Ever since chapter 13,
Abraham has been based at one place: “by the oaks of Mamre,
which are at Hebron; and there he built an altar to the LORD”
(Genesis 13:18). Now, a couple decades later, “from
there Abraham set out”
(Genesis 20:1). It comes as a complete shock. Why would he leave
such a stable place behind? Well, we don't have to puzzle too hard.
The last time we stood with Abraham the other week, he was past Mamre
at the ridge where the Canaanite hill country rises over the Jordan
River Valley, watching the smoke billow up from the ash heaps that
used to be Sodom, Gomorrah, and their environment (Genesis 19:27-28).
The afternoon that preceded that, Abraham had faced off with the
LORD's
human face, begging for Sodom to be spared, wheeling and dealing over
criteria for giving it a new day. Abraham had been invited into the
LORD's
secret counsels, so he boldly pressed and pressed as hard as he felt
he dared (at the time). But he went home that night in anxiety,
wondering if his campaign worked, wondering if he'd done enough, been
enough (Genesis 18:23-33).
He'd
tossed and turned all through the night, only to walk back after
daybreak and find everything in ruins. A complete and total loss.
It taunted him, haunted him. That was where Abraham's nephew Lot had
lived. Now, even though the city was a goner, the author assured us
that, for the sake of Abraham and his prayer, God had made a way of
safety for Lot and his family, and Lot and his daughters had gotten
out to the east (Genesis 19:29-30). Last week we heard what'll
happen with his story, uncomfortable as it was (Genesis 19:30-38).
But the bottom line is, Lot lives. We know that, because the author
told us. But... does anybody tell Abraham?
The
whole reason why Abraham had settled east of Hebron was that to keep
a respectfully distant watch over Lot's life down in the basin. Now,
the basin must have seemed a scale model of hell itself, and Abraham
assumed that Lot was swept away with everything else. To see it,
then, to smell it, must've been traumatic. “In his own eyes, he is
a failure,” a failure for Lot and a failure for Sodom.
He failed his late brother Haran's only son, letting him (so he
thinks) go up in smoke. He failed the city, wondering if he'd pled
its case hard enough. So the Abraham who enters chapter 20 is an
Abraham “filled with dread and doubt after Sodom.”
Having witnessed the destructive powers of God as Judge there, can
Abraham look at God the same again?
It
so shook Abraham that when he reviews these past few decades of his
life, the decades of his purposeful walk with God to a land of
promise, he says that “God caused me to wander from the
house of my father” (Genesis
20:13). The verb he uses, 'wander,' basically means to get lost –
to go astray, to be in error, to be deceived and misled. Abraham is
so shaken that, in his bitterness and sorrow, he speaks as if
heaven's misled him this whole time, as if God gave him bad
directions, as if he'd been hoodwinked into quitting Terah's house,
as if he regrets having come this way at all. After all, he believes
his father Terah's grandson Lot is now dead at God's hand; so he's
got to be thinking, “If I'd never left home, if I'd never set foot
here, my brother's boy would still be alive.”
He
can't handle the guilt, the shame, the horror – so he runs. He
flees nearly to the other side of Canaan. “Abraham set
out to the land of the Negeb”
(Genesis 20:1). Last we heard of this semi-desert south end of
Canaan, it was Abraham's last stop before running away to Egypt to
escape a heavy famine (Genesis 12:9-10). Now he passes through
again, and then there “he dwelt between Kadesh and Shur”
(Genesis 20:1). This is where Hagar ran when she fled from Sarah
(Genesis 16:7-14). Abraham has technically poked his way out of
Canaan yet again, into the Sinai Peninsula.
But
then he pulled back a bit,
“and he sojourned in Gerar”
(Genesis 20:1), a town whose name starts with the word 'sojourner,'
so that's perfect. It puts him in Lot's crispy shoes, since Lot also
sojourned in a city just past the edge of Canaan (Genesis 10:9;
19:9).
Gerar was one of the biggest cities in the area during the Middle
Bronze Age, a forty-acre metropolis on the north bank of a modest
river, about a 55-mile hike from Hebron.
Maybe he's gone back up to do business there, to buy supplies and
sell milk and wool and other products a man with flocks and herds
might bring to market.
It was a city-state, somewhat independent, with its own town king
Abimelech – a common enough name in such parts.
