I think sometimes that the matriarch Sarah gets a little forgotten under the weighty promises we associate with her husband, Abraham. In history, Abraham is an almost larger-than-life figure, considered the founding father of three major world religions.1 Countless volumes have been written about him, from antiquity through the present.
It’s easy to lose Sarah in all of that. We don’t immediately think of her as the majestic mother of an expansive covenant lineage or as the courageous woman who made sure the promised son Isaac was born and continued that family.
Without Sarah, the full expression of the Abrahamic covenant could not have taken place. In fact, her presence, in many cases, drives the story and leads Abraham’s covenant exactly where it needs to go.
Like many of the women in the scriptures, Sarah has a powerful presence in the tale if we let her shine through. Her power can be found by paying attention to details of her story, written sparsely and long ago.
The Deeper Meaning Behind Sarah’s Name
Sarah’s name means “princess,” and we should definitely let her keep that title. However, her name is actually more magnificent than even “princess” suggests.
Her name likely comes from the Hebrew root sar, which describes a chieftain, prince, general, or ruler—a leader with power, influence, and opulence. So as a feminine form, Sarah might better be translated “chieftainess,” which seems a more fitting connotation for this ancient tribal matriarch.
A version of the Hebrew root sar is also likely present in the name “Israel.” You can see it in the letters s and r near the beginning of the word.2 This is especially appropriate, since “Israel” becomes a name bestowed uniquely upon Sarah’s posterity among the descendants of Abraham.3 She is the house of Israel’s great foremother!
In scripture, Abraham receives some prolific promises that establish a covenant between him, his descendants and the Lord. One of the promises is that he would be a “father of many nations” (Genesis 17:5). Do we ever think of Sarah as a “mother of nations?” She is.
A promise from God in Genesis 17:16 gives her this title in parallel with Abraham. “I will bless her,” the Lord says. “Kings of people shall be of her.”4
I might translate this phrase differently: “Kings of nations shall belong to her.” The Hebrew text has a strong sense of kinship and keeping that befits a mother’s leadership. …
The narratives about [Sarah] in the Bible do include unusual phrases that scholars have noted may allude to her unique status. In them, she parallels Abraham as a covenant woman with divine blessings. Abraham sought a divine fatherhood and the ability to become a “prince of peace.” This title in Hebrew would likely read as Sar Shalom.5 And Sarah’s name is, you recall, the feminine parallel.
A “prince” would be very equally yoked with a “princess.” So it’s interesting that Abraham, who is seeking this title, would be joined with a partner whose name represents that same title in the feminine form.
The term sar occurs in another important moment in Sarah’s story. Consider Sarah’s experience in Egypt. When Abraham and his group arrive at the border, Abraham requests that Sarah say she is his sister (see Genesis 12:11–13).6 He is concerned about the reaction of Pharaoh. Indeed, when they arrive, “The Egyptians beheld the woman that she was very fair. The princes also of Pharaoh saw her, and commended her before Pharaoh; and the woman was taken into Pharaoh’s house” (Genesis 12:14–15).
Why is such attention paid to Sarah? Most readers today attribute it to her beauty and leave it there. But the Hebrew subtly hints at an elevated status.
Scholars have noticed wordplays at work in the Hebrew that connect Sarah to rituals and imagery pertinent to mother goddesses of ancient Egypt.7 The word “commended” here is actually from a root meaning “to praise” (hillel), a term most often directed toward Divinity.8
It is also interesting that Egyptian figures identified as “princes” report about Sarah to Pharaoh. This is probably a wordplay on Sarah’s name, suggesting a shared royal or political status.
The words here are meant to highlight Sarah’s importance in ways that surpass simple good looks. In fact, they suggest that she may have been perceived as a priestess or a woman representing the Divine.9 If this is the case, Pharaoh could have been seeking her to augment the power of his household. For Sarah to belong to Abraham’s household might have been seen as a challenge.
This explanation gives more depth to the idea that Abraham’s life depended on how Sarah was perceived. Because a similar story occurs when Abraham and Sarah are residing in the lands of Abimelek in Genesis 20:1–14, several scholars have suggested that Sarah’s status was recognized by kings and that her significance was being either honored or exploited.10 Her presence may have been understood to augment the power of these royal houses.
Sarah’s Covenant Transformation
Another covenant parallel exists for the couple. Both Abraham and Sarah receive a change of name, bestowed on them by God.
This act occurs in Genesis 17 when God reiterates the covenant promises. “Abram” becomes “Abraham” (v. 5), and “Sarai” becomes “Sarah” (v. 15).
A change of name signals a change in status or sometimes even a new identity or role.11 Anciently, the bestowal of a new name was an element of coronation rites and was associated with the acquisition of royal authority. Biblically, it seems associated with a spiritual transformation.12
Both Sarah and Abraham participate in this covenant act. However, for Sarah at least, it appears not to come until after a test.
When Sarah’s barrenness requires that she opt for a surrogate pregnancy, Sarah chooses this with full faith. Like Abraham, she seems to understand that there is a special line that will come through her. It is with an eye for her covenant role that she makes this choice. Giving her handmaid Hagar as the surrogate, she describes it: “I will be built up through her” (Genesis 16:2, my translation).
Note that Sarah’s focus is on what is meant for her—she, Sarah, will be built up. The promises of “seed” seem as much hers as Abraham’s.
