When we last left our friend Abram, he's had quite the trip. Starting in Ur in the far reaches of Sumer, his father led him on a journey hundreds of miles north and west to their familiar hometown of Harran, where Father Terah got bogged down and settled to spend his days. But Abram's call was renewed, a call by this mysterious god we call the LORD. The LORD God summoned Abram to strip himself of all that chained him to his earthly father and instead to come belong to a heavenly Father. The LORD God promised Abram a dazzling destiny, inviting him to a land he wouldn't know until it were shown him. And so, in faith, Abram turned south and west and south and kept going, down past Damascus, down into Canaan, to Shechem where he heard this was where his seed would live. But nothing was said about where Abram belonged. He went farther south, into the hills, and built a second altar, calling out to this God. But then he wandered on, southward still (Genesis 12:1-9).
Now, that last step south was a sensible seasonal thing. As the wet winters came, you know, his flocks would do better in the more moderate semi-arid north Negeb. Only, this was no ordinary year. “There was a famine in the land,” and in fact, “the famine was heavy in the land” (Genesis 12:10). Hard-pressed to recognize blessing, uncertain where he belonged, Abram began heading south and west again. If Terah had stopped short, Abram now overshot. Without building a third altar, without consulting his God, Abram put behind him – for now, or for good? – the land he'd heard his seed would receive for a land on the edge of all he knew: Egypt.
But not far from the Egyptian border, Abram paused. He felt unsettled. He turned to his wife with a worry. He had an evil suspicion what the Egyptians might be like. They were so unfamiliar, so dastardly; how could he be safe there? “Behold, please, I know you're a woman beautiful in appearance, and when the Egyptians, they'll say, 'This is his wife!' And they'll kill me, but you... they'll keep alive” (Genesis 12:11-12). Abram lays bare to her all his fears, all his concerns; he pleads his case that this is life-or-death for him, and God-knows-what it'd mean for her, what they'd keep her alive for. Something's got to be done to block the Egyptians' desperate lust. So Abram offers a shocking solution: “Say, please, that you're my sister, that it may go good to me because of you, that my soul may live because of you” (Genesis 12:13).
Well, that's certainly a choice! What do we do with that? Abram isn't, so far as we know, urging Sarai to say anything untrue. Although Genesis keeps us in suspense longer than we can bear, eventually Abram will explain that “she is indeed my sister – the daughter of my father, though not the daughter of my mother – and she became my wife” (Genesis 20:12). So in claiming her as his sister, St. Augustine points out that Abram “was silent about something true; he did not say something false.”1 But, be that as it may, it's a technicality; Abram clearly feels no obligation here, given his fears, to be more forthcoming than he feels safe doing. And so he won't tell the whole truth, only “an equivocating half-truth,” truth with a fig leaf over the sensitive bits.2
But what good is this selective truth supposed to do? Why would Abram be afraid to affirm the spousal aspect of their relationship, but want to openly accentuate the sibling? Well, among the cultures Abram's moving in, people figured a woman could always get a new husband, but there was no replacing a brother; we know of more recent cases in Arab history of women claiming their husbands as brothers to keep them safe, as people were willing to kill her husband, but wouldn't dare take away her brother.3 Abram's move is 100% true-to-life.
What's more, if Egyptians see Sarai (as Abram expects) and desire her (as Abram again expects), what will they want? They'll want to get her, take her, marry her. But in their world, a marriage proposal is a negotiation with the man in whose custody the woman is. By having Sarai put Abram forth as her brother in the absence of a father, she'd be indicating that anybody who wants her will have to bargain with him. And to some readers, that is just what desperate Abram's planning: to bargain her away, “gaining wealth through dowry.”4 Some suggest that Abram's goal is better translated that 'it will go well for me for the price of you.'5 They charge Abram here with “treating his wife as a disposable commodity,”6 or even complain that “he uses her like he is her pimp.”7 If those aren't strong words, I don't know what are! Clearly it's unacceptable for Abram to force Sarai into harm's way to save his skin. As the Apostle says, “husbands should love their wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself” (Ephesians 5:28). On this reading of Abram's actions, he'd flunk that test abysmally.