It
seems like a normal setting, but only at the end of a later story do
we learn that the region around Gerar is “the land of the
Philistines” (Genesis 21:32,
34). Gerar is, in fact, just a little bit inland from Gaza, which
has a way of recurring in the news these days. But the trouble in
this line is, the Philistines were invaders from the Greek world,
“the remnant of the coastland of Caphtor”
in Crete (Jeremiah 47:4), and God led them out to seize part of the
Canaanite coast after
Israel's exodus from Egypt (Amos 9:7). This is centuries too early.
So either Genesis is just reminding us of the future inhabitants,
or there are Cretan merchants or mercenaries who set up shop in
Gerar, precursors of their Philistine cousins who'll follow them.
Gerar's military chief Phicol's very un-Canaanite name, plus the
Cretan artifacts we've found there from the tail end of patriarch
times, say there must be something to that after all.
Either way, as we read these stories, Genesis wants to surprise us
by reminding us of Philistines, those uncircumcised pagans whose
reputation elsewhere in the Bible ain't great.
So
that's where Abraham's going, and the condition he's going in. “He
sojourned in Gerar, and Abraham said of Sarah his wife, 'She is my
sister'”
(Genesis 20:2). Say, did anybody else just feel “an overwhelming
sense of deja vu”?
This ought to feel like a familiar set-up, because just after our
introduction to Abraham and his call, he fled to Egypt, and right as
he approached the border, he begged his wife, “Say
you are my sister, that it may go well with me because of you”
(Genesis 12:13). Hopefully you recall the heartbreak, the chaos, the
danger that came of that choice. Earlier, we said Lot was written as
a parody of Abraham, wanting to do right but handicapped by a poverty
of moral wisdom. But now Abraham seems to be imitating Lot.
Why
is Abraham backsliding? Why is he pulling out his old tricks? The
excuse he offers later is, “Because
I said to myself, 'Surely there is no fear of God in this place, and
they will kill me over the matter of my wife'”
(Genesis 20:11). Remember, this is an Abraham who's seen the smoke
of Sodom, a city so corrupt not even ten people could be found there
who feared God. He might be thinking that they didn't deserve his
wasted efforts. Now, as he hops to the other side of the territory,
he's cynical enough to see Sodom wherever he goes. For why should
Gerar be so different from Sodom or Gomorrah, just because it's here
and not there? So Abraham has resigned himself to expecting the
worst of every place now, that they'll laugh off moral accountability
as flippantly as the Sodomites had. If God 'caused him to wander' in
these regions (Genesis 20:13), it implies he's been left to fend for
himself, to survive by his own wits – so he'd better be shrewd and
tricky to help himself.
And
so, predictably, “Abimelech
king of Gerar sent and took Sarah”
(Genesis 20:2). In the first story where he pulled this, “the
Egyptians saw that the woman was beautiful; and, when the princes of
Pharaoh saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh,”
and that's when she was taken (Genesis 12:14-15). A couple decades
later, the text is almost “pointedly silent about Sarah's beauty.”
She's nearing ninety now, which may mean Abimelech has different
motives. Maybe opening his harem to Abraham's sister is meant as the
start of a new bond between them.
Though if that's the motive, Abraham's crazy to expect danger if
he'd just acknowledged her as his wife.
But,
come on, we've read this story before, haven't we? We know how this
goes, so why do we need to hear the same plot play out twice, even
with adjustments? Note the timing. Abraham was ninety-nine when the
LORD
appeared to him to update their covenant, imposing on him the
command of circumcision (Genesis 17:9-14). But with that command
came a promise that he'd be fruitful: God pledged him his own son by
Sarah, “whom
Sarah shall bear to you at this appointed time next year”
(Genesis 17:21). The next chapter opens in the weeks to follow,
twice reaffirming said appointed time (Genesis 18:10, 14). One year
after the covenant, Sarah has to give birth to the promised son –
Abraham's own flesh and blood. There's a countdown on it. Now,
giving birth tends to follow nine months of gestating the baby in the
womb, meaning that in Genesis 17, God was actually promising to let
Sarah conceive three months later. Sodom and Gomorrah burn anywhere
from a week to a couple months into that time, and so by the time
Abraham then makes for the Negeb, settles between Kadesh and Shur,
and then comes up to Gerar, we're down to the wire. Either Sarah is
already pregnant by Abraham and doesn't yet know it,
or she needs to get that way pronto.
