The story of the Tower of Babel was told in the last issue. At that time, people were to build the Tower of Babel, which reached the top of the tower, to proclaim the name of man. God confused their words, and they scattered throughout the earth. One of Shem's descendants was named Abram, who God later renamed him Abraham.
One day God said to Abram, "Leave your land, your tribe, your father's house, and go to the land I will show you." "So Abram left his father's house with his wife Sarai and nephew Lotte and went to the land of Canaan. The Lord appeared to Abram and said, "I will give this land to your descendants." "Abram built an altar for God there. From there he moved to the hill east of Bethel again, where he built another altar for Jehovah and invoked God's name. Abram gradually moved south. Later, because of the famine in the land, Abram went down to Egypt and wanted to live there. Near Egypt, Abram said to his wife, Sarai, "I know that you are a beautiful woman, and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, This is his wife, and they will kill me, but they will let you live." Say that you are my sister, that I may be at peace because of you, and my life may live because of you. ”
Abram went to Egypt, and the Egyptians saw Sarai as extremely beautiful. When Pharaoh heard this, he brought Sarai to the palace and gave Abram many livestock and servants. God sent great plague to Pharaoh and his whole family because of Sarai, Abram's wife. Pharaoh summoned Abram and said, "What have you done to me?" Why is she your sister-in-law, so that I took her to be my wife, and now that your wife is here, you can take her away? So Pharaoh commanded the men to send Abram and his wife and all he had. Abram took his wife and Lot, and everything he had, from Upper South Land of Egypt.
Everyone can't help but wonder, what did Pharaoh do wrong? Why did Abram lie and God punish Pharaoh? There are three possible reasons for this. First, Pharaoh was grossly derelict in governing the country. Egypt is a secular symbol in the Bible, a place where idolatry and witchcraft flourished, even with Pharaoh as a god. Abram had moved to many places before, but when he came to Egypt, he said that he would be killed because of his wife's beauty, which shows that Egypt was full of illegal evil deeds at that time, and the first person responsible for this was the king Pharaoh of Egypt.
Second, Pharaoh himself misbehaved. The mere beauty of a woman was passed down by the Egyptians and even to the ears of Pharaohs. Pharaoh did not manage the lawlessness everywhere, and as soon as he heard about the beautiful woman, he immediately brought her to the palace, which shows that under the leadership of Pharaoh, Egypt was beautiful from top to bottom. If this is the case, Pharaoh is bound to be wrong in other matters. Abram thought only of rejecting the Egyptian people as the brother of Sarai, but it was hard for him to think that even Pharaoh would be involved. If he refused to allow Pharaoh to take Sarai, Pharaoh would kill him even if he claimed to be Sarai's brother.
Third: God's plague to Pharaoh's family was probably a warning to Pharaoh. At this time, Pharaoh knew that Abram's God was the true God, and according to common sense, he should reflect on himself, ask for God's favor, change his past mistakes, and govern the country again. But Pharaoh's first reaction was to quickly send someone to send the Abrams away, and also delusionally wanted to send away Abram's god at the same time, so that he could avoid judgment and continue to be unscrupulous.
Abraham called his wife his sister a weakness of faith, but why was he still called the father of faith? From the very beginning, Abraham heeded God's call and left his local home, he had shown great faith. But difficult circumstances inevitably make people weak, and Abraham's faith grew and grew in the process of following God. God allows people to make mistakes, but repents promptly and returns to God. Just as King David fell twice, God severely punished David, but God mentioned David in front of people with words of praise, because David followed God all his life. Who can fall only twice in his life, as David did? Who can conclude that his faith is greater than that of Abraham?