Because you didn’t hear this in Sunday School
Abraham’s birth name was Abram so for this story we’ll call him Abram. It turns out that after God confounds the languages at the Tower of Babel he sits on the sidelines for a few hundred years. Then out of the blue he comes to Abram and tells him it’s time to move. So Abram (who was 75 at the time) takes his wife Sarai, his son-in-law Lot (the guy who later got drunk and made babies with his daughters), and the rest of his household and they walk to Caanan. Caanan is an area that includes the modern nation of Israel, part of Lebanon, part of Jordan, part of Egypt, and Gaza.
God tells Abram he can have Caanan for his posterity. Screw the people who were already living there (modern Palestine anyone?).
Sadly, Caanan was in a bad spot at the time: no rain. To get away from the famine Abram and his posse walk down to Egypt. When they get to the edge of Egypt Abram tell his wife that she’s such a hottie he’s afraid the Egyptians will kill him so they can have her for themselves; so they need to lie and say she’s his sister. Well, Abram was right. The Egyptians did think Mrs. Abram was super hot so they ran and told Pharaoh about this new hottie. Pharaoh liked the new hottie so he paid Abram a ton of animals and servants (slaves) so he could marry her.
Apparently God doesn’t approve of polyandry (someone should have told Joseph Smith) because after Pharaoh marries Abram’s wife bad stuff happens. God starts to kill people in Pharaoh’s household using disease. Pharaoh is a smart guy so ALL BY HIMSELF he figures out that if God is killing his family and servants Abram must have lied, and his new wife MUST also be married to Abram.
Pharaoh takes the new wife back to Abram, lectures him for lying to him, and tells him to take all his crap and get out of town. So Abram takes back his wife and heads out of Egypt a much richer man than when he arrived.
Note: Sarai was in her 60s at the time of this story.
Ref: Genesis 12
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