Sarah: Mother of Nations (Part Two)

Bible Verses: Genesis 11:29-32, Genesis 12:5-13:1, Genesis 16:1-9, Genesis 17:15-21, Genesis 18:6-15, Genesis 20:1-21:12, Genesis 23:1-20, Genesis 24:36, Genesis 24:67, Genesis 25:10, Genesis 25:12, Genesis 49:29-32, Isaiah 51:1-2, Romans 4:18-20, Romans 9:8-9, Galatians 4:21-31, Hebrews 11:11-13, 1 Peter 3:1-6

Sarah is the women mentioned the most number of times in the Bible. She was also the first of the Jewish matriarchs who helped found the Israelite people. The rest of the Bible follows the stories of her descendants, eventually leading up to Jesus Christ some two thousand years later. As might be expected, there is a lot to write about Sarah. This is the second blog article on Sarah. To see part one of her life under her previous name of Sarai click here.

A New Identity

To briefly recap, in the last passage discussed (Genesis 17:15-21) God made a covenant promise with Sarah’s husband Abraham. He promised that at that time next year Sarah and Abraham would have a baby, whom they were to name Isaac. As a sign of that promise, God said that Sarai was to be renamed Sarah. God declared that He would make Sarah ‘a mother of nations’ and that ‘kings of people shall be of her’. Quite a title for a now 90-year-old woman long past childbearing age!

A Sense of Humour

In the chapter following these crazy-seeming promises, three men came to visit Abraham. Abraham, Sarah, and their servants were living in tents in the middle of nowhere, so they can’t have had many visitors! Abraham instantly recognised that the visitors were God appearing in the form of three men – in other words, angels, I suppose. He was quick to bow down to them, offer hospitality, and hurried to Sarah to tell her to make three cakes of the finest meal as quick as she could.

After the three men had eaten, they asked where Sarah was. Abraham replied that she was in the tent, and God said that when He returned that time next year Sarah would have a son. Sarah heard this from the tent door behind him. And she laughed – laughed silently, inside herself. She was 90 years old and her husband was nearly 100! She had been through menopause long ago and was far past the age of having a child! Would she really have the pleasure of having a child, when both she and her husband were so old?!

One of the things I love about Sarah is her sense of humour, but on this occasion it was rather mistimed. God asked Abraham why had Sarah laughed? Nothing was impossible for the Lord. God repeated His promise that Sarah would have a son. Even though God wasn’t speaking directly to her, hearing this made Sarah afraid. She hadn’t even laughed out loud and yet God knew even her innermost thoughts. Would God take offence at her disrespect? She tried to deny having laughed but both God and she knew the truth. God let her know that He knew, but then the three men left without acting on Sarah’s fears. Instead God would give her a real reason to laugh – one that would bring glory to God and be a blessing for all people.

Dangerous Beauty

Some time after this, Sarah and Abraham journeyed south through the land of Canaan to near Gerar. As they had done before in Egypt, they pretended that they were only brother and sister, not husband and wife, because they were scared that Abraham might be seen as a rival and killed. Sarah must have been incredibly beautiful, since she was now 90 years old! Abimelech, the king of Gerar, certainly thought Sarah was beautiful. He sent for her and took her away. Both Abraham and Sarah continued their deception. Luckily it didn’t last long.

God came to Abimelech in a dream, telling him that he was as good as dead. God told Abimelech the truth and warned him that there would be severe consequences if he didn’t return Sarah. However, God knew that Abimelech had acted under false information and so gave him a time of grace. God had preventing Abimelech from sinning by sleeping with Sarah and came to warn him in a dream so he could right the wrong. Now that Abimelech knew the truth he must return Sarah or die.

It’s interesting to note that God didn’t automatically make everything go well for Sarah. Unknown to her, God was at work in the situation, but she was still subject to the actions of other humans. God presented a decision to Abimelech and let him choose the consequences. Fortunately Abimelech chose to obey God, but life doesn’t always go like that. Sarah being held against her will by a king reminds me of how, later, her descendants the Israelite people were held captive by the pharaoh in the story of Exodus. God’s will always wins in the end, but that doesn’t mean it’ll be easy for us. Like Sarah, we just need to hold onto faith and stay true to the Lord wherever we find ourselves.

Sarah Vindicated

Abimelech got up early the next morning to report his dream to his servants and call Abraham to him. He asked why had they lied and brought the kingdom to sin, to which Abraham explained his fears and that it wasn’t an outright lie as he was Sarah’s half-brother as well as her husband – for such were the accepted customs of the Bronze Age. Abimelech gave them many gifts and told Abraham they could stay wherever they liked in his land. Sarah was returned to her husband and Abimelech told her that he had given compensation to her brother so she was publicly vindicated of any shame.

