chastisement, and cast about for a cause to which his sufferings might
reasonably be attributed. How had he provoked God's anger? Either, as
Josephus thinks, the priests had by this time found out the truth, and
made the suggestion to him, that he was being punished for having taken
another man's wife into his seraglio; or possibly, as others have
surmised, Sarah herself divined the source of the calamities, and made
confession of the truth. At any rate, by some means or other, the facts
of the case became known; and the Pharaoh thereupon hastened to set
matters right. Sarah, though an inmate of the hareem, was probably still
in the probationary condition, undergoing the purification necessary
before the final completion of her nuptials (Esth. ii. 12), and could
thus be restored intact. The Pharaoh sent for Abraham, reproached him
with his deceit, pointed out the ill consequences which had followed,
and, doubtless in some displeasure, required him to take his wife and
depart. The famine was at an end, and there was no reason why he should
linger. Beyond reproach, however, Pharaoh inflicted no punishment. He
"commanded his men concerning Abraham; and they sent him away, and his
wife, and _all that he had_."

Such is the account which has come down to us of Abraham's sojourn in
Egypt. If it be asked, Why is it inserted into the "story of Egypt" at
this point? the reply must be, because, on a dispassionate consideration
of all the circumstances, chronological and other, which attach to the
narrative, it has been generally agreed that the event belongs to
_about_ this time. There is no special reign to which it can be
definitely assigned; but the best critics acquiesce in the judgment of
Canon Cook upon the point, who says: "For my own part, I regard it as
all but certain that Abraham visited Egypt in some reign between the
middle of the eleventh and the thirteenth dynasty, and most probably
under one of the earliest Pharaohs of the twelfth."[14]

This is not the only entrance of Hebrews or people of Semitic race into
Egypt. Emigrants from less favoured countries had frequently looked with
interest to the fertile Delta of the Nile, hoping that there they might
find homes free from the vicissitudes of their own. Previous to this,
one Amu had entered Egypt, perhaps from Midian, with his family,
counting thirty-seven, the little ones riding upon asses, and had sought
the protection of the reigning sovereign. It was again the e