But
now, all of a sudden, Abraham has let her be taken away from him into
the harem of King Abimelech. And if Sarah isn't pregnant, then she's
about to miss her window with Abraham within the week. If she's
already pregnant, then now we have a scandal: nobody will be sure the
son Sarah bears nine months later is Abraham's and not Abimelech's.
So at least the paternity of the promised son, if not his very
existence, is now on the line. Which means, since the timetable is
part of God's promises, that the truthfulness of God himself is at
stake in this story. It doesn't get much more dramatic than that!
When
Pharaoh took Sarah into his house, “the
LORD
plagued Pharaoh with great plagues, and his house, over the matter of
Sarai, the wife of Abram”
(Genesis 12:17). Here, we've got to read to the end to hear that
“the LORD
had closed all the wombs of the house of Abimelech over the matter of
Sarah, the wife of Abraham”
(Genesis 20:18). It was a fertility shutdown. And since we find out
that Abimelech himself needs healing then, later retellers of the
story sensibly inserted here “a grievous disease inflicted upon him
by God,” such that “the physicians had already despaired of his
life.”
God is acting to protect his promises.
In
Pharaoh's case, we were left in the dark as to how he figured out
that Sarah was the occasion for the plagues; but here we needn't
wonder how Abimelech learns it, since “God
came to Abimelech in a dream by night and spoke to him”
(Genesis 20:3).
Abimelech is a rare recipient of divine revelation. What does God
tell him by this dream? “He
said to him, 'Behold, you are dead because of the woman whom you have
taken, for she is married to a husband'”
(Genesis 20:3). At this point, the author interjects to assure us:
“Now,
Abimelech had not approached her”
(Genesis 20:4). He makes sure “to forestall any doubt of Abraham's
paternity of the child” whom Sarah is supposed to bear in nine
months.
That son can't be from Abimelech, because Abimelech – whether due
to timing, to sleep, or due to an illness – never got a chance to
interfere.
Confronted
with what seems like a sentence already sure, Abimelech dares to
object. “He
said, 'Lord, will you slay a righteous nation?'”
(Genesis 20:4). It's almost eerie how much Abimelech sounds like the
Abraham we knew two chapters ago, who also challenged a threat of
judgment on a city with his outburst at God, “Far
be it from you to do such a thing as this, to slay the righteous with
the wicked!”
(Genesis 18:25).
Abimelech is insisting that Gerar is no Sodom; but will God treat
Gerar like Sodom anyway? If Sodom couldn't be spared for a few
righteous, will God go even further and condemn a wholly righteous
nation for one man's wrong?
And
not only a wrong, Abimelech protests, but an accidental wrong. “Did
not he himself say to me, 'She is my sister'? And she also herself
said, 'He is my brother!'”
(Genesis 20:5). Abimelech pleads invincible ignorance as an excuse
for taking a married woman. He didn't know that that's what he was
doing. More than that, he just couldn't know; it was deliberately
hidden from him. So, Abimelech reasons, “in
the blamelessness of my heart and the cleanness of my hands I have
done this”
(Genesis 20:5). Abimelech presents himself like the psalmist who
sang: “Who can
discern his errors? Cleanse me from hidden faults! Keep back your
servant from presumptuous sins.... Then I shall be blameless, and
clean of great transgression”
(Psalm 19:12-13).
God
accepts that, at least in part: “Also
do I know that you have done this in the blamelessness of your heart”
(Genesis 20:6). “Abimelech acts very differently from Pharaoh,”
to whom God couldn't say this.
He didn't act from malice or from lust, but from an innocent
ignorance. At the same time, God declines to confirm the part about
Abimelech having clean hands.
Just because you have a good excuse, just because you didn't know
what you were doing, it doesn't make what you did not wrong,
Abimelech. God will later lay down a whole chapter for Moses about
what people should do who “sin
by mistake”
and don't know it until later on (Leviticus 4). Abimelech's in that
boat. He might be inwardly blameless, but he's objectively sinned,
even if by mistake.
Abimelech
in his protest spoke two 'alsos,' so now God adds a second one to his
reply: “And
also I withheld you from sinning against me; I absolutely did not let
you touch her”
(Genesis 20:6). By discipline and dream, God made sure that
Abimelech wouldn't be an unwitting adulterer; he kindly preserved
Abimelech from that degree of escalation. But this means Abimelech
can't necessarily take credit for not doing it; he might well have
gone on to commit adultery, had God not stepped in to prevent it –
it isn't Abimelech's virtue that's credited.
