Sarai—Princess with God

She was born and brought up with a family devoted to the worship of the Moon‑god. Her name, Sarai, or Sarratu in her native tongue, was a title of the Moon‑goddess, consort of the Moon‑god to which her native city, Ur of the Chaldees, was dedicated. Her sister’s name, Milcah, Malkatu in the native tongue, was a title of the goddess Ishtar, the planet Venus. Her grandfather’s name, Tarakhu, which is Terah in Hebrew, means sacred to the Moon‑god. Her uncle’s name, Abu‑ramu, in Hebrew Abram, whom she married, was a title of the Moon‑god himself. When Joshua told Israel that Terah and his forebears dwelt on the other side of Euphrates in old time, and served other gods, (Josh.24:2 RVIC), he had access to sources of knowledge no longer existing, but he spoke truth. Terah was an idolator; he worshipped and served the gods of the Sumerians and Akkadians, the apostate sons of Ham and of Shem in the land where still stood the Tower of Babel. The faith of his ancestors, of Shem and Eber and Peleg, meant nothing to him. So, his sons Haran and Nahor and Abram grew up to be idolators too, and when Haran died at an early age and his brothers married his two daughters, they continued in their devotions to Sin the Moon‑god of Ur.

There came a time when Abram and his wife Sarai turned away from that idolatrous worship and found God. The circumstances of that finding we do not know. Jewish traditions speak of Abram looking first at the sun in the heavens, visible symbol of the sun‑god Marduk, and watching it set, and realised there was no god there; then beholding the moon in the evening, visible symbol of the Moon‑god Sin, seeing it also hasting to its setting, and knew that Sin was no god either. Then he began to realise that God was transcendently beyond all these visible things and yielded his adoration, and so God revealed himself to him. It may have been like that. Perhaps though he read in the ancient records of his family of men who long ages before had walked with God, of Enoch, of Noah, of Shem, and so accepted the faith his own father and grandfather had rejected. However, it came about, when Sarai appears upon the stage of Bible history, she is already a woman devoted to God, her past life of idolatry behind her, and only her name as a reminder—and in due time God changed that name.

Abram was probably about fifty years of age when God called him to leave Ur of the Chaldees and go to a land that He would show him, and Sarai ten years younger. Her father Haran was already dead—he was seventy years old when she was born. But Terah her grandfather was still alive, and it must have been under his direction that the family settled in the Syrian town of Haran some six hundred miles from Ur instead of continuing the remaining four hundred miles into Canaan. The reason is not difficult to perceive. Haran was the other great city of the far‑flung empire of the sons of Shem which was also sacred to the Moon‑god. Whatever it was that decided Terah to leave Ur with his family it was not dissatisfaction with his idolatry; he settled in another city where he could practise it still.

There was probably another reason. Certain indications point to the district of Haran as the original homeland of Abraham’s ancestors. Four successive names in the family line, Serug, Nahor, Terah, Haran (Gen.11:20‑26) are those of ancient towns in that area; in fact, the town of Haran, where Abraham settled awhile, is still in existence today! It almost seems as if these men were named in memory of the homeland from which the family came, perhaps in the days of Eber or earlier. Terah may have felt he was coming back to his own.

Twenty‑five years later Terah died and Abram, now free to please himself, immediately set out for Canaan. Thus Sarai, who all her life had been accustomed to the amenities and refinements of the civilisation in which she had been born—for Haran, today little more than a village, was at that time, like Ur, a wealthy and highly civilised city with all the luxuries that heart could desire—had now to face the life of a nomadic cattle breeder’s wife. Henceforth for the rest of her hundred and twenty‑seven years she was for the most part to dwell in tents.

It says much for Sarai’s character that she thus embraced a life which must have been irksome in the extreme. From now on she must follow her husband wherever he went, wandering through Canaan from Sichem (Gen.12:6 aka Shechem) to Moreh and from Moreh to Bethel and from Bethel to Beersheba and from Beersheba into Egypt and then all the way back again to Bethel and then to Hebron and then to Kadesh and Shur and Gerar on the way to Egypt once more and then back to Beersheba and finally to Hebron where she died. Abraham had his fixed faith in the promise of God to sustain him but what had Sarai? Not even the child of promise through whom all families of the earth were to be blessed, for as yet she was still barren and no real hope that a child could ever be born! There were times when even her husband, with all his reputed faith in God, failed her. Within five years of entering Canaan, they were driven by famine to emigrate to Egypt, and it was here, at seventy years of age, that her beauty attracted the attention of the royal court, and the ruling Pharaoh of the time exercised the customary rights of ancient kings and took her into his harem on the strength of Abram’s assertion that she was his sister. Abram had feared that the Egyptians would kill him to secure possession of Sarai had they known of the true relationship, but he need not have been apprehensive. As soon as the truth was known, Pharaoh restored him his wife with a well‑deserved reproach for having deceived him. But it must have been a trying time for Sarai.

