Finding divine meaning in these last couple chapters of the Bible is near impossible if taken literally. First we have the incest of Lot and his daughters and now we get Abraham playing the Sarah is my sister trick in another kingdom and having the same thing happen where that king takes Sarah to be his wife and God threatens curses.
This time when confronted Abraham has an interesting confession. Sarah is his sister or half sister. They share a father. I don’t know if this type of thing was common six thousand years ago. It would make some sense with the survivability of humans being less but it still can’t have been encouraged.
However if we look at it metaphorically it gets a bit better. Abraham and Sarah share a father in God and all the people of God are Abraham’s brothers and sisters. This is something that we still believe today. It is something I struggle with as my view of Jesus and God is so different from others, but I still have to view them as my brothers and sisters.
Still this is the second time Abraham has pulled this trick and it had the exact same results. A lot of times in folklore there are multiple versions of the same story. It might be that in his wanderings Abraham liked to play the Sarah is my sister trick on kings but it could also be this is a slightly different version of the earlier story.
God does appear to the man that took Sarah as his wife and tells him what is going on. That he must not sleep with her because she is already married and married to a prophet of the lord. God will curse this man if he doesn’t listen and God tells him that it is no fault of his. Yet Abraham is still God’s choose.
I will state once again that the Bible isn’t full of divine people doing divine things. It is full of flawed people doing flawed things. Abraham has his faults. Like pretending his wife is his sister and then telling everyone that she is indeed his half sister.
David Huzzard Writes 