Recall that this took place, apparently, right on the heels of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and it is after the destruction that Abraham moves, probably to find better pasture of his herds. He goes to Gerar which is about 8 miles southeast of Gaza. Even to this day, Gaza is in the same general location.
Now, did Abimelech take Sarah in because at age 90 she was a ravishing beauty? I think not. I do not in any way mean to diminish her looks, or her attractiveness, but it is very likely that because of the customs of the times, ( and I do not mean that he did not have serious intent), all that Abimelech was doing was a political move. He was taking this relative of Abraham’s and entering, first of all, into a political union with him through her.
After all, Abraham had no mean reputation. He was a very wealthy man. He was, with all due respect to others around him, a king in his own right. By present circumstances, his realm and the number of people under him was small. But in the milieu of the times that he lived in, Abraham was a very important person. Abimelech wanted to make sure through the political means that they had available to them then, that there would be no reason for Abraham to attack him, because he would have been attacking his relative. Now that is my thought regarding why he took Sarah.
Now Abimelech said what he did, he did in the innocence of his heart. How in the world can a man do that? Well, he was not innocent, and we understand that. I will tell you why we can understand that in just a minute. Yet on the other hand, I do not believe that Abimelech was really telling a lie. He meant what he said. He was only acting according to the level his moral and spiritual understanding. He was acting within the customary methods and ways of his time. So, he was just not as well developed morally or spiritually as maybe he might want to, or maybe he should be.
Now I said that how do we know that he should have known that? It is because of what God said. I am paraphrasing what God said, “Yes. But you touch her and you are a dead man.” It indicates to me that God was saying to Abimelech, “You should know better anyway.”
And then down in Genesis 20:17, after Abimelech followed through with what God told him to do, he then goes to Abraham and asks him to pray. It is that word “pray” that gives you an insight to prayer and what it is. The word there in Hebrew is pal-wal. It means literally, to judge.
You might think that this thing is exactly the same as what occurred in Egypt, but it was not. If you go back and compare the two, you will find that they were the same in only one aspect. And that is that Abraham and Sarah lied, and that Sarah came in danger of becoming the wife of a pagan king. But Abimelech is a totally different character than Pharaoh in Egypt. At least Abimelech was a man who was imbued with a moral conscience that was much, much higher than the Pharaoh’s in Egypt. We see that he was open to divine revelations. And if you go back and read that one that happened in Egypt and you will not find the slightest indication of a relationship possibility with God.
Now Abimelech did what any Oriental ruler of his time would have done. He saw a beautiful woman and wanted to add her to his harem. He took her in, but he did it in innocence, did he not, because a lie occurred. Abraham actually led him into doing what he did. God effected some damage control by giving Abimelech the dream, and He quickly forgave what he did, but also warned him that if he went forward with what he was thinking of doing, it would then become presumptuous, and things would not go well for him or for his nation.
What Balaam did was quickly forgiven, overlooked. Now what does this teach us? It teaches us that sin does not always occur in a straight-forward manner. As we saw with Abimelech and Abraham, Abimelech was led into almost sinning grievously, and he would have sinned had not God intervened. Abraham was the more guilty of the two because he was leading Abimelech into the sin by his lie. But we also know from the context that Abraham too committed a sin of weakness. "Out of fear I was afraid," and so Abraham too did not sin willfully. It was not presumptuous.
Now here we get the whole story and the reason why Abraham wanted to call Sarah his sister. Of course she is beautiful, and he felt that the fear of God was not in the general area; that his life would be in danger, he could be killed. So he believed his life was in the balance because of his beautiful wife and because kind of, sort of, well, maybe, she was slightly his sister, she actually, really, kind of was, but regardless of these things, God was not happy. In God's infinite wisdom and kindness, He does intervene and saves Abimelech from sin. Here we see that Abraham offended both Pharaoh and Abimelech by intentionally putting them in a situation where sin could occur. He was thinking about himself and not others.
There is another example just a couple of pages over in Genesis 20, where Abraham goes and meets with Abimelech, saying that Sarah was his sister, and Abimelech took Sarah. And then, of course,
God tells Abimelech that Abraham would be his intercessor. Abraham is going to act as the parakletos would later, and come before God and plead for Abimelech's life.
So, Abraham again, the father of the faithful, shows us the way. Here he gives us an example of an intercessor, advocate, helper, counselor, and all those other things that the parakletos does.
In Genesis 20:3-6, and verse 9, we have Abimelech's confession before God regarding Abraham and Sarah. God kept him from sinning. Abimelech makes it very clear that he was lured—tricked—into a situation of which he was ignorant; but it was still a sin. God made it very clear that He kept him from sinning. If he had gone through with what he was considering doing, even though he was ignorant, it would have been sin.
