Wife-sister narratives in Genesis
Encyclopedia
There are three wife-sister narratives in Genesis, part of the Torah
, all of which are strikingly similar. At the core of each is the tale of a Biblical Patriarch, who has come to be in the land of a powerful foreign overlord who misidentifies the Patriarch's wife as the Patriarch's sister, and consequently attempts to wed her himself. The overlord later finds out his error. Two of the three stories are similar in many other details, including the antagonist's name, Abimelech
, although this could be construed as being a royal title, or a family name.
Abram is forced to move to Egypt
in order to evade a famine
. Because his wife, Sarai
, is very beautiful, Abram asks her to pretend to be his sister lest the Egyptians
kill him so that they can take her. On arriving before the Pharaoh
, the Egyptians recognise Sarai's beauty, and the Egyptian princes shower Abram with gifts of livestock and servants to gain her hand in marriage. Sarai thus becomes part of "Pharaoh's house" (believed to mean his harem), but Yahweh
sends a plague
to punish Pharaoh - on account of his adultery. Pharaoh realizes the truth of the matter, restores Sarai to Abram and orders them to leave Egypt with all the possessions Abram had acquired in Egypt.
emigrating to the southern region of Gerar
, whose king is named Abimelech
. (Note that, by this time, God has changed Abram and Sarai's names to Abraham and Sarah, respectively, as stated at .) Abraham states that Sarah
, his wife, is really his sister, leading Abimelech to try to take Sarah as a wife; however, God intervened before Abimelech touched Sarah. God visits Abimelech in a dream and tells him the truth, acknowledging that Abimelech made the mistake innocently, but ordering Abimelech to restore Sarah to Abraham. Abimelech complains to Abraham, who states that he didn't exactly lie, since Sarah is his half-sister.
Abimelech then restores Sarah to Abraham, and gives him gifts of livestock and servants by way of apology, and also allows Abraham to reside anywhere in Gerar. Abimelech also gives 1000 pieces of silver to Abraham to reprove Sarah by a covering of the eyes
. The story then states for the first time that Abimelech, his wife, and household, had previously been punished for Abimelech's mistake concerning Sarah, by being made infertile; suggesting that Sarah had remained Abimelech's wife for quite some time before God visited him and corrected his error.
After an intermission concerning the birth of a son
to Abraham and Sarah, the second half of the story begins with Abimelech requesting Abraham swear an oath of non-aggression towards Abimelech and his family, to which Abraham agrees. Abimelech's servants later violently take away a well
, and so Abraham complains to Abimelech, who apologises. Abraham then sets aside seven ewe
s as witness to his having dug the well, and Abraham, Abimelech, and Philcol, Abimelech's chief captain, then make a covenant, and leave each other. The place the covenant was made is consequently named Beersheba
, which translates either as well of oaths or well of seven or seven wells, and according to , Abraham plants a tamarisk tree there in memory.
who, in order to avoid a famine, emigrates to the southern region of Gerar, whose king is named Abimelech. Isaac has been told to do so by Yahweh, who also orders him to avoid Egypt, and promises to him the fulfillment of the oath made with Abraham. Isaac states that Rebekah, his wife, is really his sister, as he is worried that the Philistines will otherwise kill him in order to marry Rebekah. After a while, Abimelech spots Isaac sporting with Rebekah, and states that she must be Isaac's wife rather than his sister.
