Fear No Fear

(All scripture from the World English Bible, ebible.org, all rights reserved)

“Abraham said, “Because I thought, ‘Surely the fear of God is not in this place. They will kill me for my wife’s sake.’ Besides, she is indeed my sister, the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife. When God caused me to wander from my father’s house, I said to her, ‘This is your kindness which you shall show to me. Everywhere that we go, say of me, “He is my brother.”’””
(Genesis 20:11-13)

Abraham’s response shows that he never even considered the effect of God’s judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah on the nations that surrounded them. Regardless of how these people may have acted previously, they had a HIGH sense of respect toward God. They were in NO WAY seeking to cross Him. Abraham feared something that wasn’t even an issue, and in doing so not only failed to trust God to deliver them, he also did these people a disservice.

Abraham didn’t have the chance to explain himself to Pharoah when he tried this before (Genesis 12:10-20). Here he gives his justification. One of those bending the truth and not completely being dishonest without completely being honest things. And he was wrong. A lie is a lie no matter what kind of lie it is. Anything that isn’t 100% the truth is a lie in the same way that anything that isn’t trusting in God is a sin (Romans 14:23). How hollow Abraham’s excuses ring.

Abraham was the half-brother of his wife Sarah. According to the Law, this is an abomination to God. Yet God didn’t hold that sin against Abraham because the Law hadn’t been given. God doesn’t hold us responsible for those things we have no knowledge of (Romans 5:13). We are only responsible once we know the truth.

The sage Rashi writes: ‘רק אין יראת אלהים SURELY THERE IS NO FEAR OF GOD — When a stranger arrives in a city do people ask him about what he would like to eat or to drink, or do they ask him about his wife—“Is this your wife?” or “Is this your sister?” (Bava Kamma 92a) (Surely if they ask at all, it is about his needs; if they ask regarding his relationship to the lady accompanying him, it is evidence that they are not God-fearing people!) ‘ויהי כאשר התעו אותי וגו AND IT CAME TO PASS WHEN GOD CAUSED ME TO WANDER etc. — Onkelos translates it in his own way, but it can be explained in another manner that is also appropriate: When the Holy One, blessed be He, brought me forth from my father’s house to be a nomad, wandering from place to place, I knew that I would traverse places where there are wicked people ואמר לה זה חסדך AND so I SAID UNTO HER THIS IS THY LOVINGKINDNESS [WHICH THOU SHALT SHOW UNTO ME].’

The sage Sforno writes: ‘רק אין יראת אלוקים במקום הזה, there is no respect for the government’s authority. The Philistines did not have kings, but their political leaders were known as סרנים, as we know from the story of Goliath, who was a law unto himself due to his personal strength and was not subject to the authority of such סרנים. Compare Goliath’s boast הלא אנכי הפלשתי ואתם עבדים לשאול, “am I not the Philistine, whereas you are slaves of Sha-ul.” (Samuel I 17,8) וגם אמנה, also you, the king himself, have sinned in taking the woman because I said she is my sister for you should have asked me if she was also my wife. The fact is that she is both my sister and my wife. התעו אותי אלוקים, on account of the various alien gods which I despise I have been forced to leave my father’s house and to travel to areas I did not know, not to places of my own choice. This is why he described himself as תועה, someone who wanders, does not have a fixed destination.’

The sage Rav Hirsch writes: ‘V. 11. You had done nothing bad to me. I had had no special bad experience here which led to my behaviour. There is nothing missing here, you have the same laws and rules and order as everywhere else. Only, I could not assume that here, more than everywhere else, the fear of God prevails, the fear of God which forbids me voluntarily to expose my wife to dishonour, and which should forbid you to touch the wife of a stranger, or to kill him, should he dare to offer resistance to your immoral customs. This רק is only to be taken as having reference to the universal lack of the fear of God so that no special reproach is to be taken as being made in Abimelech’s country, but not that such a lack of the fear of God in itself could be considered by Abraham’s words as something trifling and insignificant. V. 12. She was my foster-sister before she became my wife. In spirit she is my sister, the daughter of a brother who died early and she grew up with me under the same paternal roof and because we thus became in mind and feelings so sympathetic to each other, she was like a sister to me, and we married. For, according to our sages Sarah was identical with Iscah (the sister of Lot I.L.) the daughter of Haran who died early, and whose children, according to Ch. 11,31, seem to have lived with their grandfather Terah. V. 13. According to another way of taking it, more in accordance with the plural used and with the term התעו: when then the gods, i.e. the universal idolatry banished me from my father’s home to wander about in the world, which perhaps means, as I had to wander forth from my paternal home as an apostate to the creed of the people; I was not tolerated, being a תועה מדרכי אלילים. Perhaps also, through his known opposition to heathenism it was more dangerous for him than for anybody else not to acquiesce in any objectionable custom sanctified by heathenism and this made it more imperative for him to impose this rule. The known ritual of the cult of the Phoenician Astarte taken to gether with the demands of the men of Sodom make such an assumption not too monstrous.’