Ancient Egypt (Rawlinson)/Abraham in Egypt

"Now there was a famine in the land of Canaan; and Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there" (Gen. xii. 10). Few events in the history of mankind are more interesting than the visit which the author of the Pentateuch thus places before us in less than a dozen words. The "father of the faithful," the great apostle of Monotheism, the wanderer from the distant "Ur of the Chaldees," familiar with Babylonian greatness, and Babylonian dissoluteness, and Babylonian despotism, having quitted his city home and adopted the simple habits of a Syrian nomadic sheikh, finds himself forced to make acquaintance with a second form of civilization, a second great organized monarchy, and to become for a time a sojourner among the people who had held for centuries the valley of the Nile. He had obeyed the call which took him from Ur to Haran, from Haran to Damascus, from Damascus to the hills of Canaan; he had divorced himself from city life and city usages; he had embraced the delights of that free, wandering existence which has at all times so singular a charm for many, and had dwelt for we know not how many years in different parts of Palestine, the chief of a tribe rich in flocks and herds, moving with them from place to place as the fancy took him. It was assuredly with much reluctance that he quitted the open downs and fresh breezes and oak groves of Canaan the land promised to him and to his seed after him, and took his way through the "desert of the south" to the great kingdom with which he and his race could never hope to be on terms of solid friendship. But the necessity which constrained him was imperative. When, from the want of the ordinary spring rains, drought and famine set in on the Palestinian uplands, there was in ancient times but one resource. Egypt was known as a land of plenty. Whether it were Hebrew nomads, or Hittite warriors, or Phœnician traders that suffered, Egypt was the sole refuge, the sole hope. There the river gave the plenteous sustenance which would be elsewhere sought in vain. There were granaries and storehouses, and an old established system whereby corn was laid up as a reserve in case of need, both by private individuals of the wealthier classes and by the kings. There among the highest officers of state was the "steward of the public granary." whose business it was, when famine pressed, to provide, so far as was possible, both for natives and foreigners, alleviating the distress of all, while safeguarding, of course, the king's interests (Gen. xlvii. 13-26).

Abraham, therefore, when he found that "the famine was grievous in the land" of Canaan, did the only thing that it was possible for him to do--left Palestine, and wended his way through the desert to the Egyptian frontier. What company he took with him is uncertain. A few years later we find him at the head of a body of three hundred and eighteen men capable of bearing arms--"trained servants born in his house"--which implies the headship over a tribe of at least twelve hundred persons. He can scarcely have entered Egypt with a much smaller number. It was before his separation from his nephew, Lot, whose followers were not much fewer than his own. And to leave any of his dependents behind would have been to leave them to starvation. We must suppose a numerous caravan organized, with asses and camels to carry provisions and household stuff, and with the women and the little ones conveyed as we see them in the sculpture representing the arrival of Abusha from the same quarter, albeit with a smaller entourage. The desert journey would be trying, and probably entail much loss, especially of the cattle and beasts; but at length, on the seventh or eighth day, as the water was getting low in the skins and the camels were beginning to faint and groan with the scant fare and the long travel, a dark low line would appear upon the edge of the horizon in front, and soon the line would deepen into a delicate fringe, sparkling here and there as though it were sown with diamonds. Then it would be recognized that there lay before the travellers the fields and gardens and palaces and obelisks of Egypt, the broad flood and rich plain of the Nile, and their hearts would leap with joy, and lift themselves up in thanksgiving to the Most High, who had brought them through the great and terrible wilderness to a land of plenty.

But now a fresh anxiety fell upon the spirit of the chief. Tradition tells us that already in Babylonia he had had experience of the violence and tyranny of earthly potentates, and had with difficulty escaped from an attempt which the king of Babylon made upon his life. Either memory recalled this and similar dangers, or reason suggested what the unbridled licence of irresponsible power might conceive and execute under the circumstances. The Pharaohs had, it is plain, already departed from the simple manners of the earlier times, when each prince was contented with a single wife, and had substituted for the primitive law of monogamy that corrupt system of hareem life which has kept its ground in the East from an ancient date to the present day. Abraham was aware of this, and "as he was come near to enter into Egypt," but was not yet entered, he was seized with a great fear. "Behold," he said to Sarai his wife, "Behold now, I know that thou art a fair woman to look upon; therefore it shall come to pass, when the Egyptians shall see thee, that they shall say, This is his wife: and they will kill me, but they will save thee alive," Under these circumstances Abraham, with a craft not unnatural in an Oriental, but certainly far from commendable, resolved to dissemble his relationship towards Sarah, and to represent her as not his wife, but his sister. She was, in point of fact, his half-sister, as he afterwards pleaded to Abimelech (Gen. xx. 12), being the daughter of Terah by a secondary wife, and married to her half-brother "Say, I pray thee," he said, "thou art my sister, that it may be well with me for thy sake; and my soul shall live because of thee." Sarah acquiesced; and no doubt the whole tribe was made acquainted with the resolution come to, so that they might all be in one story.

