Abraham and Sarah in Egypt

hello friends welcome to another episode of a video in which we discuss some of the more sordid stories of sake scripture in traverse paths at few pilgrims dare to tread I want you to think about some of the more famous people of the Bible though the heroes men like David and Moses and Abraham the exemplars of righteousness and faith right these are bright lights and an otherwise dark landscape of murder bloodshed and debauchery but you astute readers out there already know that the Bible isn't so simple even the good guys are flawed and complicated take David for instance and his debacle with Bathsheba and his subsequent murder of her husband Uriah it doesn't get much more dark than that but then even Moses has his black eye doesn't he he after a lapse in obedience and humility was forbidden from entering the land of Canaan this after leading the people of Israel around the wilderness for forty years but what about father Abraham now there's a righteous soul right if anybody has a sterling record its Abraham well once again those of you who have stuck to your daily Bible reading schedules and have gotten through the book of Genesis my remember an episode in which Abraham does something kind of nasty to his wife Sarah at the hands more or less of Pharaoh I am of course referring to the incident in which Abraham insisted that Sarah tell everybody that she was his sister rather than his wife and she was whisked away to the harem of Pharaoh and Abraham profited quite handsomely from the affair well that's pretty hairy but the reason why I bring it up is that it might be a surprise to many of you that Abraham made kind of a habit of this wife pimping and that he did it not once twice and as they say the nut never falls far from the tree apparently this made a real impression on his son Isaac who some time later after Abraham's death did the same thing with his wife Rebekah now what's going on here so we have three instances of wife pipi here in the same family Wow is there something else going on here this story is repeated three times well that should raise some red flags for you and we're gonna do what we so often do with this video series is after I tell you the stories we're gonna put on our thinking caps and we're going to be armchair scholars for a few minutes while we try to unpack what might actually be going on with these three sequences and who knows we might just be able to exonerate Abraham from at least some of the guilt that comes with this behavior I'll let you be the judge but for now settle in and let me tell you these three stories now the first of these three sequences occurs relatively early in abraham's career he is not yet known as Abraham but Abram and his wife Sarah is not yet Sarah but Sarai but to keep things simple I'm gonna refer to them as Abraham and Sarah so he has only recently been called by God to adventure to go to the promised land or in God's words to a land where I will show you but Abraham's been dragging his feet about that and it isn't until his father Terah dies that Abraham finally gets around to obeying the command and heads onto Canaan but he isn't there long before severe famine hits the land and he's not able to stay so he packs up his gear and his wife Sarah and all his servants and everything is by this time already a rich man and he heads south to Egypt another way he says something rather strange to his dear wife he says woman I perceive that you are a comb Lee and handsome woman and when the Egyptians see you they will say behold this is her husband and they will kill me for your sake and leave you alive I pray therefore that you will say you are my sister so that it would be well with me on your account and I will live because of you Wow words to make a girl swoon right well Abraham is 75 and Sarah is 65 they've been married a while so perhaps the bud of chivalry and romance is long since withered from the vine anyway what is he brahim thinking so apparently Sarah is such a hottie that when the Egyptians lay eyes on her they're going to lose their and kill him in order to have her I don't know why alternatives didn't occur to him maybe like having her wear a veil dressing her up as a leper leaving her in the tent I don't know there were surely other ways right but it seems Abraham's best strategy for protecting her virtue is not to protect it at all but leave it out there in the open and parenthetically we might ask if the Egyptians are such thugs that they would kill a man and take his wife why wouldn't they kill a man and take the rest of what he has to anyway Abraham does appear to be spot-on about what the Egyptians think about Sarah they lay eyes on this hot new Hebrew Bedouin from the hinterlands of Palestine and they're just beside themselves she's the most beautiful thing they've ever seen hey son I never seen angora looks so good on a woman well the princes and the nobles get hold of this information they see her and they say boys we got to tell Pharaoh about this and pharaoh comes down and has a look at her apparently asked about her marital status and sarah says he's not my husband he's my brother I'm his sister we're brother and sister and pharaoh takes her off to his harem well we don't know how long Sarah is under Pharaohs care and we don't know whether or not he sleeps with her the text doesn't say that's left to our imagination it's left to