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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadGreater Men and Women of the Bible by James Hastings: 062. Abimelecht
Subjects in this Topic:
VIII
Abimelech
Literature
Deane, W. J., Abraham: His Life and Times.
Driver, S. R., The Book of Genesis (Westminster Commentaries) (1904), 144.
Dykes, J. O., Abraham, the Friend of God (1883).
Matheson, G., The Representative Men of the Bible, i. (1902) 110.
Parker, J., Adam, Noah, and Abraham (1880), 91.
Sayce, A. H., The Higher Criticism and the Monuments (1894), 178.
Skinner, J., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Genesis (1910), 240.
Smith, G. A., The Historical Geography of the Holy Land (1897), 642.
Stanley, A. P., Lectures on the History of the Jewish Church, i. (1889) 1.
1. Although the oaks of Mamre and the cave of Machpelah rendered Hebron the permanent seat of the patriarchs beyond any spot in Palestine, and although they are always henceforth described as lingering around this green and fertile vale, there is yet another circle of recollections more in accordance with their ancient pastoral habits. Even at the moment of the purchase of the sepulchre, Abraham represents himself as still “a stranger and a sojourner in the land”; and as such his haunts were elsewhere. He “journeyed from thence toward the land of the South, and dwelt between Kadesh and Shur; and he sojourned in Gerar.”
2. Gerar remains to this day an undiscovered site. At that time it formed the capital of a Philistine people whose five subdivisions at a later period occupied the Shephelah, or strip of level land along the southern coasts, whence they waged with Israel an incessant border warfare. To that coast strip they lent their own name of Philistia or Palestine, which in much later, times came to be inaccurately extended to the whole land. The name probably implies that they had entered the country as immigrants, expelling or absorbing an earlier nomadic race of Avim. At first the conquerors were themselves nomads; but the pastoral life which they retained in Abraham's age, and which led them to affect the frontier pastures of the South-land, had been exchanged before Joshua's invasion for settled habits, a common polity, a league of coast towns, and considerable advancement in military, commercial, and industrial pursuits. As yet they were a simple clan of shepherds, few in number, and far from formidable; most unlike their warlike descendants, who broke the power of Israel in the disastrous fight at Aphek, and crushed the house of Saul on the fatal field of Gilboa.
The official title borne by their successive chieftains was Abimelech. Abraham's visit to the territory of this petty “king” led to the formation of friendly ties, which lasted at least through the son's lifetime, and which contrast pleasantly with the hereditary feud whose ceaseless forays and reprisals were for generations to embroil their descendants.