But there's another reading, one where Abram is craftier than we credited. Suppose the Egyptians believe Sarai is free to marry, that Abram is her brother, that they need to negotiate with him; well, who says he has to be a reasonable negotiator? In the role of Sarai's big brother, “protector and legal guardian,” Abram will be a more effective gatekeeper than if it were known he's her husband.8 He can drag out negotiations, waste the Egyptians' time while biding his.9 He can tire them out and wait them out, can “generate a bidding war between potential suitors and then delay choosing one until the famine ends.”10 He can play this game, not with any intention of ever giving Sarai up, but of dangling her just out of reach for as long as he can stall, with the option of retreat if needed. If that's what's on Abram's mind, he's definitely wise as a serpent, even if not quite innocent as a dove (Matthew 10:16). And it's important to note that Abram doesn't order her into this, but beseeches her politely. She voluntarily goes along with his proposed plan...11 no less than Adam went along with Eve.12
And so “Abram entered Egypt,” and Sarai with him (Genesis 12:14). How must he have looked to them? The Egyptians generally looked down on the nomads of south Canaan. In their eyes, somebody like Abram was “wretched because of the place he's in: short of water, bare of wood...; he doesn't dwell in one place, food propels his legs.”13 To at least put a limit on immigration from Canaan, not to say invasion, King Amenemhat I, founder of Egypt's Twelfth Dynasty, built the 'Walls of the Ruler' at the border.14 But the same king founded a settlement in the northeast Nile Delta where Canaanites could come in, work, and slowly settle down; and it's maybe here where Abram means to stay, if he can do so in peace.15
“When Abram entered Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful” (Genesis 12:14) – or, maybe, they 'noticed her because she was very beautiful.'16 Notice that she's no longer called 'his wife,' 'his woman,' but just 'the woman,' on account of their ploy; neither has she kept her name, “robbed of her individual identity.”17 And then, not only common Egyptians saw her, but “the princes of Pharaoh saw her” (Genesis 12:15). These are likely border officials stationed in the Nile Delta, and we actually know of some officials of the period, like Khnumhotep, whom we can readily imagine crossing paths with Abram and Sarai here.18
“And when the princes of Pharaoh saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh” (Genesis 12:15). Now, technically, in Abram's time, Egypt's kings weren't called 'pharaohs' yet. They lived in the pharaoh, which is Egyptian for 'great house,' the royal palace. But Genesis, using the gift of hindsight, calls earlier kings 'pharaoh' much as we do, anticipating later customs. Abram's likely arrived while the Twelfth Dynasty is in power; it was a stable time, the height of the Middle Kingdom. Nearly every one of its kings was named either Amenemhat or Senusret, and even if we aren't sure which, one of those is the king Abram must meet at the Twelfth Dynasty capital Amenemhat-itjtway, another place where Canaanites were starting to live and work and assimilate.19
Now, to get a sense what these kings were like, Senusret I proclaimed, “My power has reached the heights of heaven.... I am [God's] son, his protector; he ordained me for conquest of what he conquered.”20 And his great-grandson Senusret III, who famously invaded Canaan all the way to Shechem, was literally hailed as a god who gave life to Egypt and kept foreigners away,21 and he described himself as “aggressive to capture, swift to success.”22 Plus, one Egyptologist quips, “the pharaohs were commonly partial to attractive foreign ladies.”23
Okay, so suppose Abram's plan was to step forward as Sarai's brother so that marriage negotiations would all go through him, letting him bluff and bargain to buy time for the famine in Canaan to resolve. Well, Abram can't exactly pull that trick with a pharaoh, whose resources are vaster than Abram can imagine.24 If Abram expected to start a bidding war he could exploit, no Egyptian is going to bid against a pharaoh he sees as a god on earth!25 And how could it not look suspicious for Abram to decline a marriage alliance with the king of Upper and Lower Egypt? He dare not refuse! A later Egyptian legend pictures a married woman so sought after by a pharaoh that he went to any lengths to make her his queen, ultimately at the cost of her husband's life.26 Abram has painted himself totally into a corner; “Abram's plan has completely backfired.”27 It never occurred to him, as far up in the Delta as he'd hoped to stay, that the distant king of Egypt might step in and spoil his scheme.
