The Angel With a Rod Struck Pharaoh at Sarah's Word

Pharaoh reached for her shoe in the dark. The leather had barely shifted when a rod came down across his knuckles.

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He pulled his hand back. The woman on the bed did not move. Between them stood a figure he had not invited, holding a stick, waiting.

"Shall I let it fall?" the angel asked her.

Sarah looked at the king of Egypt in his own chamber. "Strike," she said.

The rod came down again.

He Took Her Without Asking

She had entered Egypt as a sister. Abraham had made that bargain on the road, because a husband in this country could be removed in an hour, and a brother might be paid and delayed. Beauty like hers traveled ahead of itself. By the time they crossed the border, people at court had already been preparing the king's interest.

Pharaoh took her anyway. He brought her into his house and sent back sheep and cattle and donkeys and servants, male and female, and camels, as if the gifts made the taking a purchase. Abraham accepted them and waited outside the palace walls.

Night came. Pharaoh came to the bed. That is when the angel arrived with the rod.

The Rod Waited for Her Word

Each time Pharaoh reached, the angel struck. If he touched the shoe to draw it off her foot, the blow landed on his hand. If he grasped her dress, a second blow followed. Before every stroke the angel stopped and asked Sarah whether to let it descend. When she told him to give the king a moment to recover, the angel waited, then did as she desired.

The king of Egypt stood in his own palace with a stick he could not see. The next blow sat in the mouth of the woman he had taken without asking.

She did not spend the night only giving orders. She sat up. She prayed. She called out and was answered. The angel stayed between her and harm from the first reach until morning.

The Beams of the House Sickened

The blows were not the whole of it. Pharaoh's skin broke out. The affliction was a disease called raatan (ראתן), the kind that makes a man unable to approach a woman, the worst of twenty-four skin diseases for that purpose. His nobles caught it. His servants caught it. The walls of the house caught it. The bed caught it. Even the beams of the palace sickened, so that the whole court could name the cause without a prophet in the room.

"It is over the matter of Sarai, Abram's wife," they said.

The night was the fifteenth of Nisan, the same night, later, when God would visit Egypt to take Israel out. Pharaoh could not finish what he had started. His body worked against the plan. The house itself worked against the plan.

He Sent Her Out in the Morning

Abraham had not sent messages. He had not negotiated. He stood outside with the gifts and waited to see what God would do.

In the morning Pharaoh summoned him, sick, marked, unable to form the accusation he wanted. "Why did you do this to me?" he said. Abraham had no answer he was willing to give in a place where the wrong sentence could kill him. He took Sarah. He took the sheep and the cattle and the camels. He left Egypt.

The king had been stopped in his own bedroom by a rod he could not argue with, acting on orders from a woman he had tried to own.