Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Genesis 20:14-18

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

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.

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.

When Pharaoh discovered that Abraham was Sarah’s husband he sent them on their way. Abimelech, on the other hand, shows much more graciousness in his response. He expresses his frustration to Abraham and Sarah, reproves them for their deceit, but then offers them a gift and invites them to dwell in his land wherever they prefer.

One might say that this was just Abimelech trying to enter Abraham’s good graces so that the prophet would intervene for his sake, but the record shows that even after Abraham prayed for Abimelech’s household and everything was returned to normal that the two of them remained honorable towards one another.

We don’t learn too much about this king in the biblical record, but he seems to be a man of great maturity and integrity. When he was offended, he expressed it plainly, but immediately afterwards did his part to repair relationships and establish goodwill.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Genesis 20:7, 9-12

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.


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?

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.

God tells Abimelech what he must do to remove the threat of destruction from his house, and when Abimelech awakens the next day he quickly follows through. He doesn’t hold back in expressing his frustration with Abraham, though. “Thou hast done deeds that ought not to be done!”

And now Abraham is frank and forthcoming. “I thought the fear of God is not in this place.” He also admits the exact nature of his relationship to Sarah, yes her husband, but also that he actually is her half-brother.

At last Abimelech and Abraham are having a real and honest communication. Abimelech expresses his genuine offense and Abraham discloses his genuine fears, and now at last the two men are seeing each other honestly. It may not be the happiest of conversations, but their understanding of one another is now in harmony with the truth, which is the only foundation that a real relationship can be built on. Assumptions and unspoken fears lead to relationships that are not congruent with reality, and that disparity always causes harm.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Genesis 20:6

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.

Obviously we should all do our utmost to preserve good and prevent evil. This verse gives an important reminder that God will be championing these same causes as well, independent of us. Things were looking like they might have gone a bad way for Abimelech, Sarah, and Abraham, but God intervened and did not let that happen.

I have had times in my own life where God has intervened to prevent me from evil, He has even saved me from my own willful foolishness. I have also had times where I wanted to help another, but had no way to do so, and God assured me that He also wanted that person to be helped, in fact He wanted it even more than I did, and He would take care of it.

So yes, we should do what every good thing that we can, but the good that we cannot do we should surrender to God, trusting that He is capable of bringing good and preventing evil all by Himself.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Genesis 20:2-6

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

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.

God came to Abimelech with a strong sentence: “thou art but a dead man!” But when Abimelech professed innocence of any wrong God admitted that he already knew this to be the case. He was actually only warning Abimelech from destruction.

But why did God approach the matter in this way? Why start by pronouncing a punishment for a crime that Abimelech was innocent of? I can’t know for sure, but one possibility might be that God was helping Abimelech to evaluate the state of his own heart.

Being put on trial is often thought of as an unpleasant thing, but sometimes it can be a cleansing, justifying experience. By taking a close inventory of all their actions and motivations, the innocent are relieved to find that their heart really is pure, more so than they even realized. They can look anyone in the eye and honestly testify of their own worthiness. It could be that this experience was what God sought for Abimelech, even if it took a little fire to get him there.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Spiritual Analysis- Genesis 20:1

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

In Abraham’s own words, he was “a stranger and a sojourner,” journeying from place to place throughout his entire life. He had spent much of his time in the valley and mountains of Canaan, but now he left the area of his future inheritance for Gerar.

Earlier, when he went to Egypt, we were told that he was compelled to do so by a famine. Here it is not explained to us whether he was driven by need or by want, and I am very curious to know. I recently noted how Abraham’s living out in the open had meant he was free to follow his own morals, as opposed to Lot who dwelt in a dangerous city where he made compromises with evil. But in the next verses we will learn that Abraham is similarly afraid of the people in the land of Gerar, as he once again tries to conceal the fact that Sarah is his wife. As before, this results in a difficult situation for the two of them. It would seem strange to come to a land that he considers so godless and dangerous as a passing curiosity, but then what was the reason?

In any case, Abraham will eventually have his fears of this land resolved, will make important friends therein, be free to live in honesty, and even his long-promised son Isaac will be born there.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Spiritual Analysis- Genesis 19:31, 33-38

31 And the firstborn said unto the younger, Our father is old, and there is not a man in the earth to come in unto us after the manner of all the earth:

33 And they made their father drink wine that night: and the firstborn went in, and lay with her father; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose.

34 And it came to pass on the morrow, that the firstborn said unto the younger, Behold, I lay yesternight with my father: let us make him drink wine this night also; and go thou in, and lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father.

35 And they made their father drink wine that night also: and the younger arose, and lay with him; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose.

36 Thus were both the daughters of Lot with child by their father.

37 And the firstborn bare a son, and called his name Moab: the same is the father of the Moabites unto this day.

38 And the younger, she also bare a son, and called his name Ben-ammi: the same is the father of the children of Ammon unto this day.

In an ironic turn of events, the two daughters that Lot had tried to offer to the mob of rapists in Sodom ended up raping their father instead. Not due to the same violent lust that had burned in the heart of Sodom, but due to a fear that their family line would end unless they did something drastic.

