The Bible's First Prophet Is a Frightened Man Who Prays (Genesis 20)

The word prophet enters the Bible in Genesis 20:7, and God defines it in the same sentence. The Hebrew is navi (H5030), and the definition is a job: "he will pray for you and you will live" (Genesis 20:7).

What was the first prophet in the Bible for?

In this chapter God's speech goes straight to Abimelech, twice, in a dream, and the one task He gives His prophet is prayer.

The verb is palal (H6419), used in verse 7 and again in verse 17: "Then Abraham prayed to God" (Genesis 20:17). Its root is tied to judging or arbitrating, and its prayer form carries the sense of pleading a case. Eli uses it exactly that way to his sons: "If a man sins against another man, God can intercede for him; but if a man sins against the LORD, who can intercede for him?" (1 Samuel 2:25). Palal pictures a man standing between a guilty house and God, arguing for it to live.

Abimelech names the guilt himself, and he uses a legal term. "You have brought such tremendous guilt upon me and my kingdom" (Genesis 20:9) is, in Hebrew, chata'ah gedolah, a great sin, from chata'ah (H2401). In texts from Ugarit and in Egyptian marriage contracts, the great sin is a set term for adultery. A king in Gerar would have used the phrase the way a lawyer uses a charge. He knew exactly what nearly happened.

Did Abraham believe there was no fear of God in Gerar?

Abraham's defence is "Surely there is no fear of God in this place" (Genesis 20:11). Fear is yirah (H3374), from the verb yare (H3372). Three verses earlier the narrator has already used that verb about Gerar: "the men were terrified" (Genesis 20:8). With the same root, the story has answered Abraham's claim before he makes it.

Then there is the verb God uses for His own part. "I have kept you from sinning against Me" (Genesis 20:6). Kept is chasak (H2820), to hold back or withhold. And the sentence opens "Yes, I know" (Genesis 20:6), with yada (H3045), the verb for knowing a person.

Follow those three words two chapters on, to a mountain in the land of Moriah. The angel stops Abraham's hand and says, "for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your only son from me" (Genesis 22:12). Know is yada, withheld is chasak, and fear comes from the same root yare. The words the story used in Gerar come back on the mountain, spoken over Abraham, so a Hebrew listener heard the second story answer the first. The man who doubted the fear of God in others learned it himself, and God named what He saw.

How did Israel first hear Genesis 20?

Genesis reached Israel as the people Moses led, and that changes how verse 7 sounded. Israel already knew how God spoke to prophets. God had told Aaron and Miriam, "If there is a prophet among you, I, the LORD, will reveal Myself to him in a vision; I will speak to him in a dream" (Numbers 12:6). In Genesis 20 the dream goes to the foreigner, and the patriarch called prophet receives nothing but the duty to pray. Israel heard that their father Abraham was first named a prophet for standing between others and God.

They also knew what that looked like, because they had needed it. At the foot of Sinai, after the golden calf, Moses turned on Aaron and asked how the people had wronged him, "that you have led them into so great a sin?" (Exodus 32:21). It is Abimelech's phrase, chata'ah gedolah, and this time Israel was the guilty house. The next day Moses told them, "You have committed a great sin. Now I will go up to the LORD; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin" (Exodus 32:30). A Philistine king had once needed Abraham to pray so that he would live. Israel had needed Moses for the same thing. Every Israelite who heard Genesis 20 read was a member of a people who had been prayed for.

Their own songs kept the story. The psalm says God "rebuked kings on their behalf" (Psalms 105:14) and gives His words: "Do not touch My anointed ones! Do no harm to My prophets!" (Psalms 105:15). Touch is naga (H5060), the same verb God used to Abimelech: "That is why I did not let you touch her" (Genesis 20:6). Israel sang Gerar back to God as proof that He guards what He has promised.

Where does the first prophet lead?

Moses promised that the line would continue: "The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers. You must listen to him" (Deuteronomy 18:15). Abraham pleaded for Gerar. Moses pleaded for a people who had made a calf. The letter to the Hebrews names the last one in the line: Jesus "always lives to intercede for them" (Hebrews 7:25), and He stands between God and people whose great sin He did not cause.

In Genesis 20 it is God who does the knowing. He said I know to Abimelech in the dark and now I know to Abraham on the mountain, and Israel turned Gerar into a song so they would remember that He guards what He has promised. God knew Abraham well enough to see straight through his reasoning, and He still kept every word He had spoken to him. You are known by Him the same way, so do what Israel did with that song and read back to Him what He has said to you. Tonight, pray by name for someone near you, the way Abraham pleaded for Gerar.

This goes with today's Doxa Daily Lift: Abraham and Abimelech: The Night God Spoke to a Pagan King.