Abimelech then orders that Rebekah be left alone by the denizens of Gerar, on pain of death. Isaac goes on to spend a year in the area, and gradually built up a large household of servants, and a strong possession of livestock, leading to the envy of the Philistines of Gerar, so Abimelech sends Isaac away. Noting that the wells that Abraham had dug have since been filled in, Isaac re-digs them, giving etymologies for three:
Isaac then travels to Beersheba
(which does not yet have its name), and Yahweh appears to him, so Isaac builds an altar there. Abimelech then meets Isaac there, with a friend named Ahuzzath, and Philcol, Abimelech's chief captain. They then make an oath of non-aggression, hold a feast, and then depart from one another. Later on the same day, Isaac's servants report to him that they have found another well, so he names the place in such a way that it later becomes known as Beersheba. Beer is the Hebrew word for well, the other half of the word is explained as due to Isaac naming the location:
's article "Sarah" notes that
The most striking parallels occur between the tales of Isaac and Abimelech and Abraham and Abimelech, both of which involve the names of Gerar, Abimelech, and Phichol, all taking the same roles in the story, with Phichol and Abimelech making the oath to the Patriarch at Beersheba, which was consecrated to the Israelite deity, and with Abimelech previously coming to realise that the Patriarch's wife is just that. The Egyptian story on the other hand resembles an abridgement, with the later treaty cut out of the story, and on the whole appearing in its own context to be an odd irrelevant aside. As they currently stand in the Torah, it appears that Beersheba is named for the first time twice, for the same reasons, consecrated for the first time twice, and that there are either two consecutive Abimelechs who are each king of Gerar in turn, and each have a captain of the guard named Phichol, or that these are the same long lived individual, with each instance of Abimelech correcting an earlier identification of the Patriarch's sister with his wife, and desiring to make a non-aggression pact covering multiple generations with the Patriarchs at Beersheba.
An explanation presented in classical times, and suggested by Rashi
, argued that when a stranger comes to town, the proper thing to do would be to inquire if he needs food and drink, not whether his female companion is a married woman, and hence as Abimelech did the latter, it tipped off Abraham to the fact that there is no fear of God in this place, and so he lied about his relationship with Sarah in order to avoid being killed. Consequently, it could be argued that the parallel behaviour results from this lack of fear of God by the antagonists in the other two similar situations.
Christian interpretation of the incidents has varied considerably. Some commentators have seen them as regrettable exceptions in the lives of those who otherwise lived upright lives, in the same sense perhaps as Noah's and Lot's drunkenness and David's adultery. On the other hand, commentators such as Allan Turner, in his essay "Lying: Is It Ever Right?", takes the standpoint that the patriarchal individuals did not actually lie, but merely concealed part of the truth.
However, in more modern opinion, such as that of the Jewish Encyclopedia,
There are dissenting voices, most notably by biblical archaeologists
. According to Feldman (1965), basing his argument on Albright
's interpretation of the archaeology of Nuzu, a wife could legally be awarded the title "sister", and that this was the most sacred form of marriage, and hence Abraham and Isaac referred to their wives as "sisters" for this reason. Most archaeologists however dispute that view, instead arguing the opposite - that sisters in the region were often awarded the title "wife" in order to give them much greater status in society. Neither case however, completely justifies the parallels.
Teubal's book Sarah the Priestess discusses these stories in detail, and calls attention to their parallels. She explains that Sarah was indeed both Abram's wife and sister, but because she was a half-sister by a different mother there was no incest taboo. Further, the episodes with Sarah and Pharaoh, and Sarah and Abimelech, are explained by the fact that Sarah was a "priestess" who engaged with them in the ritual of hieros gamos
, the "sacred marriage"
Torah
Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five books of the bible—Genesis , Exodus , Leviticus , Numbers and Deuteronomy Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five...
, all of which are strikingly similar. At the core of each is the tale of a Biblical Patriarch, who has come to be in the land of a powerful foreign overlord who misidentifies the Patriarch's wife as the Patriarch's sister, and consequently attempts to wed her himself. The overlord later finds out his error. Two of the three stories are similar in many other details, including the antagonist's name, Abimelech
Abimelech
Abimelech was a common name of the Philistine kings.Abimelech was most prominently the name of a king of Gerar who is mentioned in two of the three wife-sister narratives in Genesis...
, although this could be construed as being a royal title, or a family name.
The stories
Abram and Pharaoh
The first story appears in , and is the briefest of the three.Abram is forced to move to Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
in order to evade a famine
Famine
A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including crop failure, overpopulation, or government policies. This phenomenon is usually accompanied or followed by regional malnutrition, starvation, epidemic, and increased mortality. Every continent in the world has...
. Because his wife, Sarai
Sarah
Sarah or Sara was the wife of Abraham and the mother of Isaac as described in the Hebrew Bible and the Quran. Her name was originally Sarai...
