Does Abraham Conform to Abimelech’s Polytheism in Genesis 20:13?
Genesis 20 records the story of Abraham and Sarah sojourning in Gerar where King Abimelech takes Sarah afer Abraham and Sarah tell Abimelech that they are siblings. The theological point for the Genesis narrative is that God intervenes through Abraham’s sin to keep his faithfulness to his promise for Abraham to bear an heir through Sarah.
This narrative confuses our expectations. In Genesis 15:6, God declared Abraham as righteous. But here in Genesis 20, while we would expect to see Abraham’s righteousness on display, the narrator actually presents Abimelech as the righteous one in the story. Abraham is immediately introduced as the liar. Meanwhile, Abimelech acts from the “integrity of his heart” and “the innocence of his hands” (20:5), and the Lord verifies that integrity in 20:6. Abimelech supports his claim for integrity with action as he gives to Abraham and returns his wife (20:14–16).
These textual notes make Abraham’s possible polytheistic remark less surprising. My question comes from 20:13 where Abraham uses the common plural name of God (elohim) along with a plural verb (“caused me to wander”). The use of elohim is not the problematic part. We have seen this name for God since Genesis 1:1, and it is the most common designation for God in the OT. (Granted, there is mystery with this word, and there has been a lot of debate over it. But, my point is that we expect that term by this point in the Genesis narrative. The other option is God’s divine or covenant name, YHWH, but this occurs less often.)
The textual problem here is with the plural verb that follows elohim. The ESV, NIV, and NKJV all follow the LXX’s rendering, which changes the verb to singular. The only way you would catch this is if you are reading the Hebrew Masoretic Text (to my knowledge, at least). In light of the author’s portrayal of Abraham and Abimelech’s character in this passage (see above discussion), I want to speculate (in honor of a high view of the inerrancy of the Hebrew text) that Abraham conforms to Abimelech’s polytheism as he reports this story for him.
First, this is the first time in Genesis where we see a plural verb that follows elohim. The text has featured this name of God 106 times up to this point (by my count), and each appearance is followed by a singular verb (I have not done the full study because elohim occurs over 2,000 times in the OT, and this survey alone shows how rare the combination is—at the least, one per every 106 uses). This is the text’s declaration of one God. Here in Genesis 20:13, the author uses a plural verb after elohim for the first time. It is then quite strange, and it is likely written to grab the reader’s attention (as it did mine). If this is the case, the narrator is likely making a specific point, which I speculate to be that Abraham conforms to the pagan’s theology.
Second, since the whole story portrays Abraham as lacking in faith, it is not surprising to see him comform to Abimelech in this low moment.
Third, Abraham clearly wrestles with the sin of the fear of man in this story. He lies about Sarah because he fears the people (20:11). Knowing that, it would not be surprising to learn that Abraham conform’s to Abimelech’s polytheism in order to show more respect to or commonality with the man of authority.
