Holly Bible - KJV with Concise Commentaries by Z Selam - HTML preview
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[1.] Little good is to be expected where no fear of God is. See Ps 36:1.
[2.] There are many places and persons that have more of the fear of God in them than we think they have: perhaps they are not called by our dividing name, they do not wear our badges, they do not tie themselves to that which we have an opinion of; and therefore we conclude they have not the fear of God in their hearts, which is very injurious both of Christ and Christians, and makes us obnoxious to God's judgment, Mt 7:1.
[3.] Uncharitableness and censoriousness are sins that are the cause of many other sins. When men have once persuaded themselves concerning such and such that they have not the fear of God, they think this will justify them in the most unjust and unchristian practices towards them. Men would not do ill if they did not first think ill.
(2.) He excused it from the guilt of a downright lie by making it out that, in a sense, she was his sister, Ge 20:12. Some think she was own sister to Lot, who is called his brother Lot (Ge 14:16), though he was his nephew; so Sarah is called his sister. But those to whom he said, She is my sister, understood that she was so his sister as not to be capable of being his wife; so that it was an equivocation, with an intent to deceive.
(3.) He clears himself from the imputation of an affront designed to Abimelech in it by alleging that it had been his practice before, according to an agreement between him and his wife, when they first became sojourners (Ge 20:13): "When God caused me to wander from my father's house, then we settled this matter." Note,
[1.] God is to be acknowledged in all our wanderings.
[2.] Those that travel abroad, and converse much with strangers, as they have need of the wisdom of the serpent, so it is requisite that that wisdom be ever tempered with the