Abraham's imagination as well and you wonder what he thinks all this even as he's being enriched by Pharaoh who gives him ox and sheep and donkeys and male servants and female servants and all kinds of additions to his already apparently substantial wealth well things seem to be going well at least ostensibly for Abraham but not so well for poor old Pharaoh who suddenly come down with a bunch of plagues we don't know what kind of plagues they are but they inflict him and his household so much that Pharaoh gets curious summons up his sous Ayers and bone Rattlers and seers to do a root cause analysis of the situation and they quickly narrow it down to the harem hey boss they something up with this new girl you brought in she ain't no virgin hell she ain't even single and that bearded fella out there he ain't her brother well Pharaoh is hot and if there was ever a time that Abraham might fear for his life it might be now Pharaoh marches Sarah out to meet Abraham and says boy what the hell have you done to me you told me she was your sister here I brought her into my wedding chamber now the King James Version says what have you done I might have taken her to wife but the New International Version says for I took her as a wife and it turns out that the NIV is more true to the Hebrew muhib Roux doesn't say might have the Hebrew doesn't say possibly could have maybe it says I took her as a wife now does that mean they slept together I don't know anyway Pharaoh charges his men to escort Abraham with his possessions and his wife out of the territory he says take your stuff and take your wife and get out okay well that's sequence number one let's talk about sequence number two the next episode takes place 25 years later Abraham is a hundred and Sarah is 90 and lots of things have happened in the intervening 25 years he's been promised a son let's see he's pled the case for Sodom and Gomorrah he's been visited by God a few times right and he's also taken 300 of his trained men into armed combat with five kings to rescue his nephew lot so lots of stuff lots of things to develop a man's faith and his confidence right not to mention wealth but for reasons we don't know he's sojourning again is that as the scriptures like to call it he's travelling south and winds up in Greer which is as far as the Bible is concerned Philistia the Philistine people historical enemies of God and he finds himself under the care of a Ben elec and once again Abraham is up to his old tricks she's my sister and Abimelech takes 90 year-old Sarah off to his bedchamber or off to his palace I should say as a wife and again Abraham is left cooling his heels wondering when the wealth is going to pour meanwhile God visits Abimelech in a dream so God says do Abimelech you are a dead man because of this woman for she is another man's wife now Abimelech answers back and says kind of what we've all been thinking here first of all I haven't touched her second of all he said that she was his sister I didn't know she was a married woman I took her out of the integrity of my heart and he says something else here that's really interesting he says what does he say let's find out you would now so slay a righteous nation would you now that's reminiscent of words that Abraham himself said sometime ago when pleading the case for Sodom Gomorrah you wouldn't destroy the righteous with the unrighteous would you the writers of this story had a sense of humor in a sense of irony that the good guy isn't the good guy and the bad guy isn't the bad guy but listen to what God says to Abimelech in response he says in Genesis chapter 20 verse 6 and following I know that you did this out of the innocence of your heart that is why I prevented you from sinning against me by sleeping with her well thank goodness for that now you must restore this man for he is a prophet and he shall pray for you so that you and yours will be healed and shall not die apparently which we will learn later all of the women of a Benelux household had become barren so that might tell you just how long Sarah was with AB emilich right now what is this so you're going to have the guy without integrity pray for the guy who showed integrity anyway so once again a real sense of irony here and then God always getting in the last word says but be assured if you do not restore this man's wife you and your shall surely die so early the next morning the family gathers his servants and tells them what's going on and they are terrified he marches Sarah out Abraham and says what the Sandhill are you doing to me son you realized I could have slept with that woman and brought all manner of curses down on the heads of me and mind why the hell would you do something like that to me so Abraham actually answers and his response is quite interesting it's the reason why this of all three stories is my favorite because the characters are so much more loquacious and expressive you kind of get inside their heads Abraham's answer is lame pathetic and self contradictory you'll see what I mean he says well the way I figured there was no fear of God in this country and they will surely kill me because of her so I said whatever the next thing he says is and she really is my sister same father different mother okay finally he adds from the very beginning I have said to Sarah my wife that wherever we go whenever we journey into a strange land this is how she shall