2 For Sarah conceived, and bare Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God had spoken to him.” That does not necessarily mean that Sarah had not conceived until after this event had happened, although it does seem to indicate as much.

Now, once again, Yahweh God intervenes on behalf of Abraham and Sarah, but in a different way than He had with Pharaoh:

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.

As it is described in Genesis chapter 12, Yahweh had “17 … plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai Abram’s wife.” So in Egypt, although Yahweh had apparently plagued the pharaoh without giving him any warning or any other communication, pharaoh himself had nevertheless realized that he must have been plagued by some god on account of the woman whom he had taken. But here, Yahweh seems to be more merciful upon Abimelech, warning him without having first caused him any harm.

Where Abimelech answers, it is evident that his perspective of the power of God is far different than the Christian perspective:

4 But Abimelech had not come near her: and he said, Lord, wilt thou slay also a righteous nation?

In the Septuagint, the end of this verse in Brenton’s translation portrays Abimelech as having asked: “… wilt thou destroy an ignorantly sinning and just nation?” However in the Greek of the passage, there is no word for sinning, so it should only be read “… wilt thou destroy an ignorant and just nation?” The Latin of the Vulgate reads the clause in that same manner.

Here it is apparent, that to Abimelech, his death would have necessitated the death of the entire nation, referring to the people of Gerar. But the Philistines were pagans, and they did not know Yahweh, so it follows that he could not have understood that Yahweh God, being the true Almighty God, could have had him killed without destroying his nation with some calamity, or with an invasion of a more powerful force to defeat him. The pagan perspective is materialist in nature, and that is also reflected in this statement by Abimelech here. It reflects the understanding that if he had not checked his covetousness and restrained his concupiscence that first night, the consequences would have been the destruction of himself and his entire nation, which he had considered a righteous nation, from his own perspective.

There have been nations which had evidently been destroyed for such covetousness, the foremost example of them being ancient Troy. The Trojan War was said to have been provoked when Alexandros, or Paris, as the Romans called him, had visited with Menelaus, the king of Sparta as a guest in his home, and when Menelaus was distracted, Alexandros took his wife, Helen of Troy, for himself and he left with her. This act of adultery was said to have broken a covenant of peace between the Achaeans and the Trojans, whereby the Achaeans had no choice but to punish them with war. More recently, a long-time love affair between Marc Antony and Cleopatra of Egypt was a significant factor in the Roman civil war which they waged together against Octavian, whose sister had been married to the unfaithful Antony. With their loss at the battle of Actium in 31 BC, three hundred years of Macedonian rule came to an end as Egypt was reduced to an imperial Roman province, becoming a personal possession of Octavian.

Now Abimelech continues his defense:

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.

While Abimelech was of course correct, that he was led to believe that Sarah was unmarried, this nevertheless elucidates his belief that he could, with integrity, fulfill his lustful covetousness for any woman that he wished, so long as she was not married, and regardless of what the father or brother of the woman, or the woman herself, may have thought of it. He took Sarah not only without Abraham’s approval, but even without asking Abraham for his approval, because he was king and had the ability to do that within his own kingdom. Of course, he may not have done that to the sister of another king, fearing war, but Abraham, even with all his servants, was visibly not as powerful as any neighboring king. Therefore, from the perspective of the pagan king Abimelech, covetousness has no consequences, unless perhaps the object of his desire turns out to have been married and then he may have a fear of his god.

Yahweh God must have known that, and therefore when He spoke to Abimelech, He said “Behold, thou art but a dead man, for the woman which thou hast taken; for she is a man’s wife.” So Yahweh must have known that even Abimelech would have understood that circumstance to have been a transgression worthy of death, even the death of a king or an entire nation. We can only wonder how many adulterers have died throughout history, and the actual cause of death was never even realized by men.

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.

So Yahweh judged Abimelech by Abimelech’s own standards. Much later, Yahshua Christ is recorded, in Matthew chapter 7, as having said “2 For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.” Here Yahweh followed that same principle, of course, while also displaying his mercy upon Abimelech, as Yahweh Himself takes credit that Abimelech had not yet violated Sarah. As Paul of Tarsus implies in Romans chapter 1, Yahweh may keep us from sin, but He may also give us up to sin, as a punishment for abandoning Him. Here it is made evident that He deals with pagans, even those such as Abimelech who certainly had never had any opportunity to know Him, in that same manner.

