I am not here to claim any great wisdom that I know all the subtle nuances and all the intricacies related to a people and an era long passed. I am able to say, though, we can notice things, different from our own experience, consider it from their vantage point of living it, and perhaps acquire a greater depth to the stories than our surface-level reading offer.
Consider, for example, the story from Genesis 12, where Abram goes down to Egypt to live due to a famine that has stricken the land of Canaan. He tells his wife Sarai to say she is his sister because he fears the Egyptians will kill him so they can have his wife, a woman who was very beautiful. Ironically, when Pharaoh hears all the people praising Sarai, he takes her for himself, only to be rebuked by God, returning her to Abram when he discovers she is his wife.
The same story replays itself in Genesis 26, when Isaac, Abraham's son, goes to live in the land of Gerar, where we find Abimelech, king of the Philistines, to whom he tells the same deception as his father decades earlier: his wife was his sister, not his wife, because he feared for his life, just as his father Abraham had feared for his own.
Viewing these two stories from our 21st century eyes, we can easily conclude both Abraham and Isaac had justified reasons for their fear. They lived amongst a people who were not their own, hence no reason existed to believe they adhered to the same standards of behavior ordered by God Almighty. What would prevent such a people from taking whatever they saw as desirable, i.e. a beautiful woman like Sarah? Or like Rebekah?
Yet what was the end result in both tales? Both kings were appalled at the deception. Not for the lie itself, but rather for the potential consequences of that lie. As Abimelek declared to Isaac, 'What is this you have done to us? One of the men might have slept with your wife and brought great guilt upon us.'
Remarkable how the rulers of those days, considered by the mindset of our days as pagan and godless, exhibited some sense of respect for the marriage of a man to his wife. A third story exists in Genesis 20, where Abraham goes to live in Gerar this time and encounters Abimelek with the same plan and the same results. This time, however, God speaks to Abimelek in a dream, revealing the truth of Sarah as Abraham's wife. Abimelek is thunderstruck with the revelation, showing a clear understanding of the sin in which he was nearly to engage himself.
Granted, other sins do exist outside of taking another man's wife. The world was a sinful place back then just as it is today. Yet it is the comprehension of a man's wife is a man's wife, and no other man should even think of possessing her - no matter how great her beauty - that seems to have been a clear reality back then, though it is fading away today.
Consider, for example, the story from Genesis 12, where Abram goes down to Egypt to live due to a famine that has stricken the land of Canaan. He tells his wife Sarai to say she is his sister because he fears the Egyptians will kill him so they can have his wife, a woman who was very beautiful. Ironically, when Pharaoh hears all the people praising Sarai, he takes her for himself, only to be rebuked by God, returning her to Abram when he discovers she is his wife.
The same story replays itself in Genesis 26, when Isaac, Abraham's son, goes to live in the land of Gerar, where we find Abimelech, king of the Philistines, to whom he tells the same deception as his father decades earlier: his wife was his sister, not his wife, because he feared for his life, just as his father Abraham had feared for his own.
Viewing these two stories from our 21st century eyes, we can easily conclude both Abraham and Isaac had justified reasons for their fear. They lived amongst a people who were not their own, hence no reason existed to believe they adhered to the same standards of behavior ordered by God Almighty. What would prevent such a people from taking whatever they saw as desirable, i.e. a beautiful woman like Sarah? Or like Rebekah?
Yet what was the end result in both tales? Both kings were appalled at the deception. Not for the lie itself, but rather for the potential consequences of that lie. As Abimelek declared to Isaac, 'What is this you have done to us? One of the men might have slept with your wife and brought great guilt upon us.'
Remarkable how the rulers of those days, considered by the mindset of our days as pagan and godless, exhibited some sense of respect for the marriage of a man to his wife. A third story exists in Genesis 20, where Abraham goes to live in Gerar this time and encounters Abimelek with the same plan and the same results. This time, however, God speaks to Abimelek in a dream, revealing the truth of Sarah as Abraham's wife. Abimelek is thunderstruck with the revelation, showing a clear understanding of the sin in which he was nearly to engage himself.
Granted, other sins do exist outside of taking another man's wife. The world was a sinful place back then just as it is today. Yet it is the comprehension of a man's wife is a man's wife, and no other man should even think of possessing her - no matter how great her beauty - that seems to have been a clear reality back then, though it is fading away today.
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