Genesis 12 Study Notes

12:10 The only river that flowed year-round in Israel was the Jordan, and it was completely below sea level (minus 686 ft. at its highest point, and minus 1,300 at its lowest). Canaan relied heavily on rainfall for its drinking water and crops. When there was no rain there was a famine. To avoid the famine, Abram went down to Egypt, the location with the best water supply. This meant abandoning the land God had promised to his descendants.

12:11 Even though Sarai was at least sixty-five years old at this time (Sarai was ten years younger than Abram [17:17], and he was at least seventy-five [v. 4]), she was still considered beautiful. Her desirability was due in part to the fact that she was the most powerful woman in a wealthy clan.

12:12-13 By telling his wife to say that she was his sister, Abram was technically asking her to be truthful since Sarai was his half sister (20:12).

12:14-15 Since Abram’s group had many people and animals, they had to be given special permission to live and trade in Egypt. Important economic and political contracts in the ancient world were sometimes finalized by the weaker party giving a woman to the leader of the stronger party. The woman would then become part of the leader’s harem (this probably explains why Solomon had seven hundred wives, 1Kg 11:3). Sarai was the most desirable woman in Abram’s group, so when Pharaoh’s officials . . . praised her to Pharaoh, she was taken to Pharaoh’s harem.

12:16 Perhaps because of gifts from Pharaoh, perhaps because of favorable business deals, Abram acquired much wealth. Abram would later use one of the female slaves in his group to produce a son (16:1-4,15).

12:17 If Abram’s wife Sarai remained in Egypt as part of Pharaoh’s harem, then God’s plan to provide Abram with an heir through her would never be fulfilled. To restore Sarai to Abram and bring the founders of the Israelite nation out of Egypt and back to the promised land, the Lord struck Pharaoh and his household with severe plagues. This act foreshadowed what God would do in Moses’s day to bring the Israelites out of Egypt again (Ex 12:29), to take them to the promised land.

12:18 Pharaoh connected the plagues with Sarai’s entrance into his harem. An investigation revealed that he had been tricked into marrying a woman who was the wife of another man.

12:19-20 Even as Pharaoh gave . . . orders and sent Abram, the first Israelite, away and all he had, so a later Pharaoh would order the Israelites in Moses’s day to leave Egypt (Ex 12:31-32) with all their belongings.