Abimelech himself was a descendant of Mizraim, the son of Ham, since he was a Philistine. Although it is apparent that the Philistines and Egyptians themselves had not remembered their ancient relationship to one another, in Genesis chapter 10 we read: “13 And Mizraim begat Ludim, and Anamim, and Lehabim, and Naphtuhim, 14 And Pathrusim, and Casluhim, (out of whom came Philistim,) and Caphtorim.” With this, it is also evident that at one time, descendants of Ham had inhabited the entire Mediterranean coast of Africa, Egypt and the Levant as far north as Hamath, and also much of central and eastern Anatolia.

Now Yahweh instructs Abimelech to correct his unintentional error:

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.

Here Abraham is reckoned among the prophets, in the sense of one who receives, interprets and applies the Word of God. But in the actions of his life, he also transmitted to men the Will of God, even if he did not put it to writing.

Now, however it was that Yahweh had spoken to Abimelech, his subsequent actions certainly indicate that he believed the god which had spoken to him:

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.

The name Abimelech must have actually been a title used by the kings of the Philistines, as there are several kings who were so named as late as the time of David, in 2 Samuel chapter 11. It is a Hebrew phrase from words which literally mean father, he and king, in that order, and is interpreted to mean “father of (the) king” in Strong’s original Concordance (# 40), but in later sources, “my father is king”. Either way, it seems to imply the hope a man would have, that his son would be king after him.

Here it is apparent that Abimelech believed this god who had spoken to him to such a degree that he had no problem relating the experience to his entire household without hesitation, ostensibly in order to explain what he was about to do, and convey the message that they would follow suit so that no harm would come to Abraham.

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?

It seems that Abimelech took it for granted that Abraham should have been honest with him, so he wanted an explanation from Abraham as to why he was not. The pharaoh of Egypt responded in much the same way, in Genesis chapter 12 where we read: “18 And Pharaoh called Abram, and said, What is this that thou hast done unto me? why didst thou not tell me that she was thy wife? 19 Why saidst thou, She is my sister? so I might have taken her to me to wife: now therefore behold thy wife, take her, and go thy way.” Abraham’s answer to pharaoh was not recorded, if indeed he had given one, while here it is recorded:

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.

While Abraham did not lie, except by omission, here he explained why he did not tell the entire truth, for fear that the men of Gerar had no fear of a god. The men of Sodom certainly had no fear of any god, which was Abraham’s recent experience. If men do not fear any god, as even many pagan nations had feared the imagined wrath of their own pagan idols, then they are free to construct their own concepts of righteousness, where only might becomes right, as Solomon had explained of the wicked in his Wisdom. So he portrayed the wicked as having believed they would have no consequences for their covetousness, where he wrote in Wisdom chapter 2, putting these words into their mouths: “5 For our time is a very shadow that passeth away; and after our end there is no returning: for it is fast sealed, so that no man cometh again. 6 Come on therefore, let us enjoy the good things that are present: and let us speedily use the creatures like as in youth. 7 Let us fill ourselves with costly wine and ointments: and let no flower of the spring pass by us: 8 Let us crown ourselves with rosebuds, before they be withered: 9 Let none of us go without his part of our voluptuousness: let us leave tokens of our joyfulness in every place: for this is our portion, and our lot is this. 10 Let us oppress the poor righteous man, let us not spare the widow, nor reverence the ancient gray hairs of the aged. 11 Let our strength be the law of justice: for that which is feeble is found to be nothing worth.” The wicked, having no fear of any god, imagine that “might is right”, so that they may “do what thou wilt”, mantras which have been adopted by many pagans today. This certainly reflects the experience of Lot in Sodom, and may explain why Abraham may have thought that the same circumstances would be found in Gerar.

We do not know to what degree, if at all, any of the descendants of Noah may have maintained any memory of the God of Noah. The values and memory of God which Noah had must have been passed on by him to earlier generations of his descendants. In our chronology of Genesis, at this point it is now 1,330 years since the flood of Noah had come to an end. But using the generic term, god, as Abraham had only known the Almighty God by that title, the concept of a god may evoke thoughts of any god, or any peculiar god which may have been worshipped by any particular individual listener. To Abimelech it may have evoked thoughts of Dagon, although there is no indication that he thought it was Dagon who had spoken to him. If one says “god” to a chinaman, it may evoke images of his idol Buddha, or to an Indian, his idol Vishnu, but if one says “god” to many Americans, it might evoke images of their idol Donald Trump. Yes, that may be sarcasm, but it is nonetheless true.

Abraham continues his explanation:

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.

