Sarah McLachlan 29 July 2010

Sarah (born Sarai) is a biblical matriarch and prophetess, a major figure in Abrahamic religions. While different Abrahamic faiths portray her differently, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all depict her character similarly, as that of a pious woman, renowned for her hospitality and beauty, the wife and half-sister of Abraham, and the mother of Isaac. Sarah has her feast day on 1 September in the Catholic Church, 19 August in the Coptic Orthodox Church, 20 January in the LCMS, and 12 and 20 December in the Eastern Orthodox Church.

In the Hebrew Bible

Family

According to Book of Genesis 20:12, in conversation with the Philistine king Abimelech of Gerar, Abraham reveals Sarah to be both his wife and his half-sister, stating that the two share a father but not a mother. Such unions were later explicitly banned in the Book of Leviticus ().

This would make Sarah the daughter of Terah and the half-sister of not only Abraham but Haran and Nahor. She would also have been the aunt of Lot, Milcah, Iscah, and Bethuel, by both blood and marriage. By her union with Abraham, she had one child, Isaac. After her death, Abraham married Keturah, whose identity biblical scholars debate (that is, whether or not she was actually Hagar), and by her had at least six more children.

Narrative

In the biblical narrative, Sarah is the wife of Abraham. In two places in the narrative he says Sarah is his sister (Genesis 12:10 through 13:1, in the encounter with Pharaoh, and Genesis 20, in the encounter with Abimelech). Knowing Sarah to be a great beauty and fearing that the Pharaoh would kill Abraham to be with Sarah, Abraham asks Sarah to tell the Pharaoh that she is his sister (Genesis 17).

She was originally called Sarai. In the narrative of the covenant of the pieces in Genesis 17, during which Yahweh promises Abram that he and Sarai will have a son, Abram is renamed as Abraham and Sarai is renamed as Sarah. There are folk etymologies that explain their old and new names.

Departure from Ur

Terah, with Abram (as he was then called), Sarai and Lot, departed for Canaan, but stopped in a place named Haran, where Terah remained until he died at the age of 205. Yahweh had told Abram to leave his country and his father's house for a land that he would show him, promising to make of him a great nation, bless him, make his name great, bless those who blessed him, and curse "him" that curses him. Following God's command, Abram took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, and the wealth and slaves that they had acquired, and traveled to Shechem in Canaan. Abram was 75 at this time.

Pharaoh

There was a severe famine in the land of Canaan, so Abram and Lot and their households travelled south to Egypt. On the journey to Egypt, Abram instructed Sarai to identify herself only as his sister, fearing that the Egyptians would kill him in order to take his wife, saying,
), meaning "chieftain" or "prince". Through Terah, she would have been a 10th-generation descendant of Noah, still alive, living in the Mountains of Ararat, and over nine centuries old at the time of her birth. No details are given as to her life or her religious beliefs before Abraham's return to Ur Kaśdim to thwart Nimrod's efforts to proclaim himself a god. It is known she wed Abraham, then called Abram, sometime between the ages of forty and five and following her husband's public humiliation of Nimrod, she, along with her father Terah, her orphaned nephew Lot, her manservant Eliezer, and some three hundred others left Ur Kaśdim for Canaan, the present-day Levant, to save Abraham from a plot by Nimrod to destroy him, commanded to do so by Yahweh.

En route to Canaan, the group stopped in Harran, in present-day Turkey, settling there for some twenty years, until Yahweh urged them to move on and so, they left Terah behind, to live out his days, and traveled through Shechem and Bethel, both cities in the present-day West Bank, and, when a famine strikes the region, to Mizraim, present-day Egypt. While in Mizraim, Sarah's beauty attracts the attention of Pharaoh and Abraham, fearing the Egyptians would kill him if they knew Sarah were married to him, introduces himself as her brother and so, Pharaoh bestows upon Abraham great wealth, in the form of livestock and slaves, including Hagar, so that he may take Sarah as his concubine, to live in his palace with him. For Pharaoh's unintentional transgression against Abraham, he and members of his household, save for Sarah, are stricken with plague. Pharaoh then realizes that Abraham is Sarah's husband, not only her brother. Despite Abraham's willful deceit of Pharaoh, Pharaoh does not punish Abraham nor does he require the return of the wealth Abram was given in exchange for Sarah. However, he orders them to leave Mizraim. After leaving Mizraim, Lot splits from their group amicably. He eventually settles in Sodom, over disputes related to the livestock.

They returned to Canaan, and a decade passed and still, she and Abraham had no children. Thus, Sarah offered Hagar, her slavewoman, as a concubine to her husband so that he may have a child. Hagar became pregnant with Ishmael. During Hagar's pregnancy, Sarah and Hagar's relationship deteriorated rapidly, with Sarah striking her and Hagar fleeing into the desert to avoid her, returning only at the urging of angels. Yahweh then told Abraham that Sarah would give to him a son. Sarah, then ninety years old, laughed at this idea. But, as prophesied, she became pregnant with Isaac and she nursed him herself. She would ultimately demand that Abraham send Hagar and Ishmael away and so, Abraham banished them and sent them into the desert.