But
now Abimelech knows Sarah's a married woman, stolen from her husband.
There are only two things he can do with that knowledge. “And
you return the wife of the man, for he is a prophet and he will pray
for you and you will live; but if you do not return her, know that
you shall surely die, you and all who are yours”
(Genesis 20:7). Keeping Sarah means the death penalty – God uses
the same words here he used in Eden about the consequences of
forbidden fruit (Genesis 2:17). And just like Lot had the chance to
rescue “all
who are yours” in
the city (Genesis 19:12), Abimelech has the chance to doom “all
who are yours”
in the kingdom,
to say nothing of Sarah then meriting the death penalty (Deuteronomy
22:22) – nullifying the redemptive plan. Or Abimelech can release
Sarah, undoing the wrong he's done.
If Abimelech sets things right with Abraham, Abraham is positioned
to set things right between Abimelech and God, yielding life in place
of death.
So
ends Abimelech's remarkable dream. Now, I don't know if any of you
have ever had a dream like his – one where you hear the genuine
voice of God breaking in, undisguised. I have. And while I don't
care to share with the public what
God told me, I can say that the voice was unmistakable and that the
experience definitely has the feel of setting foot on holy ground.
Suffice it to say, when Abimelech woke up, he remembered distinctly
each and every word God had said; he couldn't not. But what will he
do with this awesome message?
We're
encouraged when “Abimelech
rose early in the morning”
(Genesis 20:8), the same way Abraham did to find out the fate of
Sodom (Genesis 19:27), a hallmark of an eagerness to obey (Genesis
21:14; 22:3). So “Abimelech acts at once and without hesitation to
do precisely as he was instructed” by God in his dream.
He “called
all his servants and told them all these things in their hearing”
(Genesis 20:8), unloading the fresh news onto the officials who aid
him in administering his little kingdom. It's only fair, since
they've been affected and are in the crosshairs too. “And
the men feared exceedingly”
(Genesis 20:8). Feared what? The God of Abimelech's dream. Now,
remember what Abraham says he thought, that “surely
there is no fear of God in this place”
(Genesis 20:11). But this overturns Abraham's assumption: not just
the king but his whole court is God-fearing!
If Abraham's a Jonah at the moment, Gerar's acting like his Nineveh.
With
the royal court informed, “Abimelech
called Abraham”
(Genesis 20:9). Having lived this before in Egypt, Abe's no doubt
got a guess where this is going. As Pharaoh asked Abram three
questions, so Abimelech asks three as well. Pharaoh led off with,
“What is this
you have done to me?”
(Genesis 12:18), but Abimelech opens, “What
have you done to us?”
(Genesis 20:9). Pharaoh was concerned for himself; Abimelech's heart
is for his people.
Pharaoh's second question was, “Why
did you not tell me that she was your wife?”
(Genesis 12:18), but Abimelech follows with, “How
have I sinned against you, that you have brought on me and my kingdom
a great sin?”
(Genesis 20:9). Abimelech is more reflective, more theological. He
wants to know if there's some way he previously offended Abraham that
makes sense of this deception as a retaliation. And he drives home
that Abraham's trickery could've been the first domino in a chain
knocking down a whole kingdom.
So,
where Pharaoh leapt straight to his third question, Abimelech makes a
declaration: “Deeds
that ought not to be done, you have done to me!”
(Genesis 20:9). Now it's personal. So harsh is Abimelech's language
here that, on Abimelech's telling, Abraham comes out looking not just
like Lot but like a man of Sodom!
Over the top? Maybe. But it's the cutting correction Abraham needs
to shake and shock him from this habit. Now, Pharaoh never gave
Abraham a chance to answer, but after a pause to calm himself,
Abimelech reaches his third question. “Abimelech
said to Abraham, 'What did you see, that you did this thing?'”
(Genesis 20:10). Was there something Abraham observed when he
reached Abimelech's kingdom that provoked such a response –
something it might be Abimelech's job to fix? Or maybe did Abraham,
as a prophet, have some vision that inspired his conduct? Is there
something he knows that Abimelech doesn't but needs to? What a
humble query!
The
short answer to that one is no. We've already taken a sneak peak at
Abraham's “montage of excuses.”
He first admits he told himself, convinced himself, that Gerar
couldn't possibly be a God-fearing place – that it had to be a twin
of Sodom, beyond a shadow of a doubt; he was totally wrong.
