Sarai was about to leave when she noticed that the girl’s eyes seemed to be following her. “Who are you?” Sarai called impulsively, moving a bit closer to get a better look.
At first the girl didn’t speak but turned away with a toss of her head. Then as Sarai came closer, she ducked her head and looked out at her from behind the strands of her hair with tormented eyes. She seemed to be studying Sarai. “You’re not Egyptian,” the creature said finally in a surprisingly mellow voice that belied her appearance.
“No, I’m not Egyptian, but I can tell that you are. What is your name?” Sarai said, coming a bit closer.
“Where are you from?” The girl seemed for the moment to be slightly interested but unwilling to give her name.
Sarai knew that to give your name was to give someone control over you. People could write charms or curse you if they knew your name. “I’m from Ur on the Euphrates River. It’s a long way from here.”
For a momen, there was silence as the two just looked at each other then the girl said, “I wish I could be anyplace but here, even in Ur.”
Sarai sighed. “Oh, my dear, you don’t want to wish for such a thing. Ur has been totally destroyed. I wouldn’t be here if it hadn’t been so completely destroyed.” Sarai’s bright countenance clouded and tears came to her eyes.
Seeing the tears, the girl melted and relaxed. She brushed her hair back from her eyes and then, holding it with one hand while she got a good look at Sarai, she said, “My name is Hagar. It used to be Hajar Gameela, but now it’s just Hagar.”
Sarai saw that there had been a slight breakthrough. This creature was a young woman who must have been quite pretty before this tragedy struck. She squatted down beside her and spoke softly, “My name is Sarai.”
They studied each other for a long moment. They realized that they were from very different backgrounds, and it was obvious there was a wide age difference. Their accents were foreign and some of the words different, but they could understand each other enough to know that both were in trouble and both had suffered. Sarai was so choked up remembering Ur that she couldn’t say any more, and Hagar had been so isolated that she had almost forgotten how to carry on a conversation. Nothing more was said, but each knew that a bond had been formed and each had a loyal friend in the other.
From that day on, Sarai took every opportunity to talk to Hagar. She even managed to save some of the fruits and rich food to take to her after everyone else was asleep. In the dark of the moon and then again when the courtyard was flooded with light of the full moon, Sarai faithfully made her way out to the far side of the courtyard to check on Hagar. She found her an eager listener and could depend on her to explain the customs of these people whose ways were so alien to her own.
It was Hagar who explained to Sarai the position of honor she had been put in by being chosen for marriage to Pharaoh. She also warned her that to object in any way could mean death for both Sarai and her brother. After Sarai knew Hagar well and saw that she could be trusted, Sarai confided in her that she wasn’t only Abram’s sister but was also his wife, though they had no children. Hagar was shocked and then afraid. Slowly she began to understand and then explained to Sarai the dangerous situation she was in. “They will think you are making light of Pharaoh’s generosity,” she said. “Then when he finds out that you have been married all these years and have borne no child, he will fear you have had an evil spell cast on you. They could kill you as an evil enchantress.”
“I have been promised a child,” Sarai said as she struggled to keep back the tears.
It was evident that the subject was delicate and painful for Sarai. Hagar looked at her in amazement. How could she be so naïve as to think she and her husband could trifle with Pharaoh’s affections and not pay a terrible price? They had stumbled into the deception rather innocently, but certainly they must have known such trifling with a pharaoh’s goodwill would not go unpunished. “What are you going to do?” Hagar asked, her eyes glowing with intensity even in the darkness.
“I don’t know. I keep hoping Abram will think of something. I know he is praying.”
Hagar asked, “To whom does he pray?”
“The living God, Elohim, the Creator God who has made many promises to him.”
“Don’t trust the gods. None of them can be depended on when you’re in trouble. I threw mine away. She didn’t help me.”
“I must admit I don’t depend much on Abram’s God. He’s not done any of the things He promised, but Abram believes.”
