Genesis Vol 3.pdf - College Press

SOJOURN IN THE NEGEB 2O:l-21:34
of any but a genuine narrative had exposed himself to a
charge so obvious as that which has been founded on its
repetition. The independent truth of each story is con-
firmed by the natural touches of variety; such as, in the
case before us, Abimelech’s keen but gentle satire in recorn-
mending Sarah to buy a veil with the thousand pieces of
silver which he gave to her husband, We may also observe
the traces of the knowledge of the true God among Abi-
melech and his servants (Gen. 20:9-11) .” Green (UBG,
258, n.): “The circumstances are different in the two
narratives. Here Abimelech makes Abraham a variety of
presents after he understood the affair; there, Pharaoh
before he understood it. Here God Himself appears; there
He simply punishes. Here Abraham is called a prophet (v.
7), as he could not have been at once denominated when
God had but just called him, The circumstances, the
issue, and the description differ in many respects, and thus
attest that this story is quite distinct from the former one.”
(Green quotes the foregoing from a work by the dis-
tinguished scholar, Ewald, Die Komposition der Genesis
Kritiscb untersucht, 1823).
The following summarization by Leupold (EG, 579-
580) of the striking differences is conclusive, it seems to
the writer: “Note the following six points of difference:
two different places are involved, Egypt and Philistia;
two different monarchs of quite different characters, one
idolatrous, the other, who fears the true God; different
circumstances prevail, a famine on the one hand, nomadic
migration on the other; different modes of revelation are
employed-the one kind surmises the truth, the other re-
ceives revelation in a dream; the patriarch’s reaction to
the accusation is quite different in the two instances in-
volved-in the first, silence; then in the second instance,
a free explanation before a king of sufficient spiritual
discernment; lastly, the conclusions of the two episodes are
radically different from one another-in the first instance,
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