Comentario sobre Génesis 20:11

רק אין יראת אלהים SURELY THERE IS NO FEAR OF GOD — When a stranger arrives in a city do people ask him about what he would like to eat or to drink, or do they ask him about his wife—“Is this your wife?” or “Is this your sister?” (Bava Kamma 92a) (Surely if they ask at all, it is about his needs; if they ask regarding his relationship to the lady accompanying him, it is evidence that they are not God-fearing people!)

רק אין יראת אלוקים במקום הזה, there is no respect for the government’s authority. The Philistines did not have kings, but their political leaders were known as סרנים, as we know from the story of Goliath, who was a law unto himself due to his personal strength and was not subject to the authority of such סרנים. Compare Goliath’s boast הלא אנכי הפלשתי ואתם עבדים לשאול, “am I not the Philistine, whereas you are slaves of Sha-ul.” (Samuel I 17,8)

בי אמרתי…אין יראת אלוקים במקום הזה. "For I said (to myself) that there is no fear of the Lord in this place." This is the answer to the question: "what did you see?" Abraham prefaced his answer with the word רק, "only." He wanted to forestall Avimelech saying to him that if he, Abraham, considered the men as lacking in basic fear of the Lord, why did he worry more about their murdering him and then taking his wife? He should have worried more about the latter! Abraham said: רק, i.e. "I reasoned that they would try and minimise their culpability. As long as I would be alive every man sleeping with my wife would commit a capital offence every time, and would accordingly face many punishments. If they killed me first, they would only be guilty of murder once, whereas they would not become culpable for sleeping with my widow. If a number of them would conspire to kill me, each one causing a single injury not in itself fatal, they would claim that they were not even guilty of murder." Abraham said that this was why he decided to describe Sarah as his sister.

ויאמר..רק אין יראת אלוקים, Avraham replied that though the land was good there was no feeling of fear of the Lord in it. This was the only drawback of that country. As a result, if I would have protested they would have killed me in order not to become guilty of the greater sin of adultery.

There is no fear of Elokim. He informed him that even culture and refinement are no guarantee that a person’s passions will not overcome his intellect, leading him to commit the basest crimes. The only attribute that can be trusted to prevent him from sinning is fear — in particular fear of Heaven. In this place. There can be no fear of Heaven without belief in Providence.

Ihr habt mir nichts getan, ich habe auch keine besonderen Erfahrungen bei euch gemacht, die mich zu dem Verfahren veranlasst haben. Es fehlt bei euch nichts, es herrscht bei euch dieselbe staatliche Ordnung wie überall, nur habe ich wie überall, so auch bei euch, nicht die Gottesfurcht vorausgesetzt, die Gottesfurcht, die mir verbietet, mein Weib freiwillig preiszugeben, die euch verbieten sollte, das Weib eines Fremden anzutasten, oder ihn zu töten, wenn er es wagen wollte, sich eurer Unsitte zu widersetzen. Dieses רק ist nur aus der Allgemeinheit des Mangels an Gottesfurcht zu verstehen, die daraus keinen besonderen Vorwurf für Abimelechs Land machen ließ, nicht aber als ob ein solcher Mangel an sich in Abrahams Äußerung als etwas Geringfügiges bezeichnet wäre.

רק אין יראת, “there is only no awe of the Lord, etc;” Avraham could have said that there was no fear of any retribution for criminal acts from a deity. There are three diminutives in this verse, i.e. the words: ,רק, אך and מן. We have a rule that one diminutive is designed to exclude something from the rule discussed, whereas two such diminutives are a signal that something additional is to be added. It follows that when there are tree diminutives, it again is meant to exclude something. In this instance Avraham acknowledged that there were things in the universe which the Philistines feared, but it was not judgment by an invisible G-d. Rabbi Chavell refers the reader to the comment on this verse cited in Torah Shleymah #54. by an invisible G-d.