“And the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house” (Genesis 12:15). The king of Egypt normally supported a rather large group of royal women with their attendants: queens, princesses, and others, all cared for by officials under the command of the Overseer of the Royal Harem.28 Not all of them may have seen him so often, and some think any new wife would have had a waiting period there to ensure she hadn't already been pregnant with the child of another.29 But that's where Sarai is: among this community of Egyptian royal women.
Back to Abram for a moment. On the one hand, “for her sake,” or in exchange for her, Pharaoh “did good to Abram,” in the sense of material prosperity. Suddenly, Abram had more than he could ever have dreamed: “he had sheep and oxen and male donkeys and male servants and female servants and female donkeys and camels” (Genesis 12:16). Given what Pharaoh knows and doesn't know, Abram – this nomad chief, this wanderer come to Egypt for asylum – is now brother-in-law to the king of Upper and Lower Egypt, son of the sun god! Or so Pharaoh thinks. Hence, Pharaoh can only understand marrying Sarai as an immense honor he's done to Abram, and his gifts to be an unparalleled blessing to Abram. Pharaoh pats himself on the back: “I did good to him.”
But at the same time Pharaoh means to do good to Abram in one way, he's sorely harming Abram. Pharaoh is detaining Abram's wife, asserting authority over Abram's wife, aiming to seduce and consort with Abram's wife. Abram is enriched materially by Pharaoh, but he's also deprived by Pharaoh in a way Abram might only now be realizing is so much more significant and insidious. “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” (Mark 8:36). And what does it profit Abram to gain all the servants and all the donkeys and camels and cows and sheep he could see, but to lose the love of his life? No wonder later Jews imagined, not at all implausibly, that “Abram wept bitterly... on the night when Sarai was taken from” him.30 In his dear wife's absence, “this treasure is like dust in his mouth,” foul and flavorless and unfulfilling.31
Now, the Bible observes that “jealousy will make a man furious, and he will not spare when he takes revenge; he will accept no compensation, he will refuse when you multiply gifts” (Proverbs 6:34-35). If Abram is a man of honor in Israelite eyes, then no gifts can cover the dark abyss of his pained heart, and no compensation can extinguish his fiery distemper in the face of an adulterous union between his wife and another man. In Greek myth, when the Trojan prince Paris seduced and stole the Spartan queen Helen, her husband Menelaus formed a coalition, raised a thousand-ship fleet, and waged a decade-long war to take Helen back. And if this were any other such literature, we'd here expect Abram to rise up and rage against Pharaoh.32 But there's no earthly hope.
Now we turn our attention back to the woman – who, all of a sudden, is once again more than 'the woman.' For the first time since they set foot in Egypt, she is – in the midst of Pharaoh's house – again reasserted as “Sarai, Abram's wife” (Genesis 12:17). If Sarai had wanted, she could've treated this as the opportunity of a lifetime, to live in luxury in an Egyptian palace. But in her heart, she is without a doubt “Abram's wife.” This happened “so that her love for her husband might be seen, for she did not exchange him for a king while she was a sojourner,” as one ancient monk remarked.33 She remains fully Abram's wife, caught dramatically in captivity.