“At the most you’ll have only six or seven months until you’re called. I hope your Abram’s prayers work stronger magic than mine.”
Sarai wanted to explain that it wasn’t magic Abram depended on, but she couldn’t think how to explain. She’d never had to depend on it herself. She’d always depended on Abram. Now she realized she was depending on Abram’s wits to rescue her, but if it was as difficult as Hagar seemed to think, then maybe Abram’s God would have to come out of hiding and help.
It was cold. Sarai put her shawl around Hagar and then without a word slipped silent as a shadow along the wall and back to her room. For the first time she was genuinely frightened. She had seen by Hagar’s reaction that her situation was serious and fearful. It hadn’t occurred to her that if Pharaoh found out she was married and childless, he would indeed think she was some evil thing.
A great feeling of bitterness welled up within her. Here it was again—she was to be an outcast because she was childless. It would be as though she were a leper, unclean. A person with the evil eye. Cold, icy fear choked her, and she found herself gasping for breath and sobbing. Lest the old woman who slept at her door wake up, she stuffed part of her carefully pleated skirt into her mouth and bit down hard. She couldn’t imagine how she could spend another day, another hour, in this place knowing what she knew and realizing that if she weren’t rescued soon, the secret could leak out and her fate would be sealed.
In the meantime, Abram was getting more deeply involved with Pharaoh and his court officials. Although the pharaoh was formal and austere during the day, in the evening he dropped the mantle of the god Horus and became a man who could sit with other men and discuss the affairs of the world.
Abram had learned much of Amenemhet’s daily routine. He knew that he rose at dawn, went into his private chapel called the House of the Morning, and bathed. At the same time it was believed the sun god Re was bathing in the ocean of heaven, and together they restored the vital force that flowed out with peace, prosperity, and health upon the two lands.
Then his special priests, wearing masks of Horus and the ibis-headed Thoth, anointed and clothed him, placing around his neck the royal insignia. Thus clothed in the garments of Re and Horus, he went to the temple for a ceremony that would make meaningful all the other ceremonies that would soon be celebrated in other temples throughout the land.
All must be finished at sunrise, for at the same time in the temples up and down the Nile, the same ritual was being carried out. The seals of the holy place were broken, the idol brought out and bathed, anointed, and dressed, ready for the first bright ray of the sun to travel down the dark avenue between the lotus columns to shine for a moment on its face. However, the idol was nothing without the pharaoh. Pharaoh, now the god Horus, maintained maat, the stability of the world.
The procedures seemed strange to Abram, but he was well aware that during the day, Pharaoh with his crook and flail and the royal garments did indeed seem to be a different man from the one who sat with them in the evening or went in to his wives and concubines like any other man.
Always during these times, Abram struggled to be pleasant and affable, but his heart sank as he began to fully realize the enormity of his offense against this powerful ruler. He did everything possible to please Amenemhet.
He went with him up the Nile to Abydos, Egypt’s most holy place. There he watched the ritual enactment of the death and restoration of the god Osiris. On several occasions he came bac
k to this same place with Nakht, the chief steward, to check the progress of the elaborate cenotaph Pharaoh was having built to honor his ancestors.
One day after visiting in the palace, Abram stopped as usual at the guardhouse. He always found the guards bored and talkative. They told him news and rehearsed interesting stories of life in the villages where they had grown up. On this occasion they were discussing in hushed tones the coming ceremony, when the Nile would be given a bride. When Abram asked its meaning, they looked at each other and changed the subject.
Only after the others left did the captain agree to explain everything to Abram. “You see, it has to do with maat, the order of things. We believe that if maat breaks down in one area, it will affect all others.”
Abram had struggled to understand the Egyptian concept of maat. It was something every Egyptian believed in and would go to any extent to preserve. He saw that it involved harmony or balance and was chiefly the pharaoh’s responsibility. There seemed to be certain things he had to do to make the sun rise, the Nile flood, and the plants grow.
“And maat is endangered?” Abram asked.