Another five years and Sarai gave up hope of a child. To what extent she shared her husband’s faith in the Divine promise of an heir who would be the seed of the promise does not readily appear; perhaps her interest lay more in the direction of a son who would inherit Abram’s now not inconsiderable estate. Her chagrin was probably not mitigated by the fact that her younger brother Lot had now become the father of two daughters. At any rate she decided to invoke the law of the land of her birth, one that was customary in such cases. She would give her husband one of her own slave‑girls, and the fruit of that union would be counted as her own son and become Abram’s legal heir. The girl selected was one they had acquired when in Egypt and brought back with them; although described in Genesis as an Egyptian, the name Hagar is a Hebrew one and it is very possible that Hagar was of Semitic birth and therefore racially akin to Abram and not true Egyptian, descended from Ham. Semitic infiltration into Egypt was very pronounced at the time and there is nothing improbable in this.

The plan miscarried. Hagar became the mother of a boy all right, much to Abram’s delight and satisfaction, but, not unnaturally, Sarai became exceedingly jealous. Even before the child was born, she "took it out" on Hagar, who thereupon ran away and only returned after being urged by the angel of the Lord, who had found her lost in the wilderness. Another aspect of Sarai’s character, and an unpleasant one, came to light; it is probable that for the next fourteen years the household was not a happy one and Abram must have been hard put to it at times to keep the peace.

But the longest road has its turning. At ninety years of age, long after Sarai had abandoned all hope, the unbelievable happened. She was to become a mother! A year previously, the angel of the Lord had appeared to them both and announced that the promise of the Lord, which never fails, was about to be fulfilled. As indication that a momentous happening was in prospect the Lord had already changed their names. Abram with its pagan association was gone, replaced by Abraham, which means father of many people. The Sumerian Sarai, goddess of the moon, was gone and replaced by Sarah, which in Hebrew is Princess. So, God’s Princess bore to the father of many peoples Isaac, the child of promise, through whom all the families of the earth are to be blessed—for of Isaac according to the flesh came Christ the son of David. Sarah knew nothing of all this but to whatever extent she shared her husband’s faith in the promises of God she must have been conscious of an abounding happiness that she had at last been brought within the sphere of the purposes of God.

Sadly, however, the old jealousy asserted itself. At the ceremonial feast associated with the weaning of Isaac, Sarah happened to see Ishmael, the fourteen‑year‑old son of Hagar "mocking" (Gen.21:9). The word here used, "tsachaq," has the meaning of playing, sporting, jesting or laughing light‑heartedly. Instances are Exod.32:6 where the people "rose up to play." Judg.16:25 where Samson "made sport" and Gen.26:8 where Isaac was "sporting with" his wife. In this case it would seem that Ishmael was "larking about," as we would say, with the child Isaac. The sight reminded Sarah that the presence of Ishmael could be a threat to her own son’s supremacy. By law, Isaac was the undisputed heir but knowing of her husband’s fondness for his elder son, she may have feared the outcome. At any rate, she demanded of Abraham that he banish both Hagar and Ishmael from the family home, for, said she scornfully, "the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac." (Gen.21:10) Abraham was reluctant, but in the end, he gave in, and the pair were expelled—probably only to some distant part of Abraham’s far‑flung estate, for when Abraham died Ishmael and Isaac joined together in the burial ceremonies. It seems that the antagonism was only on the part of Sarah, and it is a sad reflection on her character.

So far as is known, Sarah had no more children. Something like fifteen years after Isaac’s birth came news of her sister Milcah (Gen.22:20) who since they had separated back in Ur some sixty‑five years earlier had given birth to eight sons—one of whom was father of Rebekah, one day to be Isaac’s bride. That news did nothing to improve her obviously jealous nature. It would be about this time that Abraham took the concubines mentioned in Gen.25:6. Later on, after Sarah’s death, he married Keturah—probably a young woman of his household—and by her had another six sons. He must have been about 160 years of age when he fathered the last one. (vv.1‑2)

Sarah died at Hebron at a hundred and twenty‑seven years of age. The account in Gen.23:2 says, "Abraham came to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her." One wonders if that phrase infers that they were no longer living together, or merely that possible ill‑health confined her to her tent in Hebron whilst Abraham toured the land seeing to his many interests. It was, anyway, a quiet and inconspicuous ending. A complex character, capable of great endurance and faithfulness on the one hand but fiercely intolerant and jealous of any threat to her own interests. As with all of us, Sarah had qualities to admire and faults to deprecate. The writer to the Hebrews says that Sarah received strength to conceive seed by the power of faith and because she trusted in the verity of God’s promise. That does not show up so well in the Old Testament account, but it could well be true. When the angel told Abraham of the coming child Sarah "laughed" in the tent behind him, and when taxed denied that she had laughed "because she was afraid." (Gen.18:12‑15 AMP) But that "laugh," like Ishmael "mocking" is tsachaq and could mean that she laughed light heartedly and only semi‑disbelievingly. Perhaps the realisation of faith in the promise came a few hours later when she had time to think about it a little. Sarah commenced life an idolator, amid all the luxury and glitter of a pagan civilisation which offered all the good things of this life, without God. She ended her life in a nomad’s tent after long years of hardship, disappointment and frustration, but immeasurably richer in her possession of the Divine favour and the honour of being a channel through whom the seed of blessing all families of the earth will come. The proud city of Ur has long since crumbled to dust, Sarah the princess lives in the gallery of faith for ever. (Heb.11:11)

AOH