Famine and the sojourn in Egypt

A famine in the land is “heavy,” and Abram went down to Egypt “to sojourn there” (BSB “to live there for a while”). Skinner stresses that “the visit to Egypt was compulsory” Calvin writes, “A much more severe temptation is now recorded, by which the faith of Abram is tried to the quick.” Yet he holds that Abram “retained in his mind possession of the land promised unto him” The sister ruse and Pharaoh’s house are taken up in the next note. The Lord afflicted Pharaoh and his household with “great plagues” or strokes because of Sarai, Abram’s wife; Pharaoh rebuked Abram and sent him away with his wife and all his possessions (the Greek of 12:20 adds Lot). The episode has been read as a failure of faith (Calvin, Keil, and Driver each find Abram falling short), as a typological preview of a later going down to Egypt and a coming out with goods, or as both. Typology is offered, not required. God protects Sarai and Abram in Egypt. The persons are real; the Pharaoh is unnamed, and identifications and dates are not settled here (Driver notes that the narrative does not identify which Pharaoh is meant; Keil records that Pharaoh is “the Hebrew name for all the Egyptian kings in the Old Testament”). See the historical note on the Egypt episode, the language notes on 12:10–20, and Gen 12:10–20 → Gen 20:1–18.