Sometime after the birth of Ishmael but before the birth of Isaac, Sarah and Abraham travel to Gerar, as described in Genesis 20, where events took place which mirrored those of Mizraim, in which a king, this time Abimelech, took an interest in Sarah for her beauty and, as he had done in Mizraim, Abraham presented himself as her brother instead of her husband and so, believing her unmarried Abimelech took her into her house as Pharaoh had though, this time, Yahweh intervened before he touched Sarah, through dreams and plague. Abimelech confronted Abraham, angry that his lie had caused him to provoke the wrath of a god, but, also like Pharaoh, he bestows great wealth upon Abraham. The two men part amicably, with Abraham saying he will pray for the king, who is childless and without an heir.

It is said that Sarah died at the age of one hundred and twenty seven years, caused in part by the events of the Binding of Isaac. She is buried in Kiryat Arba, in Hebron, in the Cave of Machpela.

In rabbinic literature

The Talmud identifies Sarai with Iscah, daughter of Abraham's deceased brother Haran, so that in this Sarah turns out to be the niece of Abraham and the sister of Lot and Milcah. While in Genesis 20:12 Abraham claims that Sarah "is indeed my sister, my father's daughter" rather than his niece, Rashi asserts that the term "daughter" can also be used regarding a granddaughter, and thus "sister" can be used regarding a niece.

The fifth-century rabbinic midrash Genesis Rabbah dedicates a large amount of attention to Sarah in particular. Not only are a relatively large number of drashot dedicated to the matriarch, but she is repeatedly depicted as a model of personal and religious excellence. This is marked break from the biblical and Second Temple literature in which she plays a far more ancillary role. In light of parallels between the rabbis' characterization of Sarah and early Christian themes connected to the Virgin Mary popular in this same period, it has been suggested that the rabbis used their portrayal of Sarah to establish her as a Jewish alternative to the Virgin Mary.

When brought before Pharaoh, Sarah said that Abram was her brother, and the king thereupon bestowed upon the latter many presents and marks of distinction. Sefer haYashar (Book of Jasher), section "Lek Leka". As a token of his love for Sarai the king deeded his entire property to her, and gave her the land of Goshen as her hereditary possession: for this reason the Israelites subsequently lived in that land. Sarai prayed to God to deliver her from the king, and He thereupon sent an angel, who struck Pharaoh whenever he attempted to touch her. Pharaoh was so astonished at these blows that he spoke kindly to Sarai, who confessed that she was Abraham's wife. The king then ceased to annoy her. According to another version, Pharaoh persisted in annoying her after she had told him that she was a married woman; thereupon the angel struck him so violently that he became ill, and was thereby prevented from continuing to trouble her. According to one tradition it was when Pharaoh saw these miracles wrought in Sarai's behalf that he gave her his daughter Hagar as slave, saying: "It is better that my daughter should be a slave in the house of such a woman than mistress in another house." Abimelech acted likewise. In Genesis 17:15, God changes her name to Sarah (princess) ("a woman of high rank") as part of the covenant with El Shaddai after Hagar bears Abram his first born son Ishmael.

Sarai treated Hagar well, and induced women who came to visit her to visit Hagar also. Hagar, when pregnant by Abraham, began to act superciliously toward Sarai, provoking the latter to treat her harshly, to impose heavy work upon her, and even to strike her. Some believe Sarai was originally destined to reach the age of 175 years, but forty-eight years of this span of life were taken away from her because she complained of Abraham, blaming him as though he was the cause that Hagar no longer respected her. Sarah was sterile; but a miracle was granted to her after her name was changed from "Sarai" to "Sarah".Rosh Hashanah 16b According to one myth, when her fertility had been restored and she had given birth to Isaac, the people would not believe in the miracle, saying that the patriarch and his wife had adopted a foundling and pretended that it was their own son. Abraham thereupon invited all the notabilities to a banquet on the day when Isaac was to be weaned. Sarah invited the women, also, who brought their infants with them; and on this occasion she gave milk from her breasts to all the strange children, thus convincing the guests of the miracle.