It's himself he needs to examine. Sensing his first excuse falls
flat, he claims that, on a technicality, he didn't lie, as he and
Sarah are siblings first. Of course, it doesn't make a difference,
because Abraham still set Gerar up for a downfall. Besides,
admitting his wife and sister are one and the same isn't exactly
helping him escape the shadow of Sodom or of Lot!
So
he adds a third excuse: that Gerar wasn't special, that this was a
habit he built up “at
every place to which we come,”
a “kindness”
he'd requested of Sarah to preserve his life in the land where they
were. His phrase here echoes Lot's gratitude for the angels'
kindness (Genesis 19:19).
But Abraham points the finger at God here as “the ultimate cause
of his mistake.”
Abraham's excuses sound as lame as Adam's excuses in chapter 3.
To make things worse, Abraham abruptly uses a plural – he
literally says, “gods
caused me to wander”
(Genesis 20:13) – thus severely compromising his witness before
Abimelech and maybe his entire journey out of Ur.
Abraham's
defense of himself is feeble. His heart is far from blameless.
Abimelech could sit in judgment as the king – but Abimelech's hands
aren't so clean. He's wronged Abraham unknowingly, even as Abraham
wronged him and the whole kingdom unthinkingly. So Abimelech makes a
choice. In Egypt, Pharaoh enriched Abraham in advance by giving a
large dowry (Genesis 12:16). Here, the gifts enter now: “Abimelech
took sheep and oxen and manservants and maidservants, and he gave
them to Abraham, and he returned Sarah his wife to him”
(Genesis 20:14). Recognizing that Gerar is no Sodom, Abraham accepts
both Sarah and the gifts.
What's more, Abimelech tells Sarah that he's also given Abraham “a
thousand pieces of silver,”
and “behold,
it is a covering of eyes for all who are with you”
(Genesis 20:16). What exactly that means isn't sure, but presumably
this somehow will protect Sarah's reputation and sweep this incident
under the rug.
In
between those gifts and gestures, Abimelech addresses Abraham's
future. Pharaoh, after berating the couple, banished them from
Egypt, expelling them as unwanted menaces. But that's not how things
play out in this land of the Philistines. In fact, “Abimelech
said, 'Behold, my land is before you; settle wherever is good in your
eyes”
(Genesis 20:15). Which he does, we'll later find, about fifteen
miles southeast of Gerar. Instead of an eviction, Abraham has legal
resident status. Abimelech is seeking good terms of coexistence.
Of
course, he needs something. He doesn't need to show contrition,
since his blameless heart incurred no subjective guilt. But in
sharing the dream and admitting the truth, he confessed his sin. In
returning Sarah to her rightful husband, he amended his sin. In
these gifts to appease Abraham, he made reparation for his sin. All
that stands between him and absolution is intercession. And that's
where the prophet of God comes in.
So,
as God had assured Abimelech in his dream (Genesis 20:7), “Abraham
prayed to the God, and God healed Abimelech, and also healed his wife
and concubines so that they bore children”
(Genesis 20:17). In spite of all his personal ethical problems here,
Abraham's position as a prophet makes him a successful intercessor
with God, just like Judas could baptize and exorcise – it's the
office that's at work, not its holder. But the result has to change
the way Abimelech and his court view Abraham, whose prayer so
promptly yields a miracle.
More importantly, it has to change the way Abraham
views Abraham. He entered this chapter bitter and defeated, for his
ministry had been a failure. But now, before his very eyes, that's
proven untrue: he finally sees the fruit.
In
the end, it looks like God allowed all this to happen again, for
Abraham to revisit his old bad habits, so that it would cure him of
them once and for all. God has meant this ordeal for Abraham's good
– not just to enrich him (though it does), but to restore his
self-confidence as an intercessor, as a man called to be a man of
God. In this risky saga, God permitted all its twists and turns as
the means to rebuild Abraham's faith after a trauma. In doing that,
“God changed Abraham from an agent of curse to an agent of
blessing,” never to turn back again.
Here's
the point where we jump a few years into the future. In between
Abraham gains a son, and he surrenders a son to the hands of
providence. It's such an eventful few years that we'll spend nearly
all next month poking around them. But through them, Abraham is
being remolded, reforged. And at the end of those years, Abraham
will come face-to-face with King Abimelech again. Only this time,
Abraham is a new man, a virtuous man, a man confident and fulfilled
in life despite the losses he's known; now he's a man who can look a
king in the eye, as he did in the day long before when he chased down
emperors and rebuffed the king of Sodom.
