Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Abimelech Takes Sarah

Today I read Genesis 20 a story of another man who took Sarah from Abraham. This man's name was Abimelech. At this point, Sarah is almost 100 years old and yet men are still desiring her. This is a clear indication to me that despite mankind's age being drastically reduced from the days of Adam, men and women were still aging quite differently during the days of Abraham.

We also learn in this chapter that when Abraham presents Sarah as his sister, he is not telling a lie. She is his half-sister from his father. Abraham tells Abimelech that Sarah is his father's daughter, but not his mother's daughter. Apparently there were much different taboos back in those days because in today's day and age there would be no way that you could marry your half-brother or half-sister.

It is always good to see righteous men and women in the scriptures. When Abimelech learns that Sarah is Abraham's wife, he returns Abraham and is quite upset with Abraham that he tricked/lied to Abimelech. I can think of plenty of instances in the scriptures and from periods of history that it wouldn't matter if they found out later that Sarah was Abraham's wife, they still would take her from him. So it is nice that in the case of Abraham, both the Pharaoh and Abimelech when they learned that Sarah was married returned her to Abraham and were quite upset that Abraham did not tell them the truth.

It is always interesting to me reading the scriptures because despite learning the doctrine, you get to learn the history of the people too. Especially in the Old Testament. It's always interesting to see how the various cultures reacted to things in those days and handled the different situations. But I also like history and learning about ancient places and customs. Maybe it's just me. Until tomorrow.

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