Genesis Vol 3.pdf - College Press

“ 20:1-21:34 GENESIS
of protecting the purity of the promised seed. “In king
Abimelech we meet with a totally different character from
that of Pharaoh, We see in him a heathen imbued with a
moral consciousness of right, and open to receive divine
revelation, of which there is not the slightest trace in the
king of Egypt, And Abraham, in spite of his natural
weakness, and the consequent confusion which he mani-
fested in the presence of the pious heathen, was exalted by
the compassionate grace of God to the position of His own
friend, so that even the heathen king, who seems to have
been in the\right in this instance, was compelled to bend
before him and to seek the removal of the divine punish-
ment, which had fallen upon him and his house, through
the medium of his intercession. In this way God proved
to the Philistine king, on the one hand, that He suffers
no harm to befall His prophets (Psa.‘ loJ:lJ), and to
Abraham on the other, that He can maintain His Cove-
nant and secure the realization of His promise against all
opposition from the sinful desires of earthly potentates.
It was in this respect that the event possessed a typical
significance in relation to the future attitude of Israel
towards surrounding nations” (BCOTP, 242, 243).
(9) Comfiarison of Gen. 12:lO-20 and Gen. 2O:l-18.
Alleged differences in these two narratives is taken by the
“analytical” critics as evidence of a weaving together of
two original sources, J and E. (As a matter of fact this
theme of a sister-wife relationship occurs again ifi Gen.
26:6-11: in the first instance, involving Abraham-Pharaoh-
Sarah; in the second, Abraham-Abimelech-Sarah, and in
the third, Isaac-Abimelech-Rebekah) . By the critics this
chapter (20) is assumed to be an Elohistic document; then
how account for the “Jehovah” of v. 18? The answer is
that v. 18 demonstrates the “fine propriety” one often
encounters in relating these two names. V. 18 states
Yahweh’s method of rendering the mother of the promised
seed safe: “the faithful covenant God in mercy watches
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