Sarah’s Response to the Binding of Isaac in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam

Given how prominent Sarah is elsewhere in Abraham’s story, her complete absence from the Akedah, “Binding of Isaac” (Gen 22), is remarkable. Abraham receives God’s command alone, travels to Mount Moriah with Isaac and two servants, and returns home (v. 19), all without any reported conversation with his wife.

Early Jewish, Christian, and Islamic sources, however, all developed narratives about Sarah’s role in the Akedah.

Sarah-Mary Typology: Christian Tradition

Christian interpreters in the 4^th and early 5^th-century C.E. increasingly presented Sarah as prefiguring Mary, the mother of Jesus, who was venerated for her spiritual strength in the face of her son’s sacrificial death.^[1] Their various approaches to including Sarah in the Akedah reinforced the Sarah-Mary typology:^[2]

Spiritually strong and eager to participate in God’s plan – Ephrem the Syrian (306–373) arguing that Abraham deliberately chose not to inform Sarah because God had not commanded him to inform her,^[3] suggests that Sarah would have been too eager to participate: “She would have persuaded him to let her go and participate in his sacrifice just as she had participated in the promise of his son.”^[4] The implication was that just as she was a partner in bringing Isaac into the world, so she would be a partner in the sacrifice.

Theologically sophisticated and self-sacrificing – Gregory of Nyssa (335–395) imagines extensive speeches Sarah might have made, depicting her as a rational moral agent capable of serious theological engagement. His Sarah even offers to sacrifice herself in Isaac’s place: “Let the eyes of Sarah see neither Abraham as a child killer nor Isaac killed by his father’s hands.”^[5]

A spiritual guide and intercessor – A sermon attributed to Amphilochius of Iconium (d. 394) gives Sarah direct speech and an active teaching role. She catches up with Abraham and instructs Isaac on proper sacrificial comportment: “Put your hands behind you, be as one who is bound, until the Good One may see you from heaven.”^[6] God explicitly credits both Abraham’s obedience and Sarah’s constant prayers: “For her part, Sarah has not ceased to beseech me about him.”^[7]

Two 5^th- or 6^th-century Syriac Memras (verse homilies) explicitly develop Sarah-Mary typology:^[8]

A mother’s suffering is redemptive – In Memra I, Sarah questions Abraham before his departure, worried he might harm Isaac. Upon Isaac’s return, Sarah’s physical response is severe:

[Sarah] caught sight of Isaac returning and ran and fell on his neck... Pangs gripped her all of a sudden; she collapsed, doubled up from fright; she was at death’s very door. People gathered round and lifted her up; she was unable to recollect her senses, and scarcely could she turn to sit down.^[9]

Crucially, however, just as Mary survived her son’s death to serve the early church, so Sarah also recovers to continue her spiritual role.^[10] Regaining consciousness, she welcomes Isaac in mingled grief and joy:

Welcome in peace, slain one come alive, upon whom the Lord’s right hand had compassion... whom (God) returned in compassion to his mother whose mind was grievously pained at his separation from her.^[11]

(Such a reunion is absent from the Bible.) This Memra concludes with Sarah’s maternal suