3. Abraham, knowing the dissolute character of the Egyptians, directed Sarah to call herself his sister, which she was, although by another mother; fearing that if they knew her to be his wife, they would not only seize her, but kill him. This circumstance indicates the vicious state of morals and government in Egypt at this early period. In this affair Abraham has been blamed for want of faith in God; but it was perhaps no more than an act of common prudence, as the seraglio of the Egyptian monarch was supplied by any means, however violent and lawless. Sarah, upon the report of her beauty, was seized and taken into his harem; and God sent great plagues upon his house, which, from their extraordinary character, he concluded to be divine judgments. This led to inquiry, and on discovering that he was detaining another man’s wife by violence, he sent her back, and dismissed Abraham laden with presents.
4. After the famine Abraham returned to Canaan, and pitched his tents between Bethel and Hai, where he had previously raised an altar. Here, as his flocks and herds, and those of Lot, had greatly increased, and strifes had arisen between their herdsmen as to pasturage and water, they peaceably separated. Lot returning to the plain of the Jordan, which before the destruction of Sodom was as “the garden of God,” and Abraham to Mamre, near Hebron, after receiving a renewal of the promise, that God would give him the whole land for a possession. The separation of Abraham and Lot still farther secured the unmingled descent of the Abrahamitic family. The territories of the kings of the cities of the plain were a few years afterward invaded by a confederacy of the petty kings of the Euphrates and the neighbouring countries, and Lot and his family were taken prisoners. This intelligence being brought to Abraham, he collected the men of his tribe, three hundred and eighteen, and falling upon the kings by night, near the fountains of Jericho, he defeated them, retook the spoil, and recovered Lot. On his return, passing near Salem, supposed to be the city afterward called Jerusalem, he was blessed by its king Melchizedec, who was priest of the most high God; so that the knowledge and worship of Jehovah had not quite departed at that time from the Canaanitish nations. To him Abraham gave a tithe of the spoil. The rest he generously restored to the king of Sodom, refusing, in a noble spirit of independence, to retain so much as a “shoe lachet,” except the portion which, by usage of war, fell to the young native sheiks, Aner, Eschal, and Mamre, who had joined him in the expedition.