Genesis Vol 3.pdf - College Press

THE PILGRIMAGE OF FAITH 12:10-20
senses. , . , The princes of Pharaoh were accomplices in
his crime (v. IJ), and his domestics were concurring with
him in carrying it into effect, But even apart from any
positive consent or connivance in a particular act, men,
otherwise culpable, are brought into trouble in this world
by the faults of those with whom they are associated. On
accwnt of Sarai: Pharaoh was made aware of the cause of
the plagues or strokes with which he was now visited.”
Fully cognizant now of the fact that the ccplagues’y
he and his household were suffering were divin,e visitations
for a wrong he had committed, we can well suppose, I
think, that this Egyptian king was motivated in large
part by sheer superstitious fear of the gods or god whose
will he had violated; hence, he was willing to do most any-
thing he could to get this foreigner and his caravan out
of Egypt posthaste, even providing him with an escort to
see that he left the country unharmed. He actually sent
Abram out with all the wealth the latter had acquired,
some of it probably as the king’s own purchase price for
the projected admission of Sarai into his harem. (Bride
purchase is a custom as old as the history of the race itself.)
Pharaoh consoled himself with upbraiding Abram for the
latter’s deceit, and so permitted the incident to be termin-
ated without any further unpleasantness. Abram, we are
told, left Egypt, now “very rich in cattle, in silver, and in
gold” (13:2). Traveling back through the south of Pales-
tine (the Negeb) Abram finally reached his old camping-
ground between Bethel and Ai, “unto the place of the altar,
which he had made there at the first.” “And there Abram
called on the name of Jehovah,” that is, re-established the
worship of the living and true God. Murphy suggests that
by this experience in Egypt, the patriarch, “thus reproved
through the mouth of Pharaoh, will be less hasty in
abandoning the land of promise, and betaking himself to
carnal resources” (MG, 272).
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