God “permits everything to happen, letting the woman fall almost into the jaws of the beast,” an old bishop said, “and only then makes his power felt by everyone.”34 Only when it's obvious there is salvation in no one else does God look on Sarai's plight and swoop in to save where Abram can't. If Pharaoh counted on his gifts to Abram activating a blessing on the royal house, Pharaoh can think again. He's the captor from whom Sarai needs liberation. “And the LORD plagued Pharaoh with great plagues, and his house, for the matter of Sarai, wife of Abram” (Genesis 12:17). Just as it was on Sarai's account that Abram's life was spared, now it's on Sarai's account that Pharaoh meets with judgment – she's the silent catalyst for every turn.35
Exactly how God plagued Pharaoh, we don't quite know. The most common use of the word 'plague' in the Old Testament is in discussing leprosy (Leviticus 13:3). Some later Jews regarded this as “an outbreak of disease and political disturbance.”36 Other readers have seen here infertility or failed pregnancies among the royal women and his courtiers' wives, as in a parallel episode later on (Genesis 20:18).37 Most likely, it was some condition that made sure “he was not able to approach her.”38 And there's a pun here, because the Hebrew root of the word 'plague,' literally 'touch,' can also be used for touching inappropriately: as Pharaoh wished to 'touch' Abram's wife in a way unlawful to him (albeit in ignorance), the LORD touched Pharaoh before he could.39
“And Pharaoh called Abram” (Genesis 12:18). It seems the king had deduced the logic of cause and effect in these newfound woes, and had worked out enough to question Sarai and uncover the truth. And so the plagued king summons his fake brother-in-law to appear before him in the royal palace. “Pharaoh called Abram and said: 'What is this you have done to me?'” (Genesis 12:18). The question echoes word-for-word what the LORD asked Eve in the garden: “What is this that you have done?” (Genesis 3:13). It's an accusing voice, a protest against actions of injustice, an outcry against unfair treatment or disobedience to the divine will (Judges 2:2; 8:1; Jonah 1:10). It's a question of the aggrieved and angry. It must cut Abram to the quick.
But Pharaoh keeps grilling Abram. “Why didn't you tell me that she was your wife?” (Genesis 12:18). Abram, he says, should have been fully honest with him. Abram had acted on the fearful assumption that Egyptians were utterly godless. But actually, for all the idolatry Abram saw there, they viewed humans as “God's cattle: he made sky and earth for their sake..., he made breath for their noses to live; they are his images... When they weep, he hears.”40 Pharaoh's saying that Abram's mistrust was needless; had Pharaoh known the truth, he would have feared God enough to leave Abram and Sarai alone in peace. Abram's fearful deceit, Pharaoh implies, was unjustified and unjust, a wrong done by Abram to Pharaoh personally – with consequences for those around him. It's a rebuke, and it's hard to say it's totally undeserved – which might be why Abram stands in silence. Abram's presence brought no blessing to all the families of Egypt this time around (cf. Genesis 12:3).41 Perhaps honesty would have been the better policy after all.
But Pharaoh adds a third question to the mix. “Why did you tell me, 'She is my sister,' so that I took her for my wife?” (Genesis 12:19). Now, here's where Abram could argue, if he wanted. Rather infamously, “marriage between brother and sister was practiced in Egypt.” And it was a constant practice of Egyptian royalty, in imitation of the god Osiris marrying his sister Isis.42 In fact, almost every single king in the Twelfth Dynasty was either the product of a brother-sister marriage or a husband to at least one, if not two, of his own sisters. In other words, if there is literally anybody in human history who should've asked a follow-up question on hearing Abram call Sarai his sister, it's this guy! Pharaoh has no excuse for acting in haste, given his background.
“Now, then, here is your wife,” he curtly says (Genesis 12:19). Pharaoh had believed, had acted on the belief, that this woman was his wife. But now that he's uncovered the truth, knows she wasn't free to be his so long as Abram lives, Pharaoh chooses the path of life. Embarrassed and chastened by his culpably ignorant deed, Pharaoh openly renounces his false claim over Sarai and “restored her unharmed” to her lawful husband.43
“Here is your wife – take and go!” (Genesis 12:19). You can almost hear Pharaoh's agitation as he spits these monosyllabic commands at Abram. He doesn't even tell Abram what or whom to take, technically; he can't bear to mention Sarai any more. He just wants Abram out of his sight, out of his land. And to make sure of that, “Pharaoh gave his men orders concerning him, and they sent him away with his wife” (Genesis 12:20). From one point of view, this was a shameful exit, a “profoundly embarrassing” experience.44 Abram and Sarai are being deported by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They've been arrested and are being uprooted and removed from the country on account of the trouble their subterfuge brought into Pharaoh's very own household space. Their further residence in the land of Egypt is decreed illegal, and the whole point of these men having orders is to ensure by force that Abram and Sarai exit Egyptian space without delay. They sent this man away with his wife as surely as the LORD had sent the man and his wife away from the garden (Genesis 3:23).45
But from another point of view, the point of view many have preferred, these men are an honor guard, sent to protect Abram and Sarai and escort them safely through the land to the border.46 After all, if Pharaoh was plagued by Abram's God for unknowingly and negligently taking Abram's wife, might this king not be a bit concerned about consequences if he negligently exposes Abram and wife to Egypt's thieves, abductors, and killers before they're safely beyond Pharaoh's sphere of responsibility?47 It's not for no reason that Pharaoh neither harmed Abram nor even reclaimed the bride-price he'd paid him for Sarai's – he was probably afraid to.48
Look: “they sent him away with wife and all that he had” (Genesis 12:20). What's more, just as the famine that chased Abram to Egypt had been heavy, “now Abram was very heavy in livestock and in silver and in gold” (Genesis 13:2). Whatever the ethics of Abram's daring game, certainly he outwitted Pharaoh, surely he 'won'49 – and yet Abram was a hopeless loser in it, if not for the sudden act of God turning all things for his benefit. And if the Egyptian soldiers muttered one of their proverbs as they watched Abram taking Egyptian wealth to go, maybe it was this one: “The god is the one who made his accomplishment, intervening on his behalf while he was asleep.”50 Like a sleeping man, Abram couldn't do anything to help himself; but God had given the victory.