Now
“at that time,
Abimelech and Phicol the commander of his hosts spoke to Abraham”
(Genesis 21:22), out where Abraham dwells. The fact that Abimelech
brought his military chief to the conversation feels “ominous,
perhaps threatening.”
Abraham has been prospering, and his prosperous presence registers
as a potential threat back in Gerar, since Abraham's continued
success might have him on track to rival Abimelech in Abimelech's own
land or even take it.
Abimelech and Phicol confess, “God
is with you in all you do”
(Genesis 21:22). These Gentiles acknowledge the God who is active in
Abraham's life, who is revealing himself through the blessings given
to Abraham.
Abimelech both fears this and wants this. “Now
therefore, swear to me here by God that you will not deal falsely
with me or with my descendants or with my posterity, but according to
the kindness that I have done to you, you will do to me and to the
land where you have sojourned”
(Genesis 21:23).
Abimelech
brings up the memory of their last encounter. It would be fair to
say Abimelech found Abraham to deal falsely then, and he doesn't want
a repeat. He knows Abraham's a prophet and a blessed man, but
doesn't know if Abraham can be trusted. Abraham had asked Sarah for
a kindness in helping him deceive to save his life, but Abimelech
then did him an honest kindness by granting him legality, safety,
freedom. Since Abimelech was kind and merciful, Abraham should
return that with loyal kindness to Abimelech and his people.
Abimelech wants him to swear an oath in the sight of God to deal
faithfully, not just with Abimelech himself, but with his successors
– sons, grandsons, you get it. Which means that “Abimelech
believes that Abraham will have an enduring posterity” of his own,
thriving in the land during the days of Abimelech Jr. and Abimelech
III.
Abraham
agrees without hesitation: “I
swear”
(Genesis 21:24). He has no problem swearing an oath, in the sight of
God, to be honest and faithful in his dealings with Abimelech –
because Abraham is recommitted to keeping the way of the LORD
(Genesis 18:19). At the same time, Abraham has a bone to pick about
that alleged kindness of Abimelech's. “Abraham
reproved Abimelech about a well of water that the servants of
Abimelech had stolen”
(Genesis 21:25). No wonder things got so tense Abimelech brought his
muscle to the meeting!
A well was hard work to dig, usually at least seven feet across and
maybe a hundred feet deep, sometimes through tough rock, to reach the
water table; and even after all that work, you could never be sure
you'd hit that water.
Especially in the Negeb, the general scarcity of water made well
access a life-or-death issue for a man of flocks and herds.
Abraham had dug a life-saving well, and yet Abimelech's own servants
had then taken it from him and blocked his access to it. This was
the kind of thing wars could be started over.
Now
it's Abimelech's turn to be on the defensive, with three excuses
built around two 'alsos.'
First, “I do
not know who has done this thing!”
Abimelech once again grounds his defense in ignorance. “And
also, you didn't tell me!”
As before Abimelech's defense is that Abraham withheld information,
this time by not reporting the theft. “And
also, I haven't heard of it until today”
(Genesis 21:26). If Abimelech's servants did this, they must have
lost their fear of God and gone rogue. Abimelech implies he would've
fixed things if he'd known.
As
Abimelech once kindly accepted Abraham's lame excuses, so Abraham
accepts Abimelech's defense. Both have striven for moral ground
against the other, and both are now better for it: “As
iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another”
(Proverbs 27:17).
Now “Abraham
took sheep and oxen,”
probably children of those Abimelech gave him, “and
he gave them to Abimelech,”
so that “the
both of them cut a covenant”
by dividing the animals and walking through them to seal the deal
(Genesis 21:27). But also, from the sheep, “Abraham
set apart seven ewe lambs of the flock,”
not slaying and splitting them (Genesis 21:28). Abimelech is as
confused as we are: “Why
these seven ewe lambs that you've set apart?”
(Genesis 21:29). Abraham explains: “In
order that these seven ewe lambs you will take from my hand, that you
may be a witness for me that I
dug this well”
(Genesis 21:30). Abraham wants royal recognition of his ownership
rights to the well and its land; Abimelech's acceptance of the lambs,
in public, will commit him to guaranteeing that claim. Like the
silver that vindicated Sarah's honor, these lambs vindicate Abraham's
truth – and it's a generous move by Abraham, since usually it was
the thief who was obliged to give seven ewe lambs to the victim.
