And Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him: and they sent him away, and his wife, and all that he had.
Commanded his men concerning him: and they sent him away. The king was probably convinced that, whatever privilege custom might have given him among his own subjects, he had stretched his prerogative too far in exercising it over an independent pastoral chief, who was merely a sojourner in his dominions; and should it publicly transpire that Sarai was that chief's wife, he would incur public odium. On this account it probably was that he hurried Abram out of his country. The truth of the sacred history is strikingly exemplified in the faithful record of this unhappy error and fall of Abram, who although, from his piety and faith, honoured with the name of "the Friend of God," was yet a man of like infirmities with other children of Adam.
It is important to bear in mind that, in reading the history of Abram and the patriarchs, we are not to look for paragons of perfection-such 'faultless monsters as the world ne'er saw' but specimens of common humanity, who, amid duties, temptations, and difficulties, were trained by the guidance and grace of God to the high purposes they were to serve in His Church. The knowledge and fear of God were still lingering, and the gross superstition of the Exodus period had not yet been introduced into Egypt. 'The important theocratic standpoint of the receding narrative-that which completely supplies the reason of its communication,' says Havernick, quoting Heidegger, is this-`God had made a promise, simply announced at first, but afterward ratified by a solemn oath, that He would bestow signal blessings upon the patriarch and his posterity. Lest Abram and his faithful descendants should fear that the divine promises would be affected by any personal error or fault of his, God permitted the act of violence to Sarai, in order that both the frailty of Abram and the divine truth and faithfulness might be fully exhibited, and prompted Moses to make a permanent record of both.