, is very beautiful, Abram asks her to pretend to be his sister lest the Egyptians
Egyptians
Egyptians are nation an ethnic group made up of Mediterranean North Africans, the indigenous people of Egypt.Egyptian identity is closely tied to geography. The population of Egypt is concentrated in the lower Nile Valley, the small strip of cultivable land stretching from the First Cataract to...
kill him so that they can take her. On arriving before the Pharaoh
Pharaoh
Pharaoh is a title used in many modern discussions of the ancient Egyptian rulers of all periods. The title originates in the term "pr-aa" which means "great house" and describes the royal palace...
, the Egyptians recognise Sarai's beauty, and the Egyptian princes shower Abram with gifts of livestock and servants to gain her hand in marriage. Sarai thus becomes part of "Pharaoh's house" (believed to mean his harem), but Yahweh
Yahweh
Yahweh is the name of God in the Bible, the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Jews and Christians.The word Yahweh is a modern scholarly convention for the Hebrew , transcribed into Roman letters as YHWH and known as the Tetragrammaton, for which the original pronunciation is unknown...
sends a plague
Infectious disease
Infectious diseases, also known as communicable diseases, contagious diseases or transmissible diseases comprise clinically evident illness resulting from the infection, presence and growth of pathogenic biological agents in an individual host organism...
to punish Pharaoh - on account of his adultery. Pharaoh realizes the truth of the matter, restores Sarai to Abram and orders them to leave Egypt with all the possessions Abram had acquired in Egypt.
Abraham and Abimelech
The second story is split into two parts. The first part is in and the second in . The first part begins with AbrahamAbraham
Abraham , whose birth name was Abram, is the eponym of the Abrahamic religions, among which are Judaism, Christianity and Islam...
emigrating to the southern region of Gerar
Gerar
Gerar - meaning "lodging-place" - was a Philistine town and district in what is today south central Israel. Archaeological evidence points to the town having come into existence with the arrival of the Philistines at around 1200 BC and having been little more than a village until 800-700...
, whose king is named Abimelech
Abimelech
Abimelech was a common name of the Philistine kings.Abimelech was most prominently the name of a king of Gerar who is mentioned in two of the three wife-sister narratives in Genesis...
. (Note that, by this time, God has changed Abram and Sarai's names to Abraham and Sarah, respectively, as stated at .) Abraham states that Sarah
Sarah
Sarah or Sara was the wife of Abraham and the mother of Isaac as described in the Hebrew Bible and the Quran. Her name was originally Sarai...
, his wife, is really his sister, leading Abimelech to try to take Sarah as a wife; however, God intervened before Abimelech touched Sarah. God visits Abimelech in a dream and tells him the truth, acknowledging that Abimelech made the mistake innocently, but ordering Abimelech to restore Sarah to Abraham. Abimelech complains to Abraham, who states that he didn't exactly lie, since Sarah is his half-sister.
Abimelech then restores Sarah to Abraham, and gives him gifts of livestock and servants by way of apology, and also allows Abraham to reside anywhere in Gerar. Abimelech also gives 1000 pieces of silver to Abraham to reprove Sarah by a covering of the eyes
Covering of the eyes
The phrase "covering of eyes" is found in . It is translated literally in Young's Literal Translation. The King James Version inserts the definite article "the", absent in the original text...
. The story then states for the first time that Abimelech, his wife, and household, had previously been punished for Abimelech's mistake concerning Sarah, by being made infertile; suggesting that Sarah had remained Abimelech's wife for quite some time before God visited him and corrected his error.
After an intermission concerning the birth of a son
Isaac
Isaac as described in the Hebrew Bible, was the only son Abraham had with his wife Sarah, and was the father of Jacob and Esau. Isaac was one of the three patriarchs of the Israelites...
to Abraham and Sarah, the second half of the story begins with Abimelech requesting Abraham swear an oath of non-aggression towards Abimelech and his family, to which Abraham agrees. Abimelech's servants later violently take away a well
Water well
A water well is an excavation or structure created in the ground by digging, driving, boring or drilling to access groundwater in underground aquifers. The well water is drawn by an electric submersible pump, a trash pump, a vertical turbine pump, a handpump or a mechanical pump...