And so “Abram went up from Egypt, he and his wife and all that he had, and Lot with him, into the Negeb” (Genesis 13:1). Having previously descended into Egypt, now Abram rises again through the desert places to Canaan. Abram “descended into difficulty and then ascended into a form of redemption.”51 “And he journeyed on from the Negeb as far as Bethel, to the place where his tent had been at the start” (Genesis 13:3). Where did the end of the misadventure take him? Back in the land of promise he'd given up. And he gets there by “retracing his steps... along the same path” he took when leaving, now knowing that “God had, in fact, showed him the place” he was meant to be.52 Through detour and deliverance, “Abram is granted a new beginning.”53
Abram returned specifically “to the place where he had made an altar at the first; and there Abram called upon the name of the LORD” (Genesis 13:4). He hasn't just gained materially; he's gained spiritually, in a newfound appreciation for his wife, his land, and, above all, for God his Savior. At this altar in the land of promise, “he has returned home” spiritually as much as geographically.54 This hour of worship, as he “blessed the LORD his God who brought him back in peace,”55 “represents a new start and a new faith in God's promises”56 – as can this hour, for me and for you. Abram's now learned for himself, as must we, that the LORD “can always bring things from desperate circumstances to sound hope.”57 Now, only now, “the story is back on track.”58
But this story detour isn't just an interruption we can paper over, and it isn't merely a teachable moment. This whole ordeal is a foreshadowing of things to come. “Numerous elements of [Abram's] sojourn in Egypt parallel Israel's later experience,”59 and the stories are even told in deliberately similar language.60 Sarai stands here as an image of Israel itself, in the clutches of mighty Egyptian power; for much as Sarai was seized by Pharaoh, so would Israel be seized by Pharaoh.61 But where God rescued Sarai by plaguing Pharaoh without telling Abram, he tells Moses beforehand: “I will stretch out my hand and strike Egypt” (Exodus 3:20), “one plague more will I bring upon Pharaoh and upon Egypt” (Exodus 11:1). “Just as the entire house of Pharaoh was struck by Sarai's deliverance, so too would all Egypt be struck down by the deliverance of her descendants.”62
And just as Abram went up enriched by Pharaoh's resentful generosity, so would Israel. “I will give this people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, and when you go, you shall not go empty... You shall plunder the Egyptians... for silver and gold,” God told them (Exodus 3:21-22). But where Abram's Pharaoh feared God enough to let him go willingly, this later Pharaoh would so harden his heart as to need further inducement at the sea.63 That difference aside, the parallels are clear: Israel's exodus story was foretold in Abram's exodus story.
Many, many centuries later, God spoke his Word anew into our world, writing in flesh and blood. Jesus came, an Israelite among Israelites, to sum up and perfect Israel's story, as when he went to and fro from Egypt as a child to evade Herod, so that God could again say, “Out of Egypt I have called my Son” (Matthew 2:13-21). So decades came and went, and the fate Herod schemed was belatedly coming to pass. The Son of God suffered on a tyrant's cross, but little did jeering crowds and inciting demons know why he did it. Abram pled with his wife to save his life. Jesus, Seed of Abraham, offered his life to redeem a bride.
