Abram has gone into Egypt because of the famine in Canaan. He's pretending Sarai is his sister and not his wife because she's so beautiful he's afraid someone will kill him in order to have her.
Yesterday we observed Abram sliding down a slippery slope. He didn't trust the Lord to provide for him during the famine in Canaan and he didn't stay put there, even though Canaan is where the Lord told him to dwell. He didn't trust the Lord to keep him safe from violent men in Egypt, even though the Lord already promised to make a great nation from his descendants (which he doesn't yet have). Now he's putting on a deception to protect himself, but the lie is going to make things worse, not better. He's pretending Sarai is his sister and not his wife because he's afraid someone will kill him in order to have her, but this plan is going to backfire.
"When Abram came to Egypt, the Egyptians saw that Sarai was a very beautiful woman. And when Pharaoh's officials saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh, and she was taken into his palace." (Genesis 12:14-15) Sarah is the talk of the town. Even the king hears about her and has to see her for himself.
When the Bible says she was "taken into his palace" it likely means she was placed with the harem. If you've ever studied the book of Esther, the women who were being considered for the position of queen were taken into the harem where they were provided for and protected until each one had her turn to meet the king. During that time, no man was allowed to have physical relations with her. The ladies who were not chosen as queen would still remain in the harem for the rest of their lives and would become "minor wives" of the king. No other man could ever court them or marry them or have any physical contact with them. While Sarai was housed with the harem, I do not believe Pharaoh had physical relations with her. But he intended to get around to it eventually.
Meanwhile, the Bible tells us that Pharaoh showered Abram with gifts in exchange for the loss of Abram's "sister" from his household. It was the custom in ancient times for a prospective bridegroom to give valuable gifts to the head of the household when declaring his honorable intention to marry a young lady of the household. I don't know whether Pharoah was technically single at the time; as in, he had no chief wife who was his queen. But Sarai held enough value in his eyes that he was willing to pay quite a handsome bride price for her. "He treated Abram well for her sake, and Abram acquired sheep and cattle, male and female donkeys, male and female servants, and camels." (Genesis 12:16)
These gifts are going to keep on giving, and not in a good way, for among these male and female servants is a woman called Hagar an Egyptian slave who will become a source of trouble for Abram and Sarai later on in their lives. Her very existence, and the existence of a son she will bear, will drive an unhappy wedge between Abram and Sarai as Sarai grows to passionately hate her. Abram appears to be profiting from his lies, but nothing good is going to come from his lack of faith, from his sojourn in Egypt, or from the deception he perpetrates on the king.
I can't help thinking about poor Sarai who is basically imprisoned with the women of the harem. From indoors the harem is watched over by eunuchs. From outside they are protected by soldiers. There is no chance of escape for Sarai. She doesn't know whether she'll ever see her husband again. (Honestly, if my husband did to me what Abram did to Sarai, I might not care if I ever saw him again, but I'd still want my freedom back.) Abram is profiting from his lie but he has no way of rescuing Sarai from Pharaoh's guards. He's now without his life partner and he sees no possibility of getting her back. Yes, he's saved his own neck, which probably wasn't in danger in the first place. But the woman who has been his companion and his friend through thick and thin is in the household of another man and soon to be a wife of the other man.
From a human standpoint, this problem can't be solved. It looks like Abram might as well cut his losses, take what he's gained in Egypt, and go back to Canaan. Sarai probably thinks she needs to resign herself to never being a free woman again. But our lives don't depend only on what we can do for ourselves. Our lives depend on the power of the Most High God. Even though Abram can't be said to "deserve" the Lord's help, the Lord steps in "because of Abram's wife Sarai", as we see in the following verse: "But the Lord inflicted serious diseases on Pharaoh and his household because of Abram's wife Sarai." (Genesis 12:17) Sarai is the innocent, helpless victim in all of this mess. Because a married woman is being held in Pharoah's harem, the Lord sends illness into the royal household.
Pharaoh himself, though not a moral man or a godly man, is also a victim to Abram's deception. So why does the Lord send illness into his household? I think when it came to the Egyptians of that era, it took something big to make them take things seriously. When we see Moses intervening for the Hebrew people several centuries later, the Lord will have to send a number of plagues into the land before the king agrees to let the people go. He doesn't agree until the final plague hits, and then he only does it because he suffers a personal tragedy of his own. The Lord knows He has to afflict Pharaoh and his household personally so He can get the king's attention.
When everyone falls ill, Pharaoh senses some sort of judgment has come into his palace. He seeks an answer. The Bible doesn't tell us how he learns the answer, but we know that the Egyptian pharaohs employed people who dabbled in the magic arts. The kings often consulted these men for help, and I think that even though these men didn't know the one true God, the one true God spoke to one of them and revealed the truth. Or at the very least, the Lord caused one of them to take note that the trouble in the household began around the time Sarai was added to the harem. It could be that someone was sent to question her and she admitted she was Abram's wife. Whatever the case, Pharaoh calls for Abram and takes him to task for his lies. "So Pharaoh summoned Abram. 'What have you done to me?' he said. 'Why didn't you tell me she was your wife? Why did you say, 'She is my sister,' so that I took her to be my wife? Now, here is your wife. Take her and go!' Then Pharaoh gave orders about Abram to his men, and they sent him on his way, with his wife and everything he had." (Genesis 12:18-20)
Abram has been shown more mercy than he deserves, but haven't we all received more mercy than we deserve? The Lord didn't say to Abram, "Well, you've made your bed. You'll have to lie in it." He rescued Abram, Sarai, and all the possession they came into Egypt with and all the possessions they gained while in Egypt. It's not as if there won't be natural consequences of Abram's wrong actions. I don't know how much of a toll Abram's actions took on his marriage. It may be that Sarai never looked at him quite the same way again. I don't think I could properly love and respect a man who did to me what Abram did to Sarai. The slave woman Hagar is going to cause problems later on, so much so that I think Abram will rue the day he ever set foot in Egypt. Even in our own times, the descendants of Hagar's son and the descendants of Sarai's son are enemies of each other, and this is a situation that never would have occurred if Abram hadn't gone into Egypt. This is a situation that wouldn't be present in the world if, later on, Abram and Sarai didn't begin to doubt the Lord's promise to give them a son together. At that point they will draw Hagar into their plan to take matters into their own hands.
The Lord had to step into this mess in Egypt because His own Son is going to come from the line of the one promised to Abram and Sarai. Sarai couldn't be allowed to remain in Pharoah's household. Abram couldn't be allowed to leave her behind in Egypt. There are some promises of the Bible that depend on our obedience to the Lord, but there are other promises that depend solely on the Lord's faithfulness. The promise of a Redeemer depended solely on the Lord's faithfulness. There was nothing man could do to make this promise void.
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