What Does Genesis 12:16 Mean?

(16) **He entreated Abram well.**—Heb., *did good to Abram. *It was usual to give the relatives a sum of money when taking a daughter or sister to wife. The presents here show that Pharaoh fully believed that he was acting lawfully, while the largeness of them proves that Sarai, in spite of her years, was looked upon as a valuable acquisition. Among the presents are “asses.” The charge on this account brought against the author of “inaccuracy,” as if asses were not known at this time in Egypt, is disproved by the occurrence of representations of this animal on the tombs of Benihassan: we have proof even that they were numerous as far back as when the Pyramids of Gizeh were built. The horse is not mentioned, and the earliest representation of one is in the war-chariot of Ahmes, the first: Pharaoh of the eighteenth dynasty, who expelled the Hyksôs. Male and female slaves are, curiously enough, introduced between “he-asses” and “she-asses.” As she-asses were especially valuable, perhaps these and the camels were looked upon as the monarch’s choicest gifts. Camels are not represented on the monuments, and are said not to thrive well in Egypt; but the Semitic hordes who were peopling the Delta would certainly bring camels with them. Many, too, of the Egyptian monarchs—as, for instance, those of the twelfth dynasty—held rule over a great part of the Sinaitic peninsula, and must have known the value of the camel for transporting heavy burdens in the desert, and its usefulness to a nomad sheik like Abram. (See Genesis 24:10.)