Expiring on the Roman wood, Jesus descended, divinity and soul, into the underworld, where Death had been clinging ravenously to every soul since Adam's heart grew still. And though the New Testament only hints circumspectly at what the Lord of Life did to Death during that solemn sabbath, other early Christian writings say more plainly how Jesus entered the underworld, how there he plagued and “plundered the angel of death.”64 And “when he tormented Death by spoiling his possessions,” surely Death, like Pharaoh, “lamented and shouted aloud, embittered, saying, 'Go away from my place!'”65 Then, “when he ascended on high, he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men” (Ephesians 4:8), fulfilling the Jewish hope that the Messiah would “take from Beliar the captives, the souls of the saints.”66 As the LORD God, Christ had invaded the 'Egypt' of the grave, plaguing Pharaoh Death with great plagues; but as a New Abram, Christ rose up from that 'Egypt,' having become enriched with holy souls at Pharaoh Death's expense. And he led that troupe up out of Egypt to the land of promised life, to where he'd already pitched the Tent not made by hands (Hebrews 9:11), to his “golden altar before God” (Revelation 9:13), there to worship before his Father's face.
But that's not where the pattern ends. For we know that “everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin” (John 8:34). Every sinner is, from one angle, oppressed by the sin that's ensnared his or her will, or, as the Apostle put it, is “captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members” (Romans 7:23). Thereby we've been in “the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will,” much as Pharaoh had lusted after and captured Sarai (2 Timothy 2:26). But “the reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8). For in this world of sin, he saw the opportunity to win for himself a Bride, the Church, whose bridal qualities mark every Christian soul as lawfully espoused to the Lord of Love.
Oh, the devil had sought to bribe Christ Jesus with all the kingdoms of the world and their riches, if only this Bridegroom would forget his Bride (Luke 4:5-7). But where Abram had not then strength to stand athwart Pharaoh's might, nor the courage to risk himself for love, “Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her... so that he might present the Church to himself in splendor” (Ephesians 5:25-27). “His eyes are like a flame of fire..., and in righteousness he judges and makes war” for her (Revelation 19:11-12), even as the kingdoms of the world vie for dominion over the Church, culpably ignorant of whose she truly and lawfully is.67
All through this age, Christ is plaguing the devil so greatly – plaguing him with light he can't dim and truth he can't deny and hopes he can't break and joy he can't tarnish and love he can't quench. As the early Christians spoke of Christ, “this is the One who clad Death in shame... and made the devil grieve.”68 He plagues the devil and all the devil's house, and he does so for the cause of the Church and of each Christian soul, saying to her, “You have captivated my heart, my sister, my bride!” (Song 4:9). And so “he has delivered us from the domain of darkness” (Colossians 1:13), from the Egypt of sin where the devil is tyrant, by the blood of the Lamb and by baptism's sea. Laden with all the treasures of goodness reclaimed, we've left that Egypt behind us; we're on our way, enriched, to the promised land, making our ascent to where we were made to be – with our Lord, our Bridegroom, our Savior, who won us back from captivity in Pharaoh's house. Thanks be to God! Amen.
1 Augustine of Hippo, Answer to Faustus the Manichean 22.34, in The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century I/20:322.
2 Bruce K. Waltke, Genesis: A Commentary (Zondervan, 2001), 213.
3 Barry L. Eichler, “On Reading Genesis 12:10-20,” in Mordechai Cogan, Barry L. Eichler, and Jeffrey H. Tigay, eds., Tehillah le-Moshe: Biblical and Judaic Studies in Honor of Moshe Greenberg (Eisenbrauns, 1997), 36.
4 Alex Varughese and Christina Bohn, Genesis 12-50: A Commentary in the Wesleyan Tradition (Beacon Hill Press, 2019), 45.
5 Joseph McDonald, Searching for Sarah in the Second Temple Era: Images in the Hebrew Bible, the Septuagint, the Genesis Apocryphon, and the Antiquities (T&T Clark, 2020), 44.
