Genesis 20:1: Four place names in one sentence, and the whole of a move in it

Yet a marked season of favour and blessing may come just before a great humiliation through carelessness and sin. So it was now with Abraham, as he lived as a stranger in the land of the Philistines. Was it that he too, like Lot, was afraid to stay under the shield of the Almighty after seeing the recent judgments? What is certain is that he travelled away from the place where he once stood before the Lord in intercession. From that same place, a little later, he had looked with awe at the ruined plain, where the smoke of the country went up like the smoke of a furnace.

Following all this comes the very important and characteristic word "sojourn" (Genesis 20:1). It means day-staying, in contrast to "dwelling," which is permanent. Both words occur often throughout the Old and New Testaments, carrying important principles. So Peter urges believers, as sojourners and pilgrims, to abstain from the passions of the flesh, and to spend the time of their sojourning here in fear. They are to be only travellers in this world. They must not make it their home or dwelling place. On the other hand, these pilgrims dwell in God, and His word dwells in them, and His Spirit dwells in them.

He journeyed toward the south, which is typical of pleasant circumstances, but nearly always having danger in it. He dwelt between Kadesh and Shur. Kadesh means "set apart for a purpose," which beautifully describes God's work with Abraham, and is true of all Christians too. But Shur means "point of observation." Does this not tell us something? We know we are set apart for God, yet we sometimes look the other way to see what others may be doing.

Is it surprising that after this he lived as a stranger in Gerar? Gerar, a Philistine city, means "dragging away." If our own observation leads us, we are always likely to be dragged away from the place of devoted separation to God.

There is an obvious difference between Egypt and Gerar. Egypt expresses the world in its natural resources and its independence of God... Egypt lay further from Canaan than Gerar, and in moral terms it pictures a soul further from God... So Gerar was a step forward from Egypt. But it still lay within reach of very dangerous influences. Abraham got into trouble there, and so does Isaac in this chapter, and in exactly the same way.

It is remarkable to watch Abraham coming up out of Egypt — building an altar and pitching a tent... entertaining the heavenly visitors and interceding for his brother Lot. He passed through such brilliant scenes over a series of years. All that time this moral point, in which he had erred at the very start of his course, remained unsettled in his heart. True, it did not show itself during that period, but why not? Because Abraham was not in circumstances that called it out — yet it was there all the same.

Then, under the stress of famine, he had turned aside from the land and slipped into Egypt. Here, without any such trying circumstances, but simply from fear of man, he denies the one through whom God had definitely assured him the promised heir would come. In one case he gives up the testimony of the inheritance; in the other he clouds the testimony to the heir. Then, as now, behind every failure of the people of God the enemy is attacking some great truth connected with their calling.