God allowed the reign of Abimelek to continue for three years before it started self-imploding. God is working according to His own plans and has set a time for everything. There was time for Israel to repent and a time for them to endure the consequences of their actions. A time for us to come closer to God, a time for us to move away from his grace and protection. The people got what they wanted when Abimelek forcibly became the king but evil cannot be subsided without the fear of God. None of the people in this chapter display the slightest adherence to God’s will for His people and thereby suffer through the consequences of their actions.
Tag: Abimelek
An Encouragement To The Desperate – Psalm 34
The title of this Psalm suggests that David wrote this Psalm after he pretended to be insane and escaped from the kingdom of Achish (Abimelek). Whenever we face critical situations, we lie instead of facing the truth. God expresses His displeasure about our lies in the book of Isaiah (Isaiah 28:15, 18&19) and speaks about…
Genesis 26 – Like Father Like Son
The age old saying that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree holds true as we see Isaac introducing Rebekah as his sister to Abimelek.
Genesis 21 – Everybody Laughs at Isaac
We saw in the last chapter that God had enabled everyone in Abimelek’s household to conceive again but Sarah was still kept barren. Abraham had laughed at the very thought of Isaac being born to Sarah, Sarah now has joyous laughter that God came through for her despite her disbelief and then there is Ishmael who is mocking his new younger brother. The Hebrew texts quite aptly say that Ishmael was laughing at Isaac. That captures the sentiment of everyone involved in this saga.
Genesis 20 – Déjà Vu
After experiencing close communion with God (Chapter 18) and seeing the destruction of the twin cities (Chapter 19), one would assume that Abraham would definitely be closer to God than ever before. But he was in fact back to his old ways. Moving to a land without God’s leading, we don’t see him building any altars or even praying to God, giving Sarah to be married to the ruler of that land by letting everyone believe they are siblings again and in the end profiting off of the ruler’s guilt, again!
The Jordan Valley 