I wonder, then, how Sarah might have grieved to later find that an angel had proclaimed the surrogate child would actually build up a “nation” for Hagar and not for Sarah as previously planned (see Genesis 16:7–15). With this change, it may have seemed that Abraham’s promise, at least, was fulfilled. He had his heir.
But God wasn’t done with Sarah, and He showed it through the sign of a prophecy and a changing of her name: “God said unto Abraham, as for Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall her name be. And I will bless her, and give thee a son also of her; yea, I will bless her and she shall be a mother of nations” (Genesis 17:15–16). …
As I read Sarah’s story, her wisdom, courage, and inspiration shine through. She appears to me as Abraham’s covenant equal: enduring challenges, making sacrifices, and holding fast to promises.
Though history may not have afforded her all the acclaim and attention given to Abraham, Sarah remains a powerful foremother for the house of Israel, a family that—as the covenant promised—blesses the whole earth (see Genesis 22:18).
Study women of courage
More articles for you:
▶ Pres. Oaks’s life shows us it’s never too late for gospel learning
▶ One couple’s sweet story of falling in love through the gospel of Jesus Christ
▶ 3 practical tips for pacing yourself while serving others
Notes
1. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all claim Abraham as a founding father. This is largely because of the association he has with founding monotheism in the ancient world.
2. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (Hendrickson, 1994), 978–79. See also Ziporah Yavin, Queen Sarai: The History of an Israeli Queen (Resling Publication, 2014), 93; Dvora Lederman-Daniely, Sarai: Is She the Goddess of Ancient Israel? (Wipf and Stock, 2021), 32. President Russell M. Nelson has spoken about this Hebrew root and its meaning and its importance to our lives on the covenant path. See Nelson, “Let God Prevail,” Liahona, November 2020.
3. David Bakan has observed that “not all the offspring of Abraham are Israelites; the Israelites stem only from Sarah. Sarah is more definitely the ancestor of the Israelites than Abraham.” Bakan, And They Took Themselves Wives (Harper and Row, 1979), 73. I am assuming that the children sired by Abraham are included in his descendants. The angel’s promise to Hagar was one of a nation of posterity (see Genesis 16:10–11); Sarah’s promise was almost identical. Hagar (see Genesis 16) and possibly another, Keturah (see Genesis 25:1–4; 1 Chronicles 1:32), are women who lead other Abra-hamic lineages. In some Jewish traditions, Keturah is understood to be another reference to Hagar (see Rashi on Genesis 25:1; see also Genesis Rabbah 61). However, other commentators, such as Ibn Ezra, Nahmanides, and Rashbam, rejected the idea.
4. It should be noted that the Hebrew word for “mother” doesn’t appear in Genesis 17:16 of the Masoretic Text. The Septuagint, the Vulgate, and the Syriac versions of the Bible appear to reorient this verse around Isaac: “I will bless him. ... He will give rise to nations; rulers of people shall stem from him.” However, in the MT the whole verse uses feminine terms, which are attributed to Sarah. The Hebrew also suggests that she will “belong to” or “possess” nations and that kings of nations will come through her. The phrasing here is similar to the promise given to Hagar about her pregnancy with Ishmael.
5. The linguistic origins of the Pearl of Great Price are not available for analysis; however, a similar phrase appears in Isaiah 9:6, and that Hebrew reads as “sar shalom” (שר שלום). See Brown, Driver, and Briggs, Hebrew and English Lexicon, 978–79.
6. Commentators have long wrestled with this story. For a good discussion, see Gaye Strathearn, “The Wife/Sister Experience: Pharaoh’s Introduction to Jehovah,” in Sperry Symposium Classics: The Old Testament, ed. Paul Y. Hoskisson (Religious Studies Center and Deseret Book, 2005), 100–116.
7. Scholars have observed that the phrasing here is suggestive of the festivities in honor of the Egyptian mother-goddess, and the ritual acts of praising her beauty, courage, and wisdom. See Yavin, Queen Sarai, 62; Dvora Lederman-Daniely, “‘And Sarah Heard It in the Tent Door’ (Genesis 18, 10): Uncovering Sarah’s Covenant,” Feminist Theology 27, no. 1 (2018): 32–33.
8. See Brown, Driver, and Briggs, Hebrew and English Lexicon, 238. This term will be familiar to English speakers as part of the word Hallelujah, meaning “Praise the Lord.”
9. See Savina J. Teubal, Sarah the Priestess: The First Matriarch of Genesis (Swallow Press, 1984), 96–97; Lederman-Daniely, Sarai, 10.
10. Hugh Nibley suggested that it was Sarah’s royal blood that brought the problem about: “It was also a pharaoh who sought the hand of Sarah, the true princess, in order to raise up a royal progeny by her.” Nibley, “Patriarchy and Matriarchy,” in The Collected Works of Hugh Nibley, vol. 1, Old Testament and Related Studies (Deseret Book, 1986), 99. See also Teubal, Sarah the Priestess, 96.
11. See 2 Corinthians 5:17: “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things have become new.”
12. Several other biblical figures experience a name change, including Jacob and Joseph in the Old Testament and Simon and Paul in the New Testament. Revelation 2:17 promised a “new name” to all the faithful. See Stephen D. Ricks and John J. Sroka, “King, Coronation, and Temple: Enthronement Ceremonies in History,” in Temples of the Ancient World: Ritual and Symbolism, ed. Donald W. Parry (Neal A. Maxwell Institute, 1994), 244–46.