Genesis 24:16 KJV And the damsel was very fair to look upon, a virgin, neither had any man known her: and she went down to the well, and filled her pitcher, and came up.
Looking beyond the ‘ideal marriage,’ suppose at the time and place of your marriage it was said:
I now pronounce you sinners, husband and wife.”
Of course, that’s not how we do it. The marriages and customs of the Old Testament are unfamiliar, yet marriages remain flawed by sin since Eden.
The sin of the husband impacts his wife and the sin of the wife affects her husband. They are one in the sins of both.
Women of faith of the Bible have, perhaps, received much grace in that we read little of their sins and failings or their infidelities to their husbands. The leadership and responsibility of marriage falls on the husband. The Biblical model of marriage shows obedience of the woman to her father, followed by obedience to her husband after she is given in marriage.
Think about this; how different this is from our contemporary practice of ‘equalness,’ rather than completeness.
Job’s wife and Lot’s wife may come to mind along with others, but for the most part the Bible documents many sinful acts of many sinful men of faith. We must learn and discern (for both husband and wife) from both their faithfulness and their failings.
The story of the virgin above is of Rebekah. It is not Isaac’s witness here, but a servant of Abraham. Abraham sends out a servant to arrange a marriage for his son. It is a contract (typically) between two fathers – a joining of two families. Abraham has already had the problems of having more than one wife! Without going into God’s purposes through Hagar (apart from his purposes through Sarah), let’s take an earlier look at the husband: Abram.
Genesis 12
The Call of Abram
Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you…
4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.
Abram is not a young man when he began his journey with Sarai to an unknown land at the leading of God.
5 And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people that they had acquired in Haran, and they set out to go to the land of Canaan…
7 Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him…
10 Now there was a famine in the land. So Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land.11 When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sarai his wife, “I know that you are a woman beautiful in appearance, 12 and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me, but they will let you live. 13 Say you are my sister, that it may go well with me because of you, and that my life may be spared for your sake.”
The beginning of trouble: Abram instructs his wife to lie.
14 When Abram entered Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful. 15 And when the princes of Pharaoh saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh. And the woman was taken into Pharaoh’s house. 16 And for her sake he dealt well with Abram; and he had sheep, oxen, male donkeys, male servants, female servants, female donkeys, and camels.
17 But the Lord afflicted Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram’s wife. 18 So Pharaoh called Abram and said, “What is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife? 19 Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her for my wife?
Here is a fair question to the liar, Abram, a guest in his land from the Pharaoh of Egypt. “Why did you not tell me that she was your wife?”
19b Now then, here is your wife; take her, and go.” 20 And Pharaoh gave men orders concerning him, and they sent him away with his wife and all that he had.
God helps to keep their marriage, but Abram is not finished in trying to fulfill God’s promise his way.
Genesis 16
Sarai and Hagar
Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. She had a female Egyptian servant whose name was Hagar.
Pharaoh had treated Sarai as a betrothed of his household (harem, if you will). Sarai had even been given this young slave girl to serve her. As Sarai was to become the wife of Pharaoh (as he supposed), she was given honor by her husband to be. But it was not to be; for God warned Pharaoh in a dream that Sarai was already the wife of this sojourner in his land, Abram. Therefore, Pharaoh returns his possession, Sarai his betrothed, to Abram, her rightful husband.
Along with her, Pharaoh gives back to Abram Sarai AND all her possessions, including Hagar.
Problem (for this older couple).
16:2 And Sarai said to Abram, “Behold now, the Lord has prevented me from bearing children. Go in to my servant; it may be that I shall obtain children by her.” And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai.
Is this not reminiscent to Adam listened to his wife, Eve? (Genesis 3:12)
3 So, after Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her servant, and gave her to Abram her husband as a wife. 4 And he went in to Hagar, and she conceived. And when she saw that she had conceived, she looked with contempt on her mistress.
5 And Sarai said to Abram, “May the wrong done to me be on you! I gave my servant to your embrace, and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked on me with contempt. May the Lord judge between you and me!” 6 But Abram said to Sarai, “Behold, your servant is in your power; do to her as you please.” Then Sarai dealt harshly with her, and she fled from her.
“But honey, you told me I could.”
Blame, not responsibility.
Now Abraham has two wives and one son, Ishmael, the beginning of much more lasting trouble. Remember this all started with a lie that resulted in the opportunity for Abram to know a second wife.
Abraham and Sarah and Hagar: it didn’t work.
The story of their marriage, with Hagar as the lesser wife (concubine, as later they are called) is not the ideal. His wife, Hagar and his son Ismael were torn from him, a consequence of his own deceptions and manipulation of his wife’s second person interpretation of God’s direct promise to him.
So Abraham arranges a marriage for Isaac.
Coming soon:
The story of the competition of children for a mother’s and a father’s affections is topic of another dysfunctional family of faith of the next generation.
Genesis 25:28 Isaac loved Esau because he ate of his game, but Rebekah loved Jacob.
Next: We will skip a generation to more and multiplied problems of multiple wives in the marriages of Jacob.
Marriage: To be continued…
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