, and so Abraham complains to Abimelech, who apologises. Abraham then sets aside seven ewe
Domestic sheep
Sheep are quadrupedal, ruminant mammals typically kept as livestock. Like all ruminants, sheep are members of the order Artiodactyla, the even-toed ungulates. Although the name "sheep" applies to many species in the genus Ovis, in everyday usage it almost always refers to Ovis aries...
s as witness to his having dug the well, and Abraham, Abimelech, and Philcol, Abimelech's chief captain, then make a covenant, and leave each other. The place the covenant was made is consequently named Beersheba
Beersheba
Beersheba is the largest city in the Negev desert of southern Israel. Often referred to as the "Capital of the Negev", it is the seventh-largest city in Israel with a population of 194,300....
, which translates either as well of oaths or well of seven or seven wells, and according to , Abraham plants a tamarisk tree there in memory.
Isaac and Abimelech
The third story appears in . Here it is IsaacIsaac
Isaac as described in the Hebrew Bible, was the only son Abraham had with his wife Sarah, and was the father of Jacob and Esau. Isaac was one of the three patriarchs of the Israelites...
who, in order to avoid a famine, emigrates to the southern region of Gerar, whose king is named Abimelech. Isaac has been told to do so by Yahweh, who also orders him to avoid Egypt, and promises to him the fulfillment of the oath made with Abraham. Isaac states that Rebekah, his wife, is really his sister, as he is worried that the Philistines will otherwise kill him in order to marry Rebekah. After a while, Abimelech spots Isaac sporting with Rebekah, and states that she must be Isaac's wife rather than his sister.
Abimelech then orders that Rebekah be left alone by the denizens of Gerar, on pain of death. Isaac goes on to spend a year in the area, and gradually built up a large household of servants, and a strong possession of livestock, leading to the envy of the Philistines of Gerar, so Abimelech sends Isaac away. Noting that the wells that Abraham had dug have since been filled in, Isaac re-digs them, giving etymologies for three:
- Esek (which means argument) gaining its name due to the Gerar herdsmen contesting the ownership of the well
- Sitnah (which means opposition) gaining its name due to the Gerar herdsmen also contesting this well
- Rehoboth (which means enlarged space) gaining its name because Yahweh made room for Isaac
Isaac then travels to Beersheba
Beersheba
Beersheba is the largest city in the Negev desert of southern Israel. Often referred to as the "Capital of the Negev", it is the seventh-largest city in Israel with a population of 194,300....
(which does not yet have its name), and Yahweh appears to him, so Isaac builds an altar there. Abimelech then meets Isaac there, with a friend named Ahuzzath, and Philcol, Abimelech's chief captain. They then make an oath of non-aggression, hold a feast, and then depart from one another. Later on the same day, Isaac's servants report to him that they have found another well, so he names the place in such a way that it later becomes known as Beersheba. Beer is the Hebrew word for well, the other half of the word is explained as due to Isaac naming the location:
- Shibah, which means seven, according to the Masoretic textMasoretic TextThe Masoretic Text is the authoritative Hebrew text of the Jewish Bible and is regarded as Judaism's official version of the Tanakh. While the Masoretic Text defines the books of the Jewish canon, it also defines the precise letter-text of these biblical books, with their vocalization and...
- Shebua, which means oaths, according to the Septuagint
Parallels between the stories
The parallels are familiar to all readers of Genesis and the Jewish EncyclopediaJewish Encyclopedia
The Jewish Encyclopedia is an encyclopedia originally published in New York between 1901 and 1906 by Funk and Wagnalls. It contained over 15,000 articles in 12 volumes on the history and then-current state of Judaism and the Jews as of 1901...
's article "Sarah" notes that
- "the story of Sarah's life, brief and incomplete as it is, presents nevertheless curious repetitions, e.g., the incident with Pharaoh and a similar incident with Abimelech ( and )."