show her love for me that she says I'm her brother and she is my sister okay well let's just pick this apart for a minute so first of all what an insult to have been lack right there is no fear of God in this country but the irony is that in both cases that in both circumstances in which Abraham feared for his life the so called enemy proves to be more honorable than he the second is well just blame I mean okay she's my half-sister it's still a lie and finally his response this has been our agreement from the beginning that wherever we go you'll call me your brother and you will be my sister so first of all he tells the men alike that the reason why they're masquerading his brothers and sisters because he fears for his life in this godless country but then he turns around and tells him it's a matter of general policy so which is it Abraham so as far as I'm concerned his answers fall flat and I don't think a band alike would buy it either here's what a been elect us he gives Abraham a whole bunch of gifts once again the donkeys the turkeys the oxen is the Buffalo so on and so forth and and then he says something rather strange to Sarah I've given your brother a thousand pieces of silver for you as a covering of the eyes and it says Sarah was reproved it's kinda like his way of rebuking her and saying shame on you for playing into all this so Abraham once again is a rich man because of this whole enterprise Abimelech tells his men leave the man alone don't touch him and so Abraham goes on his way and that's the second story now the third and final story I'm gonna tell you involves Isaac and Rebekah Ennis after Abraham and Sara have died and some things have gone on and there's another famine in the land the scripture says and this is in Genesis chapter 26 there was a famine in the land like in the days of Abraham so severe that Isaac again has to leave and he's headed south to Egypt sound familiar but God heads him off the pass and says don't go down to Egypt for I have given this land to you and yours and made this promise to Abraham that I will multiply his seed and quart of reiterates the promise that the promise also extends to him Isaac and so Isaac shoves his shoulders and heads off into you guessed it career and who does he meet but Abimelech now I don't know whether this is the same Abimelech as was with Abraham or as the exegetes and apologists like to say that this is a different Abimelech and Abimelech is like Pharaoh just a title there might be a simpler explanation for that which we'll see in a few minutes but bear with me so he's in the land of Greer under the auspices of Abimelech and one day a bem Electro's open the palace windows and takes a look across the pasture and looks down and happens to see Isaac doing something very unbrotherly with Rebecca now that's kind of weird isn't it you talk about public shame how did that come to pass don't they have tents even then anyway he looks out the window and sees this and his scandalize and goes hey she hates your sister that's your wife that's a generous assumption I think he marches down there gives him a speech very similar to what the other Abimelech gave to Abraham he says what in the world are you doing son one of my father's mother slept with that woman and there had been all kinds of trouble he says why would you do something like this and what do you think Isaac's answer is he learned from pops he says well I figured they would kill me for her sake because she was fair to look upon okay now pause here let's rewind the clock a little bit and and let me remind you how old Sarah was when a Ben electic her she was 90 years old okay now again exegetes and interpreters of the text will say well well well but Abimelech was you see not interested in sex with her he was she was interested in political alliances she was a wife of a powerful man well that might be an explanation but the thing is in every other situation they are the husband's are afraid for their lives because their wives were beautiful and Abraham even says to Abimelech I thought there was no fear of God in this land so I thought they would take her why would Abraham think that they would take a woman for purposes of political alliances that I did never has it never has added up to me it seems as lame as Abraham's answer to a bit like anyway back to Isaac so a bevel X says to his people don't touch this man or his wife and anybody that does will be put to death meanwhile meanwhile Isaac goes off and it says that his farming adventures yield one hundredfold and that he is a much more successful farmer sheepherder grazer what it would whatever you may call it then anyone around him and he got so powerful and so wealthy that the people of the land told him to leave because he was so much greater than they and then there was some kerfuffles over some wells and so on and so forth but the point is Isaac is once again enriched over AB emilich okay so that's as far as I'm going to go with the third story so there you have it three instances of wife pimping in the family of Abraham all right so let's put our thinking caps on and trying to unpack these three stories because if you're still with me and you've heard these stories in sequence you might have noticed something rather interesting about the text these are the same story told with different characters in different places but the structure of these stories is