Pensée juive sur La Genèse 20:3

Divine intervention when applied to the Jewish people is the norm rather than the exception. Divine intervention, when applied to gentiles is restricted to a small segment of the people and occurs at rare intervals. Examples are: the deluge, Sodom, Nineveh, Avimelech and Pharaoh being punished on account of Abraham, Egypt's ten plagues and the kings of Canaan in their war against Joshua. We read in Psalms 33, 14, "G-d looks down from the heavens and relates to all the inhabitants of earth from His residence...the eye of the Lord is directed towards those who fear Him." Clearly, the application of Divine intervention when dealing with the gentiles has as its objective the protection of His people. When Isaiah 44,28, quotes G-d as saying "who says about Cyrus "He is My shepherd," it refers to Cyrus' dream in which he had seen himself as rebuilding Jerusalem and the temple in G-d’s honour. This is an instance of Divine intervention in the life of a gentile for the sake of the Jewish people. Since the tabernacle became the seat from which Divine intervention would emanate, we understand the Midrash which states that until the building of the tabernacle, prophecy was found amongst the nations of the world, only to be removed from them once the tabernacle had been erected. When Bileam prophesied, it was only for the benefit of Israel. The problem with the Midrash is that we do not really find gentile prophets either prior to or subsequent to the erection of the tabernacle. The few instances of visions in a dream that Pharaoh and Avimelech or Laban had experienced, are not to be equated with prophecy. (Maimonides Moreh section three, chapter 2) On the other hand, were we to assume that such prophets did exist, it seems unfair to remove such powers from them merely because of the erection of the tabernacle. Regarding Moses’s prayer (Exodus 33, 16) to withhold the shechinah from non Jews, and G-d’s acquiescence, this too seems a case of an improper request by a student, and a response by his teacher that hardly seems appropriate. One must consider however that the very paucity of Divine intervention until that time, had made it difficult for people to recognise G-d and His power, since people had only seen natural law at work. They believed these laws to be inexorable. For that reason, G-d had to allow prophets among the nations, so that people would become aware of an alternative to natural law, namely G-d’s Personal intervention in the affairs of man. Prophecy at that time, meant that astrology and such would be used by wise men to forecast the future. Once the string of miracles that had preceded the building of the tabernacle and continued afterwards became the norm, the relative wisdom of the astrologers, soothsayers etc. faded into insignificance. This is why Bileam said "Jacob has neither charms nor enchantments." (Numbers 23,33.) What he meant was that those who had the powers of charms and enchantments could not bring them to bear upon this nation, since that people was not subject to the rule of natural law as evidenced in horoscopes and the like. This is the removal of prophecy from the nations of the world that Moses had prayed for. In other words, Moses prayed that such enchantments become irrelevant to Israel's fate. He did not ask that real prophetic powers which the nations never possessed be removed from them. Moses wanted veniflinu, let us be distinguished; G-d responded "I shall do wonderful things." Israel, on the other hand, would be guided only by hashgachah peratit, and astrologers, enchanters etc. should not exist among them. This realisation came to the gentiles in stages. First, the Egyptians acknowledged "a finger of G-d." Vitro came to acknowledge "for I know that G-d is greater than any other deity." Rahav, who had harboured the spies that Joshua had sent to Jericho, expressed herself in similar fashion.

We consider an uncircumcised person as a human being with a severe physical defect as is evident from many verses in Scripture. Our sages describe Bileam's inability to stand in the presence of the Shechinah as due to his being uncircumcised. On the two occasions that G-d appeared to Abraham prior to his being circumcised, he is reported as having fallen down on his face. On the other hand, when he has subsequent visions or visitations by G-d, he was able to remain seated or even standing such as when the angels approached him after the circumcision. When we find conflicting opinions among the sages regarding the age at which Abraham first recognized his Creator, namely whether at the age of three or at the age of forty-eight, the conflict may be due to the mitzvah of orlah being a three-year concept in the Torah (Bereshit Rabbah 64 and Nedarim 32). Trees that are less than three years old are considered uncircumcised, their fruit is forbidden. Since man has been compared to trees, i.e. "for man is like the tree of the field" (Deut. 20,19), it may be that our sages meant that although Abraham recognized G-d while still physically an arel, uncircumcised, the number three being merely a symbolical age, the nature of his philosophical and ethical progress underwent such a change after his circumcision that anyone who referred to Abraham by his original name "Abram" is guilty of a misdemeanor, since that name had applied to a totally different personality. (1+2) All the communications between G-d and Abraham prior to his being circumcised involve a relationship short of the level of prophecy. Such communications we find addressed to others, such as Avimelech and Laban. Even the fish that swallowed Jonah received this kind of communication from G-d. Since Abraham had attained recognition of his Creator by means of his intellect, G-d wanted to remove him from an environment which was so hostile to his further moral and philosophical progress. (3) Since Sarah, Abraham's wife, had been described as barren already in Parshat Noach, the promise that Abraham would not only become a father but a founder of nations in another country, is indeed a special blessing.

Every passage in Scripture introduced by any of these four forms is a prophecy proclaimed by a prophet; but the phrase, “And Elohim (an angel) came to a certain person in the dream of night,” does not indicate a prophecy, and the person mentioned in that phrase is not a prophet; the phrase only informs us that the attention of the person was called by God to a certain thing, and at the same time that this happened at night. For just as God may cause a person to move in order to save or kill another person, so He may cause, according to His will, certain things to rise in man’s mind in a dream by night. We have no doubt that the Syrian Laban was a perfectly wicked man, and an idolater; likewise Abimelech, though a good man among his people, is told by Abraham concerning his land [Gerar] and his kingdom, “Surely there is no fear of God in this place” (Gen. 20:11). And yet concerning both of them, viz., Laban and Abimelech, it is said [that an angel appeared to them in a dream]. Comp. “And Elohim (an angel) came to Abimelech in a dream by night” (ibid. ver. 3); and also, “And Elohim came to the Syrian Laban in the dream of the night” (ibid. 31:24). Note and consider the distinction between the phrases, “And Elohim came,” and “Elohim said,” between “in a dream by night,” and “in a vision by night.” In reference to Jacob it is said, “And an angel said to Israel in the visions by night” (Gen. 46:2), but in reference to Laban and Abimelech, “And Elohim came,” etc. Onkelos makes the distinction clear; he translates, in the last two instances, ata memar min kodam adonai, “a word came from the Lord,” and not ve-itgeli, “and the Lord appeared.”