6 James McKeown, Genesis (Eerdmans, 2008), 82.
7 Tremper Longman III, Genesis (Zondervan, 2016), 169.
8 Barry L. Eichler, “On Reading Genesis 12:10-20,” in Mordechai Cogan, Barry L. Eichler, and Jeffrey H. Tigay, eds., Tehillah le-Moshe: Biblical and Judaic Studies in Honor of Moshe Greenberg (Eisenbrauns, 1997), 37-38.
9 Jonathan Grossman, Abraham: The Story of a Journey (Maggid Books, 2023), 25-26.
10 Zvi Grumet, Genesis: From Creation to Covenant (Maggid Books, 2017), 178, citing medieval rabbi Obadiah ben Jacob Sforno.
11 Terence E. Fretheim, Abraham: Trials of Family and Faith (Fortress Press, 2024; reprinted from University of South Carolina Press, 2007), 48.
12 R. R. Reno, Genesis (Brazos Press, 2010), 147.
13 Instruction to Merikare, in Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature (University of California Press, 2006 [1973]), 1:103.
14 Phyllis Saretta, Asiatics in Middle Kingdom Egypt: Perceptions and Reality (Bloomsbury Academic, 2016), 39.
15 Manfred Bietak, Avaris, the Capital of the Hyksos: Recent Excavations at Tell el-Dab'a (British Museum, 1996), 5; James K. Hoffmeier, Israel in Egypt: The Evidence for the Authenticity of the Exodus Tradition (Oxford University Press, 1997), 53.
16 Joseph McDonald, Searching for Sarah in the Second Temple Era: Images in the Hebrew Bible, the Septuagint, the Genesis Apocryphon, and the Antiquities (T&T Clark, 2020), 41.
17 David W. Cotter, Genesis (Liturgical Press, 2003), 93.
18 Phyllis Saretta, Asiatics in Middle Kingdom Egypt: Perceptions and Reality (Bloomsbury Academic, 2016), 137-139.
19 Phyllis Saretta, Asiatics in Middle Kingdom Egypt: Perceptions and Realities (Bloomsbury Academic, 2016), 151.
20 Senusret I, building inscription, in R. B. Parkinson, Voices from Middle Egypt: An Anthology of Middle Kingdom Writings (University of Oklahoma Press, 1991), 41.
21 Hymns to Senwosret III 1.8; 3.5, in James P. Allen, Middle Egyptian Literature: Eight Literary Works of the Middle Kingdom (Cambridge University Press, 2015), 448, 450; cf. Phyllis Saretta, Asiatics in Middle Kingdom Egypt: Perceptions and Realities (Bloomsbury Academic, 2016), 48.
22 Senusret III, Stemna boundary stela, in R. B. Parkinson, Voices from Middle Egypt: An Anthology of Middle Kingdom Writings (University of Oklahoma Press, 1991), 43.
23 Kenneth A. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament (Eerdmans, 2003), 319.
24 Barry L. Eichler, “On Reading Genesis 12:10-20,” in Mordechai Cogan, Barry L. Eichler, and Jeffrey H. Tigay, eds., Tehillah le-Moshe: Biblical and Judaic Studies in Honor of Moshe Greenberg (Eisenbrauns, 1997), 38; Jonathan Grossman, Abraham: The Story of a Journey (Maggid Books, 2023), 26.
25 Zvi Grumet, Genesis: From Creation to Covenant (Maggid Books, 2017), 178.
26 The Two Brothers 11-12, in Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature (University of California Press, 2006 [1976]), 2:208.
27 Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis, Chapters 1-17 (Eerdmans, 1990), 382.
28 Joyce Tyldesley, Daughters of Isis: Women of Ancient Egypt (Penguin Books, 1995), 181; Carolyn Graves-Brown, Dancing for Hathor: Women in Ancient Egypt (Continuum, 2010), 138.
29 Brian Neil Peterson, Genesis: A Pentecostal Commentary (Brill, 2022), 128.
30 1QapGen 20.11, in Daniel A. Machiela, The Dead Sea Genesis Apocryphon: A New Text and Translation (Brill, 2009), 75.
31 Jonathan Grossman, Abraham: The Story of a Journey (Maggid Books, 2023), 28.
32 Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis (Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 94.
