After a long, weary journey through the desert sands, the land of promise is finally reached, only to find it afflicted with a famine. How often Sarah must have longed for one look out over the fig orchards, the olive yards and waving grain fields ripening in the summer’s sun of her native Mesopotamia, as she looked out over the barren hills, burned-up fields, and dried-up water courses of Palestine. Night after night, Abraham’s tent is pitched, only to be taken down in the morning, in quest of pasturage for their herds and flocks, until the wilderness in the southern extremity of Canaan is reached. How all this must have tested their faith. Had they not mistaken the call of God? Is it possible that this parched land is the land of promise? How disappointments and failures test our faith, and the heart of poor Sarah must have been sorely tried. But there was yet another test, and a humiliating one at that, and it seems to look as if their united faith was wavering. She was a beautiful woman, and they were now upon the very borders of Egypt, and there was no other alternative but to perish with famine or to go down into the land of the Pharaohs. Both Abraham and Sarah seemed to realize the hazard they were running, for, possibly, the bloom and beauty of Sarah’s face might cost Abraham’s life. So they agreed between them that Sarah should say that she was his sister, lest he should be killed. The declaration was not false. She was his half-sister, but it was not the whole truth, and it would seem, from their present conduct, that their faith, tested by the famine, was now wavering, for, why not appeal their cause to God, instead of taking it into their own hands? The reason for resorting to this deception was, if she was regarded as his wife, an Egyptian could only obtain her, when he had first murdered her husband. But if she was his sister, then there was a hope that she might be won from her brother by loving attentions and costly gifts, or, if her beauty came to the notice of Pharaoh she would be taken to his harem by arbitrary methods. They had not reasoned in vain. The princes of the land saw her, “and commended her before Pharaoh,” and “Sarah was taken into Pharaoh’s house.” It is hard for us to understand what a trial of her faith this harem life must have been to the pure-minded Sarah. How often her mind must have gone out over the stretches of desert wastes to her own land abounding with streams and fertility. And to be conscious that the charms of her person were the centre of attraction in the court of Egypt.