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, v. 1. We are not told upon what occasion he removed, whether
terrified by the destruction of Sodom, or because the country round was
for the present prejudiced by it, or, as some of the Jewish writers
say, because he was grieved at Lot's incest with his daughters, and the
reproach which the Canaanites cast upon him and his religion, for his
kinsman's sake: doubtless there was some good cause for his removal.
Note, In a world where we are strangers and pilgrims we cannot expect
to be always in the same place. Again, Wherever we are, we must look
upon ourselves but as sojourners. 2. His sin in denying his wife, as
before (ch. xii. 13), which was not only in itself such an equivocation
as bordered upon a lie, and which, if admitted as lawful, would be the
ruin of human converse and an inlet to all falsehood, but was also an
exposing of the chastity and honour of his wife, of which he ought to
have been the protector. But, besides this, it had here a two-fold
aggravation:-- (1.) He had been guilty of this same sin before, and had
been reproved for it, and convinced of the folly of the suggestion
which induced him to it; yet he returns to it. Note, It is possible
that a good man may, not only fall into sin, but relapse into the same
sin, through the surprise and strength of temptation and the infirmity
of the flesh. Let backsliders repent then, but not despair, Jer. iii.
22. (2.) Sarah, as it should seem, was now with child of the promised
seed, or, at least, in expectation of being so quickly, according to
the word of God; he ought therefore to have taken particular care of
her now, as Judg. xiii. 4. 3. The peril that Sarah was brought into by
this means: The king of Gerar sent, and took her to his house, in order
to the taking of her to his bed. Note, The sin of one often occasions
the sin of others; he that breaks the hedge of God's commandments opens
a gap to he knows not how many; the beginning of sin is as the letting
forth of water.