So Abimelech seems to have had a greater degree of decency than that of pharaoh. Yahweh God did not have to plague Abimelech in order to make him realize that he was wrong, and that He could kill him or even destroy his entire nation, if He had so desired. Additionally, Abimelech is portrayed as having had more humility than pharaoh, as he listened to Abraham explain himself and his experience. Now, he further goes so far as to make gifts to Abraham, which is far beyond any obligation that he had to him, as he had only been told by God to return Sarah to Abraham. So Abimelech must have been pleased with Abraham’s explanation, which also demonstrates his good character, and with that he also shows respect for Abraham’s God:

14 And Abimelech took sheep, and oxen, and menservants, and womenservants, and gave them unto Abraham, and restored him Sarah his wife.

The Septuagint has “a thousand pieces of silver” in addition to these other gifts which Abraham received from Abimelech, which are also mentioned in verse 16. Here we should also note, that no portion of Genesis chapter 20 has evidently survived in the copies of Genesis found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, so we cannot examine those as a witness.

Abraham must have still had a quite large household of his own, which is evident in the portrayal of the life of Isaac where in Genesis chapter 25 we read “5 And Abraham gave all that he had unto Isaac.” Then in Genesis chapter 26, we read in part: “12 Then Isaac sowed in that land, and received in the same year an hundredfold: and the LORD blessed him. 13 And the man waxed great, and went forward, and grew until he became very great: 14 For he had possession of flocks, and possession of herds, and great store of servants: and the Philistines envied him.” Later, as it is also related in that chapter, Isaac would have trouble with the Philistines on account of their covetousness.

So Abraham had need of nothing, and earlier in Genesis, he would not take anything from the king of Sodom. But here he graciously accepts these gifts from Abimelech, which may also be a testimony of some difference in character between the two kings.

Yet here Abimelech makes Abraham a more generous and even flattering offer:

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.

Ostensibly, Abimelech remembered that the god who visited him had called Abraham a prophet, and sought to ingratiate himself with him, however there is no evident motive beyond piety.

The word translated as reproved here, יכח or yakach (# 3198), basically means t o be right, as it is defined in Strong’s original Concordance, or to decide, justify or convict, depending on the context in which it is used. So the word does not necessarily have such a negative connotation as reprove does today. In the New American Standard Bible the final clause of this verse is translated much better, in this context, as “and before all men you are cleared”. In other words, Sarah was taken by Abimelech into his own house. But once he found that she was a married woman, never having touched her, he informed his staff, and now he returns her, acknowledging that Abraham was indeed her husband, and with language indicating that she herself was innocent of any wrongdoing.

Rather than the clause which reads here “behold, he is to thee a covering of the eyes, unto all that are with thee, and with all other: thus she was reproved”, Brenton’s translation of the Septuagint, referring to the silver, has “those shall be to thee for the price of thy countenance, and to all the women with thee, and speak the truth in all things.” That last clause has some faults, but generally it is a better translation. Some of these differences may be resolved where the New American Standard Bible has a better rendering of the Hebrew, evidently understanding the idioms better than the translators of the King James Version had understood them, where it reads: “To Sarah he said, ‘Look, I have given your brother a thousand pieces of silver. It is your vindication before all who are with you, and before everyone you are cleared.’” However the phrase “it is your vindication” may more likely and more properly have been read “he is your vindication”, referring to Abraham.

So Sarah is vindicated, Abimelech is shown to have been a righteous man, at least within his own pagan perspective, and in this case, something good comes out of the consequences of his covetousness, since with the grace and mercy of God, he had refrained from fulfilling his lusty desires. Now Abraham responds in kind:

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.

Ostensibly, the maidservants of Abimelech would also be his concubines, as this passage implies. This passage seems to indicate that a more considerable length of time had elapsed here, enough time for him to notice that his wife and concubines were not getting pregnant when they had been expected to do so. In those days, it was typical for men of substance to have multiple wives, concubines, and many children, which is somewhat evident in the lives of Abraham, Jacob, and even Esau. Perhaps while the actual time which Abimelech had custody of Sarah was no more than one night, which the text seems to indicate, from the time that Sarah had been returned to the point where the women are once again fertile may have been a much longer period, and this passage is merely acknowledging that circumstance. That would also serve as an indication to Abimelech, that the decision which he made to comply with the god that had spoken to him was the correct choice to make, as it demonstrates that He is God and Abraham is His prophet, as He had told him.

Evidently, Abraham remained in Gerar in peace, although Isaac had troubles later in Genesis, with a king of Gerar who must have been a successor to this Abimelech, but who had retained that same title. Where that event is described in Genesis chapter 26, it is evident that Isaac was nearly a hundred years old when those things had happened. Here he is not even yet born.

This concludes our commentary on Genesis through chapter 20.