Abimelech and God

Wenceslas_Hollar 1607-1677_-_Abimelech_rebuking_Abraham : Public Domain

I have loved kings since I met King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table.

• The Bible is full of kings, over 60, half good and half bad.

• God put every one of them in place; He is the king-maker.

• Why? He gives them power but requires obedience.

Abililech was a good king, although a pagan. Read on to find out why.

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Abimelech (20th century BC) Sees God

Genesis 20 picks up the story of Abraham after the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.  In the wake of this disaster, Abraham continued his travel south toward the land of Gerar, a small but wealthy kingdom of the Philistines just south of Gaza. 

When Abraham* (1996-1821 BC) and Sarah* (1986-1859 BC) arrived, they replayed their trick of 24 years before when they went to Egypt:  

And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, She is my sister: and Abimelech, king of Gerar, sent, and took Sarah. -Genesis 20:2

An asterisk* following a name means the person is in SPIRITUAL LIVES.

The people there called their king Abimelech, meaning "Father-King", a title every king held, much as all the Egyptian kings were called "Pharaoh."   Although these were polytheistic people, we find this verse in Genesis 20:3: But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night and said to him, 'Behold, you are but a dead man, for the woman whom you have taken; for she is a man's wife.' 

What are we to make of this?  The Supreme Being here appears as God אלהים 'ĕlohı̂ym, and therefore in his eternal power and independence, as he was antecedent to the creation of man. He communicates with Abimelech in a dream. This prince addresses him as אדני 'ǎdonāy, "Lord."

We have already seen that the knowledge of the true God had not yet disappeared from the Gentile world, which was under the Noahic covenant. "Thou wilt die." Thou art dying or at the point of death if thou persist. A deadly plague was already in the body of Abimelech because of Sarah. "Wilt thou slay a righteous nation also?"

Abimelech associates his nation with himself and expects that the fatal stroke will not be confined to his own person. He pleads his integrity in the matter, which the Lord acknowledges. Gentiles sometimes act according to the dictates of conscience, which still lives in them, though it be obscured by sin.

Abimelech was innocent regarding the "great sin" of seizing another man's wife, of which God acquitted him. He was wrong in appropriating a woman to himself by mere stretch of power, and in adding wife to wife. But these were common customs of the time, for which his conscience did not upbraid him in his pleading with God. "And the God." The presence of the definite article seems to intimate a contrast of the true God with the false gods to which the Gentiles were fast turning. Abimelech was at least on the doubtful ground on the borders of polytheism. -Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The startling thing to me about this theophany is that it came to a pagan king.  This makes it clear that God's revelations are not limited to believers.  In the Old Testament, we will see God dealing with Abimelech, a gentile; the prophet Balaam; the Egyptian Pharaoh Necho; the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar; and the Persian King Cyrus.

Perhaps this is because God viewed these men in positions of power as representatives of their people or simply as prominent and powerful figures He had put in place for His purposes.

God is a King Himself and has set up a monarchy for His people, one that will culminate in the Kingdom of Heaven when Jesus returns to take that throne. Kings have been a good thing in history, and the world was more blessed when they ruled in the West. The wife of one gives this fictionalized but valid statement regarding kingship:

“Monarchy is God’s sacred mission to grace and dignify the earth, to give ordinary people an ideal to strive towards, an example of nobility and duty to raise them in their wretched lives. Monarchy is a calling from God. That is why you are crowned in an Abbey, not a government building. Why you’re anointed, not appointed. It’s an Arch Bishop that puts the crown on your head, not a minister of public service. Which means you are answerable to God in your duty, not the public.” Queen Mary in "The Crown"

John Chrysotom (c347-407) thinks that God allowed this to h to happed to acquiant th people of Gerard with Himself:

See how the king becomes the herald of the virtue of the just man and makes him known to all. He said to them all that God had revealed to him, in order to teach all, and God’s benevolence to the righteous man, and all the interest that God had in him because of his morals and his virtue. 

But they were all seized with great fear. Do you now understand that it was not without reason, without God’s design, that this righteous man should pass so many times from one place to another? If he had remained under his first tent, how could all the inhabitants of Gerara have known the great credit which the righteous enjoyed with God?

Augustine of Hippo (354-430) addresses a question I have had from boyhood: Namely, Sarah was now 89 years old and yet she is taken because her great beauty. The answer is that one must admire more the vigor of that beauty, which could still be desired, than not think that it is a difficult question.  Others say that it was that beauty St. Peter* (1BC-67 AD) calls that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. - 1 Peter 3:4

This is the first time we see God coming to someone in a dream, but a contemporary of Abraham tells us that this is God's method:  For God speaketh once, yea twice, yet man perceiveth it not. In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the bed; Then he openeth the ears of men, and sealeth their instruction, That he may withdraw man from his purpose, and hide pride from man. Job 33:14-17

The Bible will show us more theophanies in dreams and to kings, but the events here establish a friendship between Abinilech and Abraham that will be the basis on an emportant covenant later on.

Abimelech rebukes Abraham

A king has resposiblity for his people and must seek justice and call out the man for putting him and his country in danger. but he also was wise and kind:

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

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. -- Genesis 20:14-16

Sarah too was a part of this lie, and deserved Abimelech's just reproof.

Abimelech was a pagan king but God spoke to him in a dream and warned him of a serious sin. The king was afraid, shaken, and went about to make it right. He had to rebuke God's servant Abraham because it was he who caused Abimelech to sin. God did this as much for Abraham and Sarah as he did for Abinelech who is the first pagan king to whom God appeared.

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Tempted and tried we’re oft made to wonder,

Why it should be thus all the day long;

While there are others living about us,

Never molested though in the wrong.

Refrain:

Farther along we’ll know all about it,

Farther along we’ll understand why;

Cheer up, don't worry, live in the sunshine,

We’ll understand it all by and by.

2 When death has come and taken our loved ones,

It leaves our home so lonely and drear;

Then do we wonder why others prosper,

Living so wicked year after year. [Refrain]

3 Faithful till death said our loving Master,

A few more days to labor and wait;

Toils of the road will then seem as nothing,

As we sweep through the beautiful gate. [Refrain]

4 When we see Jesus coming in glory,

When He comes from His home in the sky;

Then we shall meet Him in that bright mansion,

We'll understand it all by and by. [Refrain]

William Buel Stevens, 1862-1940s