33 Ephrem the Syrian, Commentary on Genesis 9.3.1, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 91:149.
34 John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 32.18, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 82:268.
35 Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis, Chapters 1-17 (Eerdmans, 1990), 384.
36 Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 1.164, in Loeb Classical Library 242:83.
37 Martin Luther, Lectures on Genesis 12:17, in Luther's Works 2:311.
38 1QapGen 20.17, in Daniel A. Machiela, The Dead Sea Genesis Apocryphon: A New Text and Translation (Brill, 2009), 75; cf. Augustine of Hippo, The City of God 16.19, in The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century I/7:209; Theodoret of Cyrus, Questions on Genesis 63, in Library of Early Christianity 1:129.
39 Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis (Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 97.
40 Instruction of Merikare, in Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature (University of California Press, 2006 [1973]), 1:106.
41 Bruce K. Waltke, Genesis: A Commentary (Zondervan Academic, 2001), 215.
42 Joanne-Marie Robinson, “Blood is Thicker Than Water”: Non-Royal Consanguineous Marriage in Ancient Egypt: An Exploration of Economic and Biological Outcomes (Archaeopress, 2020), 18.
43 Augustine of Hippo, Answer to Faustus the Manichean 22.33, in The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century I/20:322.
44 John C. Lennox, Friend of God: The Inspiration of Abraham in an Age of Doubt (SPCK, 2024), 72.
45 Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis, Chapters 1-17 (Eerdmans, 1990), 386.
46 1QapGen 20.32, in Daniel A. Machiela, The Dead Sea Genesis Apocryphon: A New Text and Translation (Brill, 2009), 77.
47 Martin Luther, Lectures on Genesis 12:20, in Luther's Works 2:322.
48 Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis, Chapters 1-17 (Eerdmans, 1990), 385.
49 Barry L. Eichler, “On Reading Genesis 12:10-20,” in Mordechai Cogan, Barry L. Eichler, and Jeffrey H. Tigay, eds., Tehillah le-Moshe: Biblical and Judaic Studies in Honor of Moshe Greenberg (Eisenbrauns, 1997), 27.
50 Instructions of Kagemni's Father, lines 184-185, in James P. Allen, Middle Egyptian Literature: Eight Literary Works of the Middle Kingdom (Cambridge University Press, 2015), 183.
51 Jonathan Grossman, Abraham: The Story of a Journey (Maggid Books, 2023), 25.
52 Zvi Grumet, Genesis: From Creation to Covenant (Maggid Books, 2017), 133.
53 Jonathan Grossman, Abraham: The Story of a Journey (Maggid Books, 2023), 29.
54 Bill T. Arnold, Genesis (Cambridge University Press, 2009), 140.
55 Jubilees 13:15, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 2:83.
56 James McKeown, Genesis (Eerdmans, 2008), 83.
57 John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 32.22, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 82:271.
58 John Goldingay, Genesis (Baker Academic, 2020), 221.
59 Terence E. Fretheim, Abraham: Trials of Family and Faith (Fortress Press, 2024; reprinted from University of South Carolina Press, 2007), 51.
60 Robert J.V. Hiebert, “In and Out of Egypt: Genesis as Prelude to the Exodus Story,” in Robert J.V. Hiebert, Jonathan Numada, Dongshin Don Chang, and Kyung S. Baek, eds., Themes and Texts, Exodus and Beyond: Essays in Honour of Larry J. Perkins (T&T Clark, 2024), 80.
61 Bill T. Arnold, Genesis (Cambridge University Press, 2009), 138.
62 Ephrem the Syrian, Commentary on Genesis 9.3.1, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 91:149.
63 Martin Luther, Lectures on Genesis 12:18-19, in Luther's Works 2:317.
64 Ascension of Isaiah 9.16, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 2:170.
65 Aphrahat the Persian, Demonstrations 22.4, in Moran 'Eth'o 24:233.
66 Testament of Dan 5.11, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 1:809.
67 Augustine of Hippo, Answer to Faustus the Manichean 22.38, in The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century I/20:324-325.
68 Melito of Sardis, On the Passover 68, in Popular Patristics Series 20:55.
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