Post 20 "Abram Goes to Egypt"

Genesis 12 v1-2 "Now the Lord had said unto Abram. Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred and from thy father's house unto a land that I will shew thee: And I will make of thee a great nation and I will bless thee and make thy name great and thou shalt be a blessing.

Here we have the command from the Lord for Abram to leave his country (at least a reiteration of the command) and then the promise of being blessed and being a blessing. The Lord also said he would shew (show) Abram a land. It was not a promise that Abram would posses the land at this time. Perhaps, it was meant to allow Abram the opportunity to fall in love with a place he had not yet seen. The next verse includes all of us and the balance of the Bible blossoms from this verse:

v3 And I will bless them that bless thee and curse him that curseth thee and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.

You can jump ahead just for a moment and read Genesis 18 verse 10. Remember Sarah was barren but in this verse a child is promised. It reminds me of another birth that was impossible with man but not to hard for God.

Abram now journeys to the land of Canaan. Here the Lord appears to him and makes the promise that this land would be given to Abram's seed (his descendants). It was then that Abram went to a place called Bethel which means 'house of God' and there he called unto the Lord.

Next we see the beginning of a pattern, that of going down to Egypt. It is a literal journey here but is a picture of a spiritual journey we sometimes take. Sometimes things happen in our life and we wonder off into a far country spiritually. It is often circumstance that causes this journey. We could look at it like one of the valleys of life. In this case, there was a famine and Abram went down to Egypt. Although he was a man of faith and had just left Bethel, he contrived to protect himself. It seems his faith has faltered a bit as he gets Sarah (Sarai)to pose as his sister instead of his wife.** She must have been very beautiful to attract the Pharaoh's immediate attention. Issac also tries this bit of trickery later in Genesis. It seems quite human of Abram to be afraid and possibily tell a lie* here. After the Lord promised that his descendants would inherit Canaan and there was not yet a son and Abram seemed to have no problem believing all that, yet he was afraid he would be killed in Egypt which would have been impossible since God had made the promise concerning Canaan and that of Abram a great nation would come forth. Yet Abram, although favored by God, was yet a man and as such was subject to man's weakness. His problem began when he left the land of promise because things got bad. He should have known, as we should, that things change but God's promise does not. He will take care of us.

The rest of the chapter tells the story of Abram in Egypt and how plagues came to Pharaoh's house because he had taken Sarai. He returned Sarai to Abram and sent him out of the country. Abram left with great riches, v16.

Special note: In the story of Noah and the ark, we have an example of God's preserving grace. Again, in Abram and the developing nation of Israel we have the preservation of the promise which goes all the way back to Genesis 3:15 and forward to the Gospels. The world and the people are still with the sin nature but as if in a bubble in the midst of evil a nation is born to carry on and protect the promise not so different than a woman with child, yet unseen but protected against all evil. This woman, this nation will carry the promise to maturity until that star appears over a little town called Bethlehem.
*I seem to remember that Sarah was Abraham's half sister but cannot remember where I saw it.
** I found the answer while reading ahead. Sarah was Abraham's half sister. See this verse
Genesis 20:12 "And yet indeed she is my sister; she is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife." The Bible is indeed the best commentary on the Bible.