Isn't it amazing how sometimes history repeats itself? Sometimes where it seems identical, but for the names of those involved...
Reading earlier in Genesis, Abraham recognizes that his wife Sarah is very beautiful, and as they are coming to a place where he fears that the men in power will kill him and take Sarah for themselves, he entreats her to tell the people that they are brother and sister. OK, well, they do share one parent in common, so they are half-siblings... but she is also his *wife*. She obeys her husband's words and is taken into the household of another man... his women's wombs are closed and he sees that he has been taken in by this deception and releases Sarah back to Abraham and tells them to leave (summarizing here...)
Fast forward... Isaac and Rebekah... there is a famine and God tells Isaac to sojourn in Gerar. In this place, there are men who ask Isaac about Rebekah, and he tells them that she is his sister. In order to save his own life, he allows her to be taken into another man's household. (!!!!) When confronted with this lie, he admits that he was afraid for his own life, hence the lie... (in his case, however, Rebekah is the daughter of his uncle - his mother's brother's daughter - NOT his sister, but a cousin)
What strikes me about this is that both men were so blessed by God... and yet they have essentially given their wives to other men, as if they were posessions and not a helpmeet given to them by the Lord... This I do not understand. How can a man willingly give his wife to be "taken" by another man in the manner of a husband? Would he not defend his wife? Protect that which is his to own? Should not her affections and physical attentions be reserved totally and completely for her husband? (I think yes...) so why would these two men so willingly give that up to another man? There has been no threat - at least not that is mentioned in my KJV - it's the worry of a threat... I don't understand this reasoning...
My husband pointed something else out in regards to this, after I shared with him my confusion... he said that on top of that, Abraham and Isaac showed a distinct lack of faith or trust. As he said, they did not immediately turn to the Lord in prayer, seeking wisdom, seeking protection - they took their own way and had their wives lie, and they lied, and they compromised the purity of their relationships with their wives.
And then I also wonder, how in the world must Sarah and Rebekah have felt through all of this?
"Well honey, these people who live here can be kind of scary, and I'm afraid for my life, so I want you to lie for me and allow these men the rights of a husband so that they won't hurt me..." OK, I know that's not quite how it was said, but that's the message I'm hearing between the lines... How is that right?
On top of that, how does God bless these men who would do such things?
I'm not questioning God, per se - I'm just looking for reason or understanding... His ways are higher than my ways or my comprehension, and He is GOD (and I most clearly am *not*!) Yet this puzzles me...
Abraham had faith, when God told him to offer Isaac on the altar as a sacrifice to the Lord, and Abraham was prepared - to the point of having bound his child and placed him on the alter (can you imagine how Isaac must have felt at that moment?? I doubt that he laid complacently, waiting to be killed and burned on the altar... but I could be wrong...) - he trusted God to provide a sacrifice, as he told Isaac while they were on their way to to place of sacrifice and worship - and God provided the ram, which became the sacrifice instead of Isaac... If Abraham had that kind of faith, that level of obedience to the Lord, why did he not have that faith when it came to his wife? And what of Isaac when he was a man and married... where did their faith go that they felt it acceptable to put their wives on the figurative altar? Was that before the time when good men sought to protect their wives and children?
I don't really know... but I do know that this issue baffles and troubles me... and I am so thankful to know that I have a husband who would not ask such a thing of me, but would rather seek to defend his wife and children...
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