virtually identical now most readers miss this because they don't read the stories one after another there are spaced enough so that as they read their daily chapters by the time they get to each story each one might be somewhat familiar but they miss the fact that the stories are so similar if you read the stories in sequence Genesis chapter 12 Genesis chapter 20 in Genesis chapter 26 this becomes very clear so what's going on why do we have the same story repeated three times with all the same elements well I'm going to tell you this was no accident it wasn't an accident by the writers but most importantly this wasn't an accident of mere history okay the storytellers or the redactors of the text who wove these stories together force we're making a deliberate literary point so let's talk about that point for a minute what were the writers doing here to best illustrate what the storytellers had in mind let's look at the very first version of this story Abraham Sarah in Egypt so what happened what were the events let's look at it first of all you have the patriarch Abraham driven out of Canaan because of a famine so he goes to Egypt for relief when he arrives Pharaoh takes Sarah captive in slaves her if you will right and what shows Pharoah the error of his ways are plagues sent by God Pharaoh then releases Sarah and drives Abraham out Abraham then leaves with the plunder of Egypt now does this sound familiar to you it ought to because this folks is the Exodus story these are the very same elements that lead us through the whole sequence of events at the end of Genesis and I might add the Exodus story is fulcrum on which the entire Pentateuch rests right it's the central story everything after the exodus points back to this event God constantly reminding the Israelites that remember how I led you by the hand out of Israel and of course the Passover Feast that they were supposed to observe every year and of course before the Exodus the stories and narrative points towards Exodus like this story does then remember by the time these stories were written down and codified they would have been very familiar to the ears of those who heard them because they came from an oral tradition in which these stories were told over and over again so when they heard that Abraham and Sarah and Egypt story they would have recognized immediately what was going on and they would have gone aha then they would have heard the Abimelech in Abraham's story in gone hah now this sounds familiar this harkens back to the original Abraham and Sarah story and then they get to the Isaac and Rebecca story with abemolik and the text itself draws their minds back to the original Abraham's story so that's interesting so first we have the motif of the Exodus story the referencing a greater meta-narrative and then we have the repetition what's going on with the repetition so once again this is a method commonly used by the Hebrew writers to create emphasis right example being the temple of the Lord the Temple of the Lord or Jesus saying truly truly I say unto you that is a very ancient tradition right there right it says hey listen up this is really important we see this all the time of doublets and triplets stories put there not by accident but to emphasize something gets greater than those individual stories themselves which we've addressed before such as Judas rod of shame or Joseph's cloak or Abraham and Sarah in Egypt they're used as literary devices to foreshadow a greater story a meta-narrative as I said so again the storytellers and the redactors of the story they knew what they were doing and they weren't just interested in the mirror recitation of these guys were creating literature misses the point so I know that not all interpreters are comfortable with this analysis those who are committed to a strict historical interpretation of the text often miss this nuance in this richness in the text perhaps it makes them uncomfortable to think that well if this is true that these stories are in fact developed or created if you will but let me remind you that even my clock onna a philosopher and Christian apologist says quote ancient biographers were not aiming at modern precision unquote and this is abundantly clear when we carefully study the text and we see these motifs built into the stories okay well let's revisit my original question did Abraham actually pimp out his wife twice and then inculcate his son with the same practice well I don't know and the dwell on that maybe misses the point that the storytellers were trying to present to us whether you believe these stories are historical or not I hope you have a greater appreciation for the depth and richness of the text and if you come this far I hope this has been interesting to you I hope you got something out of it I hope you also stick around for the next video and that you'll hit the like button maybe even leave a review or a comment thank you very much and you've been very patient and Lord willing see you next time feminine relief wind up being enslaved by Egypt and spend seriously and spend some time 450 years in Egypt before the 10 plagues

Channel: TheEyesofIsaac

Views: 895

Rating: 4.7333331 out of 5

Keywords: Pharaoh, Slavery in Egypt, Wife, she is my sister, Abimelech, famine, half-sister, beautiful

Id: gBIpBy3VBdI

Length: 24min 36sec (1476 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 10 2019