Sarai (Sarah)  

• General Notes
  • When God told Abram to leave his homeland and journey to an unknown land (later identified as Canaan), Sarai accompanied him. However, when they arrived they were met with a famine, and decided to take refuge in Egypt. Fearing that Sarai's beauty would put his life in danger if their true relationship became known, Abram proposed that she pass as his sister.
    
    As Abram had feared, Sarai was taken by Pharaoh, who rewarded Abram richly on her account. However, God struck Pharaoh and all his house with severe plagues, after which Pharaoh suspected the truth. He censured Abram and bade him to take his wife and depart. According to the classic Jewish commentaries, Pharaoh was nevertheless impressed with Abram's righteousness, and sent his own daughter, Hagar, to be a handmaid to Sarai.
    
    While God promised Abram that he would yet be a father of nations, Sarai remained childless.
    
    Her death prompted Abraham to purchase a family burial plot, and he approached Ephron the Hittite to sell him the Cave of Machpelah (Cave of the Patriarchs). Ephron demanded an exhorbitant price of 400 pieces of silver, which Abraham paid in full. The Cave of Machpelah would eventually be the burial site for all three Jewish patriarchs and three of the four matriarchs—Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, and Jacob and Leah.
    
    In Rabbinic literature, Sarah was the niece of Abraham, being the daughter of his brother Haran. She was called also "Iscah" (Gen. xi. 29), because her beauty attracted general attention and admiration (Meg. 14a). She was so beautiful that all other persons seemed apes in comparison (Talmud, Bava Batra 58a). Even the hardships of her journey with Abraham did not affect her beauty (Midrash Gen. Rabbah xi. 4). According to another explanation, she was called Iscah because she had prophetic vision (Meg. l.c.). She was superior to Abraham in the gift of prophecy (Midrash Exodus Rabbah i. 1.). She was the "crown" of her husband; and he obeyed her words because he recognized this superiority on her part (Gen. R. xlvii. 1). She was the only woman whom God deemed worthy to be addressed by Him directly, all the other prophetesses receiving their revelations through angels (ib. xlv. 14). On their journeys Abraham converted the men, and Sarah the women (ib. xxxix. 21). She was called originally "Sarai", i.e., "my woman of high rank", because she was the princess of her house and of her tribe; later she was called "Sarah" = "woman of high rank" because she was recognized generally as such (Talmud Berachot 13a; Genesis Rabbah xlvii. 1).

Click here for details of Sarah's family with Abram (Abraham)  

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