Abraham’s alibi that Sarah is his
half sister strikes the reader—and surely Abimelech—as more self-serving than
persuasive, although it may have taken the edge off his wrath. With equal effrontery,
Abraham volunteers that throughout the migration from Ur, he has feigned Sarah
as his sister. His deception of Abimelech is thus not an exception but travel etiquette:
“And so, wherever the gods led me from the house of my father, I said to
[Sarah], do me this favor: wherever we go, say ‘he is my brother’” (v. 13).
Most modern translations read “when God led me from my house,” but without the
definite article in v. 13, Elohim is indefinite, meaning “gods,” which accounts
for the corresponding third person plural Hebrew verb “(they) led me.” in the
presence of Abimelech, therefore, Abraham refers to the divine generically as “the
gods,” or better perhaps, as “Providence.” Does this betray how little he and
Sarah know of the one who called them away from Ur of the Chaldees? This
possibly cannot be categorically dismissed, for monotheism was a strange and
foreign concept in the ancient world. Abraham’s experience of God, however, is
almost certainly beyond polytheism. Whether he is a monotheist (belief in only
one God) or henotheist (belief in one God without denying the possible
existence of other gods) is difficult to say for certain. His experience of God
to this point in Genesis is so particular and unique, however, that his
reference to “gods” in v. 13 is likely an accommodation to Abimelech’s
polytheism. This conclusion is supported in v. 17 when, in interceding for
healing of the populace, Abraham prays definitely (Heb. haelohim) to “God.”
(James R. Edwards, In the Beginning: A Commentary on Genesis and Its Reception
in the New Testament [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Pillar Books, 2026], 274)