The most striking parallels occur between the tales of Isaac and Abimelech and Abraham and Abimelech, both of which involve the names of Gerar, Abimelech, and Phichol, all taking the same roles in the story, with Phichol and Abimelech making the oath to the Patriarch at Beersheba, which was consecrated to the Israelite deity, and with Abimelech previously coming to realise that the Patriarch's wife is just that. The Egyptian story on the other hand resembles an abridgement, with the later treaty cut out of the story, and on the whole appearing in its own context to be an odd irrelevant aside. As they currently stand in the Torah, it appears that Beersheba is named for the first time twice, for the same reasons, consecrated for the first time twice, and that there are either two consecutive Abimelechs who are each king of Gerar in turn, and each have a captain of the guard named Phichol, or that these are the same long lived individual, with each instance of Abimelech correcting an earlier identification of the Patriarch's sister with his wife, and desiring to make a non-aggression pact covering multiple generations with the Patriarchs at Beersheba.
An explanation presented in classical times, and suggested by Rashi
Rashi
Shlomo Yitzhaki , or in Latin Salomon Isaacides, and today generally known by the acronym Rashi , was a medieval French rabbi famed as the author of a comprehensive commentary on the Talmud, as well as a comprehensive commentary on the Tanakh...
, argued that when a stranger comes to town, the proper thing to do would be to inquire if he needs food and drink, not whether his female companion is a married woman, and hence as Abimelech did the latter, it tipped off Abraham to the fact that there is no fear of God in this place, and so he lied about his relationship with Sarah in order to avoid being killed. Consequently, it could be argued that the parallel behaviour results from this lack of fear of God by the antagonists in the other two similar situations.
Christian interpretation of the incidents has varied considerably. Some commentators have seen them as regrettable exceptions in the lives of those who otherwise lived upright lives, in the same sense perhaps as Noah's and Lot's drunkenness and David's adultery. On the other hand, commentators such as Allan Turner, in his essay "Lying: Is It Ever Right?", takes the standpoint that the patriarchal individuals did not actually lie, but merely concealed part of the truth.
However, in more modern opinion, such as that of the Jewish Encyclopedia,
- "From the point of view of the history of culture these episodes are very instructive. But it is not very probable that Abraham would have run the risk twice. Moreover, a similar incident is reported in regard to Isaac and Rebecca . This recurrence indicates that none of the accounts is to be accepted as historical; all three are variations of a theme common to the popular oral histories of the Patriarchs. That women were married in the way here supposed is not to be doubted. The purpose of the story is to extol the heroines as most beautiful and show that the Patriarchs were under the special protection of the Deity."
There are dissenting voices, most notably by biblical archaeologists
Biblical archaeology
For the movement associated with William F. Albright and also known as biblical archaeology, see Biblical archaeology school. For the interpretation of biblical archaeology in relation to biblical historicity, see The Bible and history....
. According to Feldman (1965), basing his argument on Albright
William F. Albright
William Foxwell Albright was an American archaeologist, biblical scholar, philologist and expert on ceramics. From the early twentieth century until his death, he was the dean of biblical archaeologists and the universally acknowledged founder of the Biblical archaeology movement...
's interpretation of the archaeology of Nuzu, a wife could legally be awarded the title "sister", and that this was the most sacred form of marriage, and hence Abraham and Isaac referred to their wives as "sisters" for this reason. Most archaeologists however dispute that view, instead arguing the opposite - that sisters in the region were often awarded the title "wife" in order to give them much greater status in society. Neither case however, completely justifies the parallels.
Teubal's book Sarah the Priestess discusses these stories in detail, and calls attention to their parallels. She explains that Sarah was indeed both Abram's wife and sister, but because she was a half-sister by a different mother there was no incest taboo. Further, the episodes with Sarah and Pharaoh, and Sarah and Abimelech, are explained by the fact that Sarah was a "priestess" who engaged with them in the ritual of hieros gamos
Hieros gamos
Hieros gamos or Hierogamy refers to a sexual ritual that plays out a marriage between a god and a goddess, especially when enacted in a symbolic ritual where human participants represent the deities. It is the harmonization of opposites...
, the "sacred marriage"