I'm sure there will be more but I'll end with this....

Genesis 20 Abraham lied a few times about his wife to rulers. Like Abimelech. And the pharoah in Egypt. He told his wife that because she was so beautiful, he wanted to tell people that she was his sister. His reasoning was that if they saw how beautiful she was, they would say "She is his wife" and kill him but let her live. But if he lied, he would be treated well and they would both live. And he was rewarded for his duplicity and the ones he duped were initially punished by God. Why is that? And why would he lie again after all the trouble it caused in Egypt? Surely, he had to know what would happen.

-- jackiea (jackiea@hotmail.com), May 08, 2000

Answers

Dear Jackie,
She was, in fact his sister. This was by God's design, I believe. Without going back to worry out Abraham's motives I say let somebody else explain it for now.

-- Eugene Chavez (rechavez@popmail.ucsd.edu), May 08, 2000.

Yes, jackiea, Eugene is right. Abram/Abraham and Sarai/Sarah did not lie, as this passage shows:

10: And Abim'elech said to Abraham, "What were you thinking of, that you did this thing?"
11: Abraham said, "I did it because I thought, There is no fear of God at all in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife.
12: Besides she is indeed my sister, the daughter of my father but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife. [That is, she was his half-sister.]
13: And when God caused me to wander from my father's house, I said to her, 'This is the kindness you must do me: at every place to which we come, say of me, He is my brother.'"

So, I don't think that this was not "duplicity" and "lying," but prudence and self-preservation, carried out from place to place, usually without causing a problem. A person is morally permitted to withhold information from another who does not have a right to possess it.

God bless you.
John

-- J. F. Gecik (jgecik@desc.dla.mil), May 10, 2000.