Abram, his wife, his livestock, his servants (slaves) and his gold all left Egypt and backtracked to the place where Abram built his altar. His nephew, Lot, had not simply been slouching about this whole time and had gathered up his own flock and servants (slaves) and various hangers-on. Between the two men there seems to have been a lot of people involved. Enough so that quarrels and such began.
Abram does something smart and suggests that the two groups split. He says there is plenty of land so that Lot can go one way and Abram will go the other. There seems to be a tiny issue with people still living on the land, but when you have the creator of the world on your side, these things can seem trivial.
Lot heads down to Jordan. Abram sticks to Canaan. In Jordan is also Sodom. There is some not-so-subtle foreshadowing about the Lord wiping it out, so I presume Lot doesn’t know that he’s walking his people into a shitstorm. Life can be unfair, I suppose.
The Lord promises all the land Abram can see to him and promises that Abram’s offpring will be like the dust (a LOT of dust). Abram builds another altar. The Lord likes altars, I guess.
So, now the Lord sends out some old guy from his land. So Abram (said old guy) takes his wife, his nephew Lot and all the stuff and people he acquired (slaves?) and heads out to Canaan because Lord said if you do, your friends will be awesome and your enemies destroyed. He stops in a couple places, builds some alters… And apparently, the land the Lord has promised him already has people, the Canaanites, but we aren’t told any more about that. Instead we are treated to a disturbing story that takes place in Egypt, where Abram has stopped due a famine (the Lord isn’t making it easy for him I guess)
Abram thinks his wife, Sarai, is so hot, that the Egyptians will kill him to take her, but if he were her brother, they will let him alone. We have no idea if this is true or not, but Abram thinks so and makes sure everyone thinks shes his sister. This seems to go OK for a while with Abram getting some livestock and slaves while in Egypt.
Sarai turns out the actually be beautiful enough to attract the attention of the Pharaoh. Since everyone has been told that Sarai is Abram sister (NOT his wife) the Pharaoh decides he wants her and actually takes her. The Lord seems to side with the liar and punishes the Pharaoh for stealing Abram’s wife. The Pharaoh seems to figure this out and gives Sarai back and has his kicked out.
So, the big question is for Sarai: Why did you let the Pharaoh “take you as his wife” (wink wink, nudge nudge)? Did you have NO input in this at all? Was she really expected to cheat on her husband to follow his command about being his sister?
The clear lesson here is that the Lord will side with a liar. Got it, lying is OK. This won’t be contradicted anywhere else.
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