The land that was promised to Abram was a blessing and he built an altar to mark the place and remember the moment. But then the very blessing of the land became a problem when famine struck, and it stopped producing food (v 10). What was he to do, since above all else, the fulfilment of God’s other significant promises depended on his own survival? Escape to Egypt would have seemed like a sensible solution. Integrity is the quality of character that shows us to be ‘whole’ people of whom others would say, ‘What you see is what you get.’ Abram broke this integrity when he chose to ‘help’ fulfil the promises of God by twisting the truth (vs 12,13). 

This sordid episode ends tolerably well – but only when Abram’s foolishness is exposed and confronted by Pharaoh. God intervenes to bring this about, because even though Abram behaved rashly and with little faith, God continued to work his purposes out through his imperfect servant (vs 17–20). This can be a sobering comfort to us when we fail too.

Ask for the help of the Holy Spirit that in these studies we may see the connections between the ancient texts and our world today.

After the upbeat nature of the previous passage, this incident comes as a shock. It certainly prevents us from turning the patriarchs into idealised figures of faith by highlighting their human frailty and weakness. It also underlines the fact that the fulfilment of the promise cannot depend, in the final analysis, upon human beings, but requires the intervention of God at critical points in the story. 

Two comments may help our understanding of this difficult text. First, we have to keep in mind the contrast between our modern culture and that of the ancient world, especially with regard to family structures and relationships. Archaeological research has revealed the existence of what we may call ‘wife-sistership’, by which a married woman might have the legal status of ‘sister’ to another man, a position which enhanced her privileges and protection. The Jewish scholar Nahum Sarna comments that the Genesis narratives ‘have faithfully recorded the unique institution of wife-sistership’.¹ 

Second, without absolving Abram of guilt in relation to his deception and his willingness to put his wife at great risk, we see that this incident records the first clash between the bearer of the promise of God and the overwhelming power and glory of the empire of Egypt. Consider the plight of refugees who arrive in Europe today, penniless and vulnerable, not least to sexual exploitation. Abram and Sarai are in flight from famine, so that the utterly powerless is exposed to the absolute potentate. The imperial context (which will appear repeatedly in the following chapters) places the patriarch’s failure in a rather different light, even as it underlines the crucial importance of God’s gracious intervention. 

Think about migrants in the modern world and pray for them, especially for Christians who believe their long and hard journeys are part of God’s purposes for the world.

¹ Nahum Sarna, Understanding Genesis: The Heritage of Biblical Israel, Shocken Books, 1966, p103