Legends connect Sarah's death with the attempted sacrifice of Isaac, however, there are two versions of the story. According to one, Samael came to her and said: "Your old husband seized the boy and sacrificed him. The boy wailed and wept; but he could not escape from his father." Sarah began to cry bitterly, and ultimately died of her grief. According to the other legend, Satan came to Sarah disguised as an old man, and told her that Isaac had been sacrificed. Believing it to be true, she cried bitterly, but soon comforted herself with the thought that the sacrifice had been offered at the command of God. She started from Beer-sheba to Hebron, asking everyone she met if he knew in which direction Abraham had gone. Then Satan came again in human shape and told her that it was not true that Isaac had been sacrificed, but that he was living and would soon return with his father. Sarah, on hearing this, died of joy at Hebron. Abraham and Isaac returned to their home at Beer-sheba, and, not finding Sarah there, went to Hebron, where they discovered her dead. According to the Genesis Rabbah, during Sarah's lifetime her house was always hospitably open, the dough was miraculously increased, a light burned from Friday evening to Saturday evening, and a pillar of cloud rested upon the entrance to her tent.

In Islam

The Islamic portrayal of Sarah, who is unnamed in the Quran, mimics that of her portrayal in Judaism and Christianity, in that she is a good woman, kin and wife to Abraham, who, after years of barrenness, is blessed with a son, the prophet Isaac (Isḥāq). However, notable differences exist in the portrayal of her relationships with Abraham, Hagar, and Ishmael. She is not portrayed as Abraham's sister but his first cousin, said to be the daughter of Terah's brother, Haran, and Hagar is not portrayed as Abraham's mistress but a second wife, eliminating the hostility that Sarah feels for Hagar during her pregnancy and toward Ishmael.

The Quran likewise repeats the biblical story that Sarah laughed when she received a divine message confirming her pregnancy, although in the Quran this message is heralded by angels and not by God himself:

Tomb of Sarah

Sarah is believed to be buried in the Cave of the Patriarchs (known by Muslims as the ''Sanctuary of Abraham''). The compound, located in the ancient city of Hebron, is the second holiest site for Jews (after the Temple Mount in Jerusalem), and is also venerated by Christians and Muslims, both of whom have traditions which maintain that the site is the burial place of three biblical couples; Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, and Jacob and Leah.

Relationship to Abraham

There are three stories in Genesis where a patriarch identifies his wife as his sister; scholars debate the relationship among these, with some saying that the account of the encounter of Abraham and Sarah with Pharaoh in Genesis 12-13 is the oldest, while the stories of Abraham and Sarah encounter King Abimelech in Genesis 20, and of Isaac and Rebecca's encounter with a different King Abimelech in Genesis 26, are interpretations of that one, generated to explain it or deal with other matters of concern. It is not clear which of the stories is actually older, or what the intent of the editors of the Bible may have been.

According to Emanuel Feldman (1965), basing his argument on Albright's interpretation of the archaeology of Nuzu, a wife could legally be awarded the title "sister", and that this was the most sacred form of marriage, and hence Abraham and Isaac referred to their wives as "sisters" for this reason. Most archaeologists however dispute that view, instead arguing the opposite - that sisters in the region were often awarded the title "wife" in order to give them much greater status in society. Savina Teubal's book ''Sarah the Priestess'' posits that while Sarah was indeed both Abram's wife and sister, there was no incest taboo because she was a half-sister by a different mother.

In popular culture

Sarah has been featured in several novels, and she is the central character and in ''Sarah'' by Orson Scott Card in the Women of Genesis series, ''Sarai: A Novel'' by Jill Eileen Smith, and ''Sarah: A Novel'' by Marek Halter, and ''Song of Sarai'' by Zannah Martin. In the Christian fiction novel '' Redeeming Love'' by Francine Rivers, the protagonist, called "Angel" throughout the duration of the story, is barren. At the end of the book, she reveals that her birth name is "Sarah" to her husband, who takes the revelation as a promise from God that they will one day be able to have children.
In the 1994 film ''Abraham'', Sarah is portrayed by Barbara Hershey.

Sarah is also a subject discussed in nonfiction books. In ''Twelve Extraordinary Women'' by Pastor John F. MacArthur, her life and story is analyzed along with that of Eve, Rahab, Ruth, Hannah, the Virgin Mary, Anna the Prophetess, the Samaritan woman at the well, Mary of Bethany, Martha, Mary Magdalene, and Lydia of Thyatira. Sarah appears in ''Slightly Bad Girls of the Bible: Flawed Women Loved by a Flawless God'' by Liz Curtis Higgs alongside several other biblical women.Higgs, Liz, ''Slightly Bad Girls of the Bible: Flawed Women Loved by a Flawless God''. 978-1400072125

See also

* Pregnancy over age 50
* Sarah (given name)

Notes

References

External links

Rubenstein, Nechama. "The Three Faces of Sarah", Chabad.org

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21st-century BC people
Family of Abraham
Ancient Jewish women
Angelic visionaries
Biblical matriarchs
Lech-Lecha
People celebrated in the Lutheran liturgical calendar
People in the catholic epistles
Vayeira
Ur of the Chaldees
Anglican saints
Catholic saints
Eastern Orthodox saints
Incest in mythology