Once this had been done, Abraham prayed for Abimelech. God healed the people of Gerar so they could have children again, as He had prevented births whilst Sarah was held in Abimelech’s house. This detail is worth noting because it demonstrates God’s powers over life. It foreshadows that His promise of Sarah having a son will come true, as well as hinting at later miraculous births. These include the elderly Elizabeth giving birth to John the Baptist and ultimately the Virgin Mary giving birth to Jesus Christ.

Joyful Yet Jealous

God fulfilled His promises. Sarah had a son in her old age! He was named Isaac (meaning ‘laughter’ in Hebrew) and was circumcised as God had commanded. Sarah declared that God had made her laugh and that all who heard what He had done would laugh with her. Who would have thought it possible?! They had a feast day to celebrate when Isaac was weaned. Unfortunately, not all was happy in the family.

Hagar’s son Ishmael was now about 14 years old. He had been Abraham’s only child but now he and his mother were being cast aside in the celebrations for his new baby half-brother. It was no secret that his mother and Sarah didn’t get along. When Sarah saw Ishmael mocking Isaac, she wasn’t having it. She had waited so long and been through so much heartbreak for her promised child; she wasn’t letting anyone hurt him now! Sarah asked Abraham to cast Ishmael and Hagar out from the family. Their sons shouldn’t be heirs together, as Isaac was the one promised by God. Abraham was very distressed about this. Ishmael was still his son after all! He didn’t know what to do, but God told Abraham to listen to his wife. Isaac was to be the heir and God would look after Ishmael for Abraham’s sake. Hearing this, Abraham obeyed God and deferred to Sarah’s wishes.

A Woman With Character

Sarah, like all of us, had her good days and her bad days. She was loving towards her family, honoured her husband, and was immensely protective of her long-wished-for child. She cared a lot and was prepared to take matters into her own hands when she deemed it necessary. She was proactive and practical, yet also respected her husband a lot and voluntarily gave him the right of veto before carrying out her own plans. Her thwarted desire for a child brought out the worst in her. She could be selfish at times and jealousy made her terribly cruel and abusive, especially towards Hagar. Despite this, she was essentially good-humoured and learnt to have much more faith in God. Sarah was strong and resilient, quick to laugh and dedicated towards her family. A fitting figure, through God’s generous nature, to become the first matriarch of the Israelite people.

A Family Legacy

Sarah lived to be 127 years old and then died. Abraham had clearly loved her very much as he mourned and wept for her. He bought land and a cave from the sons of Heth to bury his dead in, and he made sure that the borders of that land were confirmed in public. This shows the respect and honour Abraham held for Sarah, as he wanted her burial site to be a permanent memorial for their descendants and wanted to make sure that the land would not be disputed or disrespected in the future. Only once he had these assurances was Sarah buried. She was buried in the cave in the field of Machpelah in Hebron (also known as Kirjath-arba), which was in the land of Canaan.

Some time after Sarah’s death, her son Isaac brought his own wife, Rebekah, into Sarah’s tent. Sarah was never able to see her son marry or meet her future daughter-in-law, but it strikes me as rather sweet that Isaac wanted to bring his wife to the place associated with his mother’s presence. It was the closest they could get to meeting in this world. Rebekah became Sarah’s successor as the second matriarch of the Israelite people, and she comforted Isaac after his mother’s death.

When Abraham later died in turn, he was buried by his sons Isaac and Ishmael in the same field that he’d bought for Sarah. (As a side note, I’m curious about the reunion of those brothers. Was it bitter? Was it peaceful? How did they come to both be there? It must be quite a story, but it’s one the Bible doesn’t tell.) Sarah and Abraham were united after death, and later generations of the family continued to be buried there. Many years later, when Sarah’s grandson Jacob died in Egypt, he asked to be buried in the same field with his ancestors and family. The woman who’d thought she would never have a child had, through God, left a family legacy and a spiritual inheritance to her descendants.

Honoured Ancestress

Sarah had lived during the twentieth century BC, in the middle of the Bronze Age. This was around the time when Stonehenge was being built in England; horses were being domesticated to pull chariots in the steppes of southern Russia and northern Kazakhstan; pharaohs ruled with absolute power in Egypt; and the last woolly mammoths became extinct in the Arctic. Sarah’s story is so human and her character so relatable that it’s easy to forget just how long ago she actually lived. Sarah had to navigate the ancient world. And yet she knew the same God who invites us to know Him today!

After many generations and over a thousand years later, Sarah’s family legacy had expanded into a whole people, who had divided into two nations. During the eighth century BC, when the prophet Isaiah was calling the Israelites be faithful to God, he told them to remember where they came from and what they were made of. Isaiah called them to look to Sarah who had bore them, not forget their history, and remain faithful to God as God had been faithful to them.

