Gen 12:11-13 | KingComments | STEP | With the departure from Bethel the deviation begins for Abram. He goes to a border area. It is always dangerous for a believer to live in a border area. This is the area where the danger of a spiritual fall is defied. Hunger comes in that area. In Bethel Abram was not hungry. Abram goes even further away. He crosses the border and enters Egypt. He has not received a command from God for this. By the way, he does not intend to live there, but to sojourn there, he wants to stay there as a foreigner, for as long as he considers it necessary. Egypt is a picture of the world. When we go back to that area, we increasingly lose sight of God. The result is that Abram is afraid that something will happen to him. His trust in God is gone. He devises an excuse to secure himself at the expense of his wife. Here we see to what the most God-fearing believer can come when he leaves the place God has given him. His selfishness leads him to have his wife Sarai deny her true relationship to him. He incites his wife to lie. What he says is partly true ( ), but he says it with the purpose of misleading. It turns out differently than he thought. He wants to prevent Sarai from being lost by his lie, but by his trickery he loses her. Ironically, it indeed goes well with him for Sarai’s sake, which he has given up as the motive for his misleading proposal of their relationship ( ). However, all the gifts he receives do not compensate the loss of Sarai. He also lost his altar, as well as his place in the land to which God has sent him. He has also lost the blessing attached to his stay in the country. He who strays from the way God has shown, loses a lot. For the world, too, someone who strays is not a blessing. We see that here too. Through Abram’s behavior God must bring plagues over Pharaoh and his house. Finally, Abram is admonished by Pharaoh, we can say the world. Something similar we see in the history of Jonah ( ). All in all, the situation in which Abram finds himself is a sad one. It is a great grace of God that He saves Abram from this situation. That is no honor for Abram, but all honor is to God.

‏ Genesis 12:11-13

Abram in Egypt

With the departure from Bethel the deviation begins for Abram. He goes to a border area. It is always dangerous for a believer to live in a border area. This is the area where the danger of a spiritual fall is defied. Hunger comes in that area. In Bethel Abram was not hungry.

Abram goes even further away. He crosses the border and enters Egypt. He has not received a command from God for this. By the way, he does not intend to live there, but to sojourn there, he wants to stay there as a foreigner, for as long as he considers it necessary. Egypt is a picture of the world. When we go back to that area, we increasingly lose sight of God.

The result is that Abram is afraid that something will happen to him. His trust in God is gone. He devises an excuse to secure himself at the expense of his wife. Here we see to what the most God-fearing believer can come when he leaves the place God has given him. His selfishness leads him to have his wife Sarai deny her true relationship to him. He incites his wife to lie. What he says is partly true (Gen 20:12), but he says it with the purpose of misleading.

It turns out differently than he thought. He wants to prevent Sarai from being lost by his lie, but by his trickery he loses her. Ironically, it indeed goes well with him for Sarai’s sake, which he has given up as the motive for his misleading proposal of their relationship (Gen 12:13 ; 16). However, all the gifts he receives do not compensate the loss of Sarai. He also lost his altar, as well as his place in the land to which God has sent him. He has also lost the blessing attached to his stay in the country.

He who strays from the way God has shown, loses a lot. For the world, too, someone who strays is not a blessing. We see that here too. Through Abram’s behavior God must bring plagues over Pharaoh and his house. Finally, Abram is admonished by Pharaoh, we can say the world. Something similar we see in the history of Jonah (Jona 1:6).

All in all, the situation in which Abram finds himself is a sad one. It is a great grace of God that He saves Abram from this situation. That is no honor for Abram, but all honor is to God.