The frontier was then approached. We learn from the history of Abusha, as well as from other scattered notices in the papyri, how carefully the eastern border was always guarded, and what precautions were taken to apprise the Court when any considerable body of immigrants arrived. The chief official upon the frontier, either Khnumhotep or some one occupying a similar position, would receive the in-comers, subject them to interrogation, and cause his secretary to draw up a report, which would be forwarded by courier to the capital. The royal orders would be awaited, and meantime perhaps fresh reports would be sent by other officials of the neighbourhood. In the present instance, we are told that several "princes of Pharaoh," having been struck with the beauty of Sarah, commended her to their royal master, who sent for her and had her brought into his own house. Abraham himself was well received and treated with much distinction "for her sake." According to Eupolemus, he and his were settled in the sacred city of On or Heliopolis; and there, in that seat of learning and religion, the Patriarch, as the same authority declares, lived peacefully for many years and taught the Egyptians the sciences of astronomy and arithmetic. The author of Genesis says nothing of the place of his abode, but simply informs us of his well-being. "Pharaoh entreated Abram well for Sarai's sake; and he had sheep, and oxen, and he-asses, and men-servants, and maid-servants, and she-asses, and camels." The collocation of the clauses implies that all these were presents from the king. The pleased monarch lavished on his brother-in-law such gifts of honour as were usual at the time and suitable to his circumstances. Abraham became "very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold" (Gen. xiii. 2). He flourished greatly, whether for months or for years the scripture does not say. He was separated from his wife, and she was an inmate of Pharaoh's hareem; but he kept his secret, and no one betrayed him. Apparently, he was content.

Ere long, however, a discovery was made. Calamity came upon the royal house in some marked way, probably either in the form of sickness or of death. The king became convinced that he was the object of a Divine chastisement, and cast about for a cause to which his sufferings might reasonably be attributed. How had he provoked God's anger? Either, as Josephus thinks, the priests had by this time found out the truth, and made the suggestion to him, that he was being punished for having taken another man's wife into his seraglio; or possibly, as others have surmised, Sarah herself divined the source of the calamities, and made confession of the truth. At any rate, by some means or other, the facts of the case became known; and the Pharaoh thereupon hastened to set matters right. Sarah, though an inmate of the hareem, was probably still in the probationary condition, undergoing the purification necessary before the final completion of her nuptials (Esth. ii. 12), and could thus be restored intact. The Pharaoh sent for Abraham, reproached him with his deceit, pointed out the ill consequences which had followed, and, doubtless in some displeasure, required him to take his wife and depart. The famine was at an end, and there was no reason why he should linger. Beyond reproach, however, Pharaoh inflicted no punishment. He "commanded his men concerning Abraham; and they sent him away, and his wife, and all that he had."

Such is the account which has come down to us of Abraham's sojourn in Egypt. If it be asked, Why is it inserted into the "story of Egypt" at this point? the reply must be, because, on a dispassionate consideration of all the circumstances, chronological and other, which attach to the narrative, it has been generally agreed that the event belongs to about this time. There is no special reign to which it can be definitely assigned; but the best critics acquiesce in the judgment of Canon Cook upon the point, who says: "For my own part, I regard it as all but certain that Abraham visited Egypt in some reign between the middle of the eleventh and the thirteenth dynasty, and most probably under one of the earliest Pharaohs of the twelfth."

This is not the only entrance of Hebrews or people of Semitic race into Egypt. Emigrants from less favoured countries had frequently looked with interest to the fertile Delta of the Nile, hoping that there they might find homes free from the vicissitudes of their own. Previous to this, one Amu had entered Egypt, perhaps from Midian, with his family, counting thirty-seven, the little ones riding upon asses, and had sought the protection of the reigning sovereign. It was again the experience of Egypt to receive emigrants from the north-east, from Syria or Northern Arabia, at a little later period, when the nomads in those regions looked over to the south and, by contrast with their over-peopled country, thought they saw a sort of "fairy-land of wealth, culture, and wisdom," which they hoped to enjoy by force: and they were not the last to seek asylum there. We shall soon have to remark on the familiar case of the immigration of the sons of Jacob with their households. In process of time the Semitic wanderers increased so materially that the population in the eastern half of the Delta became half Asiatic, prepared to submit readily to Asiatic rule and to worship Semitic deities; they had already imposed a number of their words upon the language of Egypt.