Which is an example of how faithlessness can be a precursor to sin. When one is set upon achieving some goal, but cannot see any moral way of accomplishing it, and does not have faith that God will provide, then one is at risk of rationalizing immoral methods to achieve their wish instead. These daughters show the same failing as their father, who did not trust in God and stand for principle against the horde Sodom. Both Lot and his daughters felt it was entirely on them and their limited mortal power to solve the situation, and all three of them came up with a morally broken answer.

And initially it may have seemed that the daughters of Lot achieved their aim. They preserved their family line for many generations after all, but the nations that came of them would be corrupt and evil. The Moabites and the Ammonites were two of the heathen nations that the Israelites had to purge out of the land when they were led back from captivity in Egypt.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Spiritual Analysis- Genesis 19:30

30 And Lot went up out of Zoar, and dwelt in the mountain, and his two daughters with him; for he feared to dwell in Zoar: and he dwelt in a cave, he and his two daughters.

After pleading with the Lord to let him go to Zoar instead of the mountains, Lot ended up abandoning the city for a cave anyway. Perhaps after seeing Sodom and Gomorrah consumed by fire and brimstone he didn’t want to take his chances with any of the other cities in that area!

And here, alone in this cave, we are going to have the end of Lot’s stories. His daughters will make a fool of him, and then we won’t hear about him any more. The fact that his story is laid alongside of Abraham’s makes it only natural to compare the two, and one immediately realizes that Abraham’s life is the far superior one.

I don’t want to analyze Lot’s character too much, because we have so little to judge him by, but if there is one thing that stands out as a difference between him and Abraham, it is that Lot never appears to be an active doer. He is acted upon by many other people, he is along for the ride, but he is never at the wheel himself. Abraham was the one that led Lot out to the land of Canaan, Abraham was the one that rescued him from the armies of Chedorlaomer, the angels were the ones that hastened him from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Lot seems basically good and respects the Lord, but he is never shown to be a champion for God like Abraham was. At the end of the day I don’t want to just keep the commandments and call that enough. My calling is to be a driving force of my own, championing the right, and living an epic story.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Spiritual Analysis- Genesis 19:27-29

27 And Abraham gat up early in the morning to the place where he stood before the Lord:

28 And he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and beheld, and, lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace.

29 And it came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in the which Lot dwelt.

When Abraham beseeched the Lord to spare Sodom and Gomorrah, much of his concern may have been based on the fact that Lot lived there. Yes, he pleaded for the lives of any righteous unknowns, but also for the one righteous that he already knew personally.

But in our record never shows Abraham speaking specifically for Lot. Abraham set the terms for preserving the cities at ten righteous, God had agreed to that plan, and the cities were accordingly destroyed. But even though Lot was not explicitly spoken of, God did not forget about him. God did not need Abraham to ask Him to do something good in Lot’s case. God cared for Abraham and He cared for Lot, and He would take care of them, even when He had not been requested to do so.

We think of God as not being aware of our desires because they so often go unmet. The things we explicitly ask for are usually not answered, at least not in the way we envisioned. That was how things were for Abraham, too. Abraham asked for Sodom and Gomorrah to be spared, and that was not what happened, but God still took care of Abraham even so.

When we stop gauging God’s care for us by whether we receive what we want for ourselves, then we can start to appreciate that we are already receiving what He wants for us instead. He may not care for us how we want, but He does care for us how we need, and He does so more than we give Him credit for.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Spiritual Analysis- Genesis 19:26

26 But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.

The moment where Lot’s wife looks back to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and is turned to a pillar of salt is extremely abrupt and confusing. This one, fifteen-word sentence is crammed between two completely different paragraphs, dropping a shocking detail with absolutely no context! Clearly there is more to this story, but all that survives for us today is an extreme abbreviation.

Of course, we do know that the Lord’s instruction to them was “escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain.” Lot’s wife was clearly disobeying the middle instruction there, to not look back, but it seems likely that it was more than just that. The Lord was not just saying “don’t look over your shoulder,” he was saying “don’t hesitate, don’t falter, don’t contemplate returning.” And so when this verse says she “looked back” it may not mean that she was just curious to see the destruction of the city, but that she was affixing herself to return to it.

This interpretation is supported by the words of Jesus in Luke 17:26-33. Here Jesus refers to both the flood in Noah’s time and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and he stresses that when the moment of reckoning comes, one must run to safety without trying to return to their house for their belongings. And in that context he tells his listeners “remember Lot’s wife.”

Posted on by Abe Austin

Spiritual Analysis- Genesis 19:23-25

23 The sun was risen upon the earth when Lot entered into Zoar.

24 Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven;

25 And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground.

Interestingly, the further we get from the beginning of the biblical record, the more rare these grandiose moments become. With Noah we hear about the entire earth being flooded, but with Moses it’s only the Red Sea being parted, and with Jesus it’s only walking over the Sea of Galilee.

Perhaps this is because the human population increased enough that it became simpler for God to topple one empire with another, rather than send fantastic powers out of heaven. Or perhaps it is because the further humanity exists from the Garden of Eden, the less God’s hand is directly shown. Or perhaps the miraculous judgments of God are actually just as prolific as ever, but we do not attribute His hand to them, calling a natural disaster or an epidemic “bad luck” instead of the hand of justice.