Monday, December 28, 2009

She's my sister...honestly.


One of the more bizarre incidents from the story of Sarah and Abraham (Called Abram and Sarai at this point) tells of Abraham, in fear of his own life, passing Sarah off as his sister, not his wife. It seems that Sarah, though well into her 70's, is so irresistible in her beauty, that her husband fears Pharaoh will dispose of him in order to add her to Pharaoh's harem. On hearing she is Abraham's sister, Pharaoh does just that and also rewards Abraham with some livestock. We are not told what Sarah thinks of the arrangement, but I can't imagine her being too thrilled. God finally intervenes, revealing through some inflicted diseases the truth to Pharaoh, who ends the situation by returning Abraham's rightful "property" to him. Abraham apparently doesn't learn from his mistake and repeats the same scenario with another foreign ruler, Abimelech king of Gerar, years later in the Genesis story. This time, the irresistibly beautiful Sarah is past 90 and also pregnant. I wonder what kind of diet and exercise program she had going? (Illustration from the PowerPoint presentation, "From Eden to Esau.")

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