Mother of Nations

Sarah’s significance in the Judeo-Christian story can be seen by the fact that several of the New Testament letters reference her to illustrate their points. Since the New Testament was written in Greek rather than the Hebrew of the Old Testament, Sarah’s name is sometimes translated as Sara instead but it’s still referring to the same person. In the book of Romans, the writer Paul tells the early Christians to hope and have strong faith in God. We are told that His promise is true and more powerful than worldly circumstances, such as Sara being past childbearing age. Nothing can stop the will of the Lord, so we have reason to hold onto faith. Sara is a testimony of that.

The book of Romans also addresses questions that the very multicultural, diverse early Church had about their place with God. In the Old Testament God had worked through the Jewish people, calling them to be a nation of priests that represented Him to the world. In the New Testament God fulfilled His promises through coming as Jesus Christ, and through Christ people of all nations are invited to join the kingdom of God. In this context it was important to make it clear that those considered children of God were not necessarily those descended of the flesh like the Israelites, and like Ishmael had been. Rather, the children of God were those metaphorically descended from His promises, as Isaac had been and as all people who chose to follow Christ are. Sara gave life not just to the Israelite people but to all descendants of the promise. God had promised that He would come and that Sara would have a son. Initially this was her son Isaac but it also led to Jesus, who was the Son of God as well as Sarah’s 39-times-great-grandson!

New Testament Allegory

In the book of Galatians, Sarah (sometimes translated Sara) and Hagar (sometimes translated Agar) are presented as an allegory for the two covenants and ways of being with God. Agar was a ‘bondmaid’ or slave and her son was born of human flesh. Sara, on the other hand, was a ‘freewoman’ and her son was born of God’s divine promise. In Galatians the writer Paul explains that Agar represented the first covenant from Mount Sinai, which made children who were slaves to religious law, like how the present city of Jerusalem was in slavery. Sara represented a second covenant, whose children were free through the promise and grace of God, like the heavenly new Jerusalem that is mother to us all. In other words, those of the old Jewish covenant from Mount Sinai were like slaves because they had to try to reach holiness through their own works and religious law. Those of the new Christian covenant from the cross are set free because Jesus came down to take away our sin and make us holy even though we don’t deserve it.

Christians aren’t necessarily Israelite descendants of Sarah, they are children of the promise. It’s a spiritual inheritance for all people rather than being confined to the genealogy of one family. Paul explained that like how Ishmael had persecuted Isaac in the Old Testament, so were the Jewish Pharisees persecuting the early Christians in his own time. Being born of the flesh of the Israelite people didn’t necessarily mean they were born of God’s promise. For many people, the religion had become about human regulations and prideful traditions instead of about a relationship with God. Unless they truly accepted God into their hearts, they wouldn’t share in the divine inheritance. This is true today for cultural Christianity, if people are just going through the motions of human-made religious traditions. Christianity is a religion, but it should be focused on seeking a living relationship with the Lord God.

Woman of Faith

Chapter 11 in the book of Hebrews is often called the faith hall of fame. And whose name do we find there? None other than Sara’s. Through faith Sara was able to have a child even though she was barren and in old age. She had judged God as faithful to His promises and because of that nations and thousands of children came from the barren elderly woman. Sara is a shining example of faith, and her faith led to thousands of descendants who lived in faith themselves. If there’s one thing we should learn from Sarah it’s to have faith and to trust in the Lord, wherever that might lead.

Daughters of Sarah

The final New Testament passage referring to Sara is found in 1 Peter. Here Sara is presented as an example of how Christian women should behave as wives. We are encouraged to behave in a way that would be befitting of the daughters of Sara, for that is what we are. If a Christian woman is married to a non-Christian husband, she should interact towards him with a peaceful rather than an argumentative spirit. Instead of nagging him about faith, because that could drive him away, she should instead demonstrate purity and reverence in her own life. This is so non-believing husbands may be won over to Christ without words. It’s a case of show not tell. Our actions bear witness to an unbelieving world. Instead of turning Christianity into a source of nagging and irritation for her husband, a Christian wife should instead let him see the fruits of the spirit overflowing from her relationship with God. This is the most effective strategy to win appreciation for Christianity rather than cause resentment of it. Wives are to be for their husbands, and should honour and support him.

Holy Woman of Old

True beauty comes from within, and we are to cultivate inner beauty over external appearance. The holy women of old who trusted in God adorned themselves this way – with the faithful heart and peaceful spirit of inner beauty. The Bible encourages us to look to these holy women for examples, even whilst acknowledging they each had their own flaws. Sarah was the first of these holy women, and we are her daughters if we do what is right without fear.

‘And Sarah said, God hath made me to laugh, so that all that hear will laugh with me.’

Genesis 21:6