And Sarai said unto Abram, My wrong [be] upon thee: I have given my maid into thy bosom; and when she saw that she had conceived, I was despised in her eyes: the LORD judge between me and thee.
Ver. 5. My wrong be upon thee.] The greatest wrong doers are the greatest complainers commonly; as Exo 2:13-14 guiltiness is ever exceptious and clamorous. Here be verba stomachantis atque imprecantis. Or, as some think rather, verba implorantis vindictam divinam seque consolantis spe defensionis divinae. Take it which way you will, as a passionate person, she "pours out foolishness," Pro 15:2 and (besides the false charge she lays upon her husband) takes God's name in vain. "Fret not thyself to do evil". Psa 37:8
The Lord judge.] He must not be sent for all in haste, to decide the controversy; who, if he had come, you may soon see which of them would have had the worst of it. The best, we see, have their domestic contentions; some household words will now and then pass between them: we match not with angels, but men and women. Two flints may as soon smite together, and not fire come forth, as two persons meet in marriage and not offences fall out. Publius Rubius Celer was held a happy man among the Romans, that commanded it to be engraven upon his gravestone, that he had lived three and forty years and eight months with C. Eunia, his wife, sine querela, without the least quarrel. Another I have read of, that complained that his coniugium marriage was a continual coniurgium quarrel; and when he died, gave order it should be written upon his tomb, Heus, Viator, miraculum! hic vir et uxor non litigant ,& c. a This to prevent, Alphonsus, king of Arragon, was wont to say, that to procure a quiet life, the husband must be deaf and the wife blind. But they say better that advise to a mutual forbearance, that no offence be given on either side, or, if given, yet not taken. The second blow makes the fray, we say. Be not both incensed together. If Abram were to blame in conniving at Hagar's contempt of her mistress (as it may be he was somewhat), yet it was his wisdom to bear with Sarai when she was in her passion. Let two fires meet, and it will be hard quenching them. A choleric couple being asked how they agreed so well, the husband made this answer, "When my wife's fit is on her, I bear with her, as Abram did with Sarai, and when my fit is on me, she bears with me, and so we never chide together, but asunder." b Those unkind husbands had much to answer for that caused their wives to "cover the Lord's altar with tears, with weeping and with crying out, so that he regarded not the offering any more". Mal 2:13 And those wives can never answer it to God that live customarily in the sin of frowardness or rebellion against their husbands. Among all the infirmities noted in any godly woman in the Scriptures, there is no example of any that did so. This of Sarai is but of one only fact: and for that of Zipporah, Exo 4:26 the error seems to be as much in her judgment as in her affections. Those couples that are ever warbling can neither be at peace within themselves, 1Co 7:15 nor pray as they should do to God, 1Pe 3:7 which, if they did often, as Isaac and Rebecca did, they could not disagree. For either praying together would make them leave jarring, or jarring will make them leave praying, which the apostle accounts no small hindrance.
a Legitur id Romae citante Phil. Camerar., cent. i. cap. 51
b Greenham.