Sarah

Etymology

From the Hebrew 'sarah' (שָׂרָה), meaning princess or noblewoman. Originally 'Sarai' (שָׂרַי, 'my princess'), God changed her name to Sarah (princess of many) in Genesis 17:15, paralleling Abraham's renaming.

Who they were

Sarah is the first matriarch of Israel, and her story is one of waiting — decades of waiting for a promise that seemed increasingly absurd. God promised Abraham descendants as numerous as the stars, but Sarah was barren. She waited ten years, then took matters into her own hands and gave Abraham her servant Hagar. When Hagar conceived, Sarah treated her harshly — a decision with consequences that reverberate to this day. When three visitors came to Abraham's tent at Mamre and said Sarah would have a son within a year, Sarah — now eighty-nine years old — laughed. God heard the laugh. 'Is anything too hard for the Lord?' When Isaac was born, Sarah said, 'God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me.' She demanded the expulsion of Hagar and Ishmael — a cruel act that Abraham agreed to only after God told him to listen to Sarah. She died at 127, the only woman in the Bible whose age at death is recorded, and was buried in the cave of Machpelah, which Abraham purchased from the Hittites. Peter, in his first epistle, holds Sarah up as a model of holy beauty — not external adornment but 'the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit.' This sits uneasily with the Sarah of Genesis, who was anything but quiet. Perhaps Peter's point is that her inner life — her capacity to wait, to laugh, to receive the impossible — was the beauty that lasted.

Family

Spouse

Abraham

Children

Isaac (born at age 90)

Character qualities

• Capacity for decades of waiting
• Laughter at the impossible
• Harshness under pressure
• Joy when the promise arrived
• Fierce protectiveness of her son

Key verse

Genesis 18:12-14

Where they appear

Themes

Variants & related forms

Sara · Sarai · Zara · Sari · Zahra

Related names