22 And
it came to pass when I was come near to enter into Egypt, the Lord said unto
me: Behold, Sarai, thy wife, is a very fair woman to look upon;
23 Therefore
it shall come to pass, when the Egyptians shall see her, they will say—She is
his wife; and they will kill you, but they will save her alive; therefore see
that ye do on this wise:
24 Let
her say unto the Egyptians, she is thy sister, and thy soul shall live.
25 And
it came to pass that I, Abraham, told Sarai, my wife, all that the Lord had
said unto me—Therefore say unto them, I pray thee, thou art my sister, that it
may be well with me for thy sake, and my soul shall live because of thee.
(Abraham 2:22-25)
I’ve written about this incident
several times I think, but this last time when I came across it I was struck by
how this danger to Abraham indicated a breakdown of family in Egyptian
society. It was a society in which
those with power were not honoring others’ marriages, but breaking them up by
killing one spouse to free the other to marry again, to marry the power player
who wanted them. (I have to wonder
if this was a different kind of family breakdown, or the same family breakdown,
just further along the path to destruction.)
It is interesting to me that Sarai’s
beauty was notable, but Abraham’s looks are never mentioned. It makes me think that perhaps Abraham
was rather plain. And if so, that means Sarai married him because she was able
to look below the surface to see his goodness, and she cared more about his
good character than marrying someone with good looks. And the fact that he
(a righteous man) chose her too shows that he knew she was a good woman, not
just a pretty face.
In
contrast to Sarai and Abraham’s relationship that valued character, the
Egyptians were really shallow, valuing Sarai only for her looks and for nothing
else. I have to wonder if they
thought only good-looking men deserved beautiful women, or whether they thought
only Egyptians with sufficient force were allowed to have beautiful women.
Also,
the Egyptians seem to have been hanging on to some semblance of marriage
permanence; you can tell at bottom they believed it should last until death,
but their society had been corrupted to the point that they were willing to hurry
death up to free a beautiful woman from her inconvenient husband. This is pretty barbaric, and I
don’t think that started all at once, but with a gradual slide—obsession with
the sensual, loss of emphasis on character, focusing too much on outer appearance, indulgence of desire, and law winking at those taking license.
The
fact that the Lord warned Abraham of the danger and told him how they could
protect themselves is very reassuring.
It shows the Lord really does know how to protect marriages and
families, and He gives instructions designed for the circumstances.
It also struck me recently that the
instruction to say that Sarai was his sister may have just seemed like a ruse
to protect from the physical danger, but it was actually a spiritual safeguard
as well, an important principle for relationships that can actually help men
and women keep from falling into the error of objectifying the opposite
sex.
Seeing and treating someone as a brother or sister takes you back to the
most basic ways of relating, that of sibling relationships. Everything about learning to be close
and learning to love is there except for the sexual aspect. (And I’m assuming that those reading
have learned to love their siblings and know what I am talking about.)
Perhaps if we find ourselves getting pulled into an objectifying pattern of
thinking, we need to practice the sibling frame of reference for a while. Take a page from Abraham’s experience
and say, “She is my sister.” Or
learn from Sarai’s patience with that difficult situation and say, “He is my
brother.” In the church, we do
this naturally among those we are not related to; we call each other Sister
Johnson or Sister Emily or Brother Clark or Brother Bruce. We realize we are all brothers and
sisters, children of God. That
awareness of the brotherhood and sisterhood of all of us can also help us in
our relationships and marriages, though we don’t have to necessarily call each
other brother and sister.
During the time
that Abraham and Sarai treated each other as brother and sister, they
were an example to the Egyptians. There came a time when it was safe to
reveal they were married, and if the Egyptians thought back over how
Abraham and Sarai had interacted, they would see how a good marriage is
about more than looks and sex. Maybe Abraham and Sarai became instruments in helping improve Egyptian marriage culture through their good example, since examples are the best way to catch the vision of what improvement is possible.
Maybe our good examples of marriage can help today too.