These lambs will mean honesty, fair dealing, agreement, good
communication, a renewed relationship.
And Abimelech accepts them.
With
that, “both of
them swore an oath, and they cut a covenant”
(Genesis 21:31-32), “a pact of mutual respect and recognition.”
Instead of Abraham's one-way oath, now they “swore a mutual
oath.”
This covenant will mean mutual kindness, mutual faithfulness, mutual
friendship – the roads where blessings drive to and fro. And this
is a template for how things were supposed to be: the nations, seeing
God with his holy people in all they do, would seek covenants of
peace and friendship, acknowledging the holy nation's destiny, and
striving to be blessed by God through fellowship with them.
Peace,
kindness, friendship between Abraham and the land of the Philistines
– it points to a different way things could've been: a world where
Samson and Delilah enjoy a long and happy marriage, where David and
Goliath pal around and play board games, where these peoples embrace
in the blessing of peace. We know that's not how history later
played out, but it doesn't at all lessen the magnitude of what
Abraham has here begun. I love the way one rabbi puts it: here,
“Abraham converts a moment of confrontation into a moment of
covenant.”
In light of everything we hear about in the news, if there's anything we need to learn how to do today, that just
might be the thing.
As
a result of their covenant, “he
called that place Beersheba”
(Genesis 21:31). It's got a double meaning. The words for 'seven'
and 'oath' in Hebrew sound so much alike that 'Beersheba' could mean
either 'Well of the Oath' or 'Well of Seven. It's the Well of Oath
because Abraham and Abimelech swore oaths there to treat each other
kindly, truly, faithfully; it's the Well of Seven because it was
secured for Abraham through seven ewe lambs. It now becomes
Abraham's “first piece of property in the land” he can call his
own before God and man.
With a son, land, peace, and prosperity, “it appears the covenant
promises are coming to reality.”
And
so, while Abimelech and Phicol withdraw to Philistia, Abraham
“planted a
tamarisk tree in Beersheba..., and Abraham sojourned in the land of
the Philistines many days”
(Genesis 21:33-34). The tamarisk is a great choice: it thrives in
the northern Negeb due to its deep roots, its leaves make soft food
for flocks, and they bring precious shade.
This tree, though, will take years to mature; it's a commitment for
“many days”
indeed.
And
there, at this tree, as if it were an altar, Abraham “called
on the name of the LORD,
the Everlasting God”
(Genesis 21:34). The last time Abraham faced kings and their armies,
he came away with a blessing in the name of El Elyon, 'God Most High'
(Genesis 14:15-20), a title emphasizing God's transcendence over
space and supremacy over every obstacle Abraham could face. Now,
though, he worships El Olam, 'God Eternal,' a title emphasizing God's
transcendence over time and his “long-term faithfulness” through
the twists and turns of life for Abraham.
This God will watch over and enforce the covenant through the
generations. This God will see to it that Abraham and his seed are a
permanent presence in the land of promise, rooted as deeply as a
tamarisk tree, as refreshing as a well of water for the world, able
to make clean the hands of Abimelech and more.
Where
Abraham stands now is that, thanks to God Eternal, Abraham has found
healing from his trauma, has forgiven himself for his self-diagnosed
failures, has renewed his relationship with God, has learned how to
live honestly and confidently and peacefully with human beings. And
that's a good word. But the last word is seven – in the original
Hebrew, this story uses Abimelech's and Abraham's names each seven
times, which is no happy little accident, especially when Abraham
then offers seven ewe lambs to secure for himself the Well of Seven!
Abraham may be sojourning here under a tree of his own planting and
by a well of his own digging, but it might as well be a God-given
tree of life and spring of living water, because this peace covenant,
this fulfillment of promise, is saturated in sabbath. That's where
this arc has been driving. Abraham is tasting sabbath enjoyment.
Abraham's
security in Abimelech's kingdom was bought with a human oath sworn
over seven lambs. But our security in God's kingdom was bought with
a divine oath sworn over the Lamb of God, given for us and “made
perfect forever”
(Hebrews 7:28). “So
then, there remains a sabbath rest for the people of God”
(Hebrews 4:9), a Beersheba where we can find our healing and our
peace, our forgiveness and our self-forgiveness, our tree of life and our fountain of every blessing. He is
God Eternal, who “will
himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you”
(1 Peter 5:10). Amen.