The captain was uncomfortable discussing the subject, but after some pressure, he said, “We have had rumors for some time that there have been no children born in the palace. Now we hear there have been no sacred cats born in the temple at Bast and no bulls at Saqqara. We are afraid that the Nile will also fail us. Pharaoh and the priests must stop the destruction of maat. A bride for the Nile is a last resort.”
Abram could get the man to say no more, but he decided to accept the invitation and see for himself what it took to restore maat. When the day finally arrived, he stood with Pharaoh’s priests on the banks of the Nile and watched in astonishment as they enacted the age-old ceremony that was supposed to make the Nile’s waters rise and flood.
At last he saw the bride of the Nile that he had heard so much about. She was young, beautiful, and supposedly delirious with joy at being chosen. He later wondered if she had not been given the same drug used in Ur for such religious ceremonies. Ergot, they called it.
Accompanied by drummers and dancers, she was led to the river’s edge where she danced in the midst of the chanting priests with a wild, frenzied abandon that ended when the priests raised her above their heads and cast her into the dark water. She could be seen for a moment, her golden headpiece flashing in the sun, her arms upraised, and then she disappeared. “Hapi, great god of the Nile, has accepted her,” the priests shouted and the celebration took on new excitement.
Later Abram was invited to go with Pharaoh’s special advisors as they watched for the dog star, Sirius, to appear on the horizon. It was the signal for the yearly rising of the Nile. It also brought in the time of secret fertility rites and the release of inhibitions as people, led by the priests, worshiped the gods of fecundity. This year they were taken more seriously because the fertility of the whole country seemed to be at stake.
Lot and Urim entered wholeheartedly into the rites and festivities, but Abram saw a dark, disturbing side to the festivals. He declined the invitations.
Abram always enjoyed sitting in the diwan of the chief steward, and took every chance offered to talk with Amenemhet in his private apartment. Now more than ever he dared not tell Pharaoh about Sarai. Though he spent nights of torture and days of despair, he could not bring himself to broach the subject lest Pharaoh decide that maat had somehow been disturbed by them and order them both killed.
During this time, Abram grew in favor to the point of Pharaoh suggesting, “Let us build a temple for your God here among our temples so you will feel more at home among us. Lot can be the priest.”
At first Abram would have welcomed this interest. He had talked much of his God and the intimate relationship he had enjoyed with Him. Being most interested in the gods and knowing of no man among his acquaintance who had heard of a God actually speaking and guiding him, Pharaoh was impressed. “Lot can spend time with the priests in my temple. They can teach him, so he can become the high priest of a temple to your God.”
Abram had tried to explain that his God didn’t need a temple. The whole world was His. To try to coax him into dwelling in a temple would be futile. “Elohim created us and He wants to help us and guide us.”
Pharaoh was fascinated by such statements, and he insisted he wanted to know more. “Have your nephew Lot visit with Senwosret-ankh, the high priest of Memphis. Perhaps he will find a way in which we can add your God to our gods.”
Abram was surprised by the pharaoh’s interest in his God, but he was bewildered by Amenemhet’s insistence on adding him to his own gods. He knew that in Egypt every city and village had a special god, and at times they fought each other by attacking the rival god. Those who worshiped the fish would never eat fish, but their enemies would eat fish just to spite them. It was obvious Pharaoh didn’t understand. To him, it was merely a matter of joining Abram’s God with Re, the sun god or Apis, the bull.
In the end both Lot and Abram visited the high priest to learn more of the ways of the Egyptians. Lot was interested until he discovered that to be a priest belonging to the higher orders, a man had to have his head shaved and every bit of hair removed from his body with an annoying waxing method and, most difficult of all, to be circumcised. Lot lost all interest in the religion of the Egyptians, but Abram went often to talk with the high priest.
Abram saw much that was foolish superstition, but he always came away impressed by the personal devotion of the priests. They were set apart, special vessels with rules and traditions that constantly reminded them of their relationship with their god.
“Lot,” Abram said after one such visit, “since Elohim is so much greater than these gods of the Egyptians, don’t you think it would be fitting for us to show our dedication in some more visible way?”
Lot thought for a moment, then replied, “If you’re thinking we should shave our heads, that’s not such a bad idea. That would get rid of any fleas or lice and might be cool in the desert, but circumcision is out. I’d never do it.” He got up and started for the door but turned back. “And if you’re thinking of asking Elohim about it, don’t do it.”
That had been just what Abram had been pondering. Lot’s strong opinion made him dismiss the idea. Perhaps the gods of Egypt were more particular, or was it that the priests of Egypt were more devoted to their gods? The latter thought bothered him. He hated to think that a worshiper of an ibis-headed god would be more devoted to his god than he was to his God.
The year was divided into three sections of four months each. In late summer there was the rising of the dog star, Sirius, that heralded the four months of flood when the Nile rose and overflowed its banks on its way to what was called the seven mouths of the Nile in the delta. These months had passed, and to everyone’s satisfaction the Nile had risen. The next four months called the going out, when the water receded, had also gone by.
They were already in the time of sowing and harvest, and still Abram had not been able to bring up the problem of Sarai to Pharaoh. The very idea of mentioning the awkward situation became more difficult with each passing day.
Pharaoh was a proud man. He had boasted often that he and his good friend Abram were to be linked by marriage as soon as the time was appropriate. More than that, the pharaoh had been generous beyond any imagining. He had welcomed Abram and elevated him to the position of special friend. What Abram had done would seem cruel and deliberately heartless.
Abram was appalled at how much time had passed without his being able to rescue Sarai. He had prayed and agonized before his God, making rash promises and resolutions, but nothing happened. Then quite suddenly, everything changed, and it became necessary for Abram to act.
There was a crisis of such magnitude that Abram’s anxiety reached fevered heights. News had come through Mara that the royal recorder had recorded no births among Pharaoh’s wives or concubines. In all that time no royal cat had birthed kittens, and the great bulls had given only dead
seed to the sacred cows.
It was even whispered that when the priests of Taweret applied their most effective magic, nothing happened. Taweret was the goddess of pregnant women. She was unbelievably ugly, with the head of a hippopotamus, lion’s paws, a crocodile tail, and the body of a woman.
“Pharaoh thinks it is a curse on all the Egyptians,” Mara said, “and it’s rumored that he’s going to break the spell by taking Sarai as a full wife, not just a concubine. A foreigner from Ur might break the spell.”
Her words plunged Abram into torment. His first impulse was to rush to the palace, confess everything, and throw himself on the pharaoh’s mercy. He paced back and forth in the pillared entryway, trying to think of just what he would say. Each time he was about to settle on an explanation, he would see that in Pharaoh’s eyes there was no excuse. Amenemhet had sought to honor him by marrying his sister and had shown his friendship in a thousand other ways. To confess to such deception would not only destroy the friendship but would also make Pharaoh look foolish before his people.
Then a terrible thought presented itself. Perhaps the very plague Pharaoh was trying to avert had been caused by his taking Sarai into his harem. If he confessed to Pharaoh that Sarai was his wife and was barren, Pharaoh had every right to declare her the cause of the trouble. She would be mercilessly tormented and perhaps even killed.
With that thought, Abram fled to the roof of his house and stood for a time looking out over the trees in the direction of the palace. Tears blinded his eyes as he pounded the mud wall of the parapet with his fist in frustration. Sarai was there in the palace right now, and he was totally helpless to go to her aid. By now she probably realized the danger she was in. His poor, willful, fascinating little wife would be depending on him to extricate her from this problem. She would imagine he could pray and a miracle would take place.
To pray. That was one of the problems. He was no longer so sure that the great Creator God would hear a man like him who had acted so deceitfully. Nor was he sure that his God had any power to help him here in Egypt in the presence of so many gods.
Abraham and Sarah Page 14