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The Pulpit Commentary on Genesis 19:29
The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah I. THE VISIBLE JUDGMENT. "God overthrew the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah—the cities in which Lot dwelt." 1. The reason. 2. The instrumentality. 3. The reality. 4. The lessons o…
Matthew Henry on Genesis 19:30-38
See the peril of security. Lot, who kept chaste in Sodom, and was a mourner for the wickedness of the place, and a witness against it, when in the mountain, alone, and, as he thought, out of the way of temptation, is sh…
Lot's Disgrace. (b. c. 1898.)
LOT'S DISGRACE. (B. C. 1898.) Here is, I. The great trouble and distress that Lot was brought into after his deliverance, Genesis 19:30. 1. He was frightened out of Zoar, durst not dwell there; probably because he was c…
The Pulpit Commentary on Genesis 19:30
And Lot went up out of Zoar (probably soon after), and dwelt in the mountain (i.e. of Moab, on the east of the Dead Sea), and his two daughters—step-daughters, it has been suggested, if Lot married a widow who was the m…
The Pulpit Commentary on Genesis 19:31
And the firstborn said unto the younger,—showing that she had not escaped the pollution, if she had the destruction, of Sodom. "It was time that Lot had left the cities of the plain. No wealth could compensate for the m…
The Pulpit Commentary on Genesis 19:32
Come, let us make our father drink wine,—either, therefore, Lot had not left Sodom totally unprovided (Inglis), or some little time had elapsed after his escaping to the mountain cave, since his daughters are provided w…
The Pulpit Commentary on Genesis 19:33
And they made their father drink wine that night—which was sinful both in them and him (vide Isaiah 5:11; Proverbs 20:1; Habakkuk 2:15)—and the firstborn went in, and lay with her father; and he perceived not when she l…
The Pulpit Commentary on Genesis 19:34
And it came to pass on the morrow, that the firstborn said unto the younger, Behold, I lay yester night with my father: let us make him drink wine this night also; and go thou in, and lie with him, that we may preserve…
The Pulpit Commentary on Genesis 19:35
And they made their father drink wine that night also. The facility with which Lot allowed himself to be inebriated by his daughters Clericus regards as a sign that before this the old man had been accustomed to over-in…
The Pulpit Commentary on Genesis 19:37
And the firstborn bare a son, and called his name Moab—Meab, from the father, alluding to his incestuous origin; though Mo (water, an Arabic euphemism for the semen virile) and ab has been advanced as a more correct der…
The Pulpit Commentary on Genesis 19:38
And the younger, she also bare a son, and called his name Ben-ammi. I.e. son of my people, meaning that her child was the offspring of her own kind and blood (Rosenmüller), or the son of her relative (Kalisch), or of an…
Matthew Henry on Genesis 20:1-8
Crooked policy will not prosper: it brings ourselves and others into danger. God gives Abimelech notice of his danger of sin, and his danger of death for his sin. Every wilful sinner is a dead man, but Abimelech pleads…
Abraham's Denial of His Wife. (b. c. 1898.)
ABRAHAM'S DENIAL OF HIS WIFE. (B. C. 1898.) Here is, 1. Abraham's removal from Mamre, where he had lived nearly twenty years, into the country of the Philistines: He sojourned in Gerar, Genesis 20:1. We are not told upo…
The Pulpit Commentary on Genesis 20:1
And Abraham journeyed (vide Genesis 12:9) from thence. Mamre (Genesis 18:1). In search of pasture, as on a previous occasion (Keil); or in consequence of the hostility of his neighbors (Calvin); or because he longed to…
The Pulpit Commentary on Genesis 20:1-18
EXPOSITION
The Pulpit Commentary on Genesis 20:1-18
Abraham in Gerar, or two royal sinners. I. THE SIN OF THE HEBREW PATRIARCH 1. An old sin repeated. "Abraham said of Sarah his wife, She is my sister." Twenty years before the same miserable equivocation had been circula…
The Pulpit Commentary on Genesis 20:2
And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, She is my sister. As formerly he had done on descending into Egypt (Genesis 12:13). That Abraham should a second time have resorted to this ignoble expedient after the hazardous exper…
The Pulpit Commentary on Genesis 20:2
Falsehood the fruit of unbelief. "Abraham said of Sarah his wife, She is my sister." Notice how imperfectly the obligation of truth recognized in Old Testament times. Not only among heathen, or those who knew little of…
Matthew Henry on Genesis 20:3-7
It appears by this that God revealed himself by dreams (which evidenced themselves to be divine and supernatural) not only to his servants the prophets, but even to those who were out of the pale of the church and coven…
The Pulpit Commentary on Genesis 20:3
But God—Elohim; whence the present chapter, with the exception of Genesis 20:18, is assigned to the Elohist (Tuch, De Wette, Bleek, Davidson), and the incident at Gerar explained as the original legend, of which the sto…
The Pulpit Commentary on Genesis 20:4
But Abimelech had not come near her. Apparently withheld by the peculiar disease which had overtaken him. The statement of the present verse (a similar one to which is not made with reference to Pharaoh) was clearly ren…
The Pulpit Commentary on Genesis 20:5
Said he not unto me, She is my sister? and she, even she herself said, He is my brother. From which it is clear that the Philistine monarch, equally with the Egyptian Pharaoh, shrank from the sin of adultery. In the int…
The Pulpit Commentary on Genesis 20:6
And God said unto him in a dream,—"It is in full agreement with the nature of dreams that the communication should be made in several, and not in one single act; cf. Genesis 37:1-36, and Genesis 41:1-57.; Matthew 2:1-23…
The Pulpit Commentary on Genesis 20:7
Now therefore restore the man his wife. Literally, the wife of the man, God now speaking of Abraham non tanquam de homine quolibet, sod peculiariter sibi charum (Calvin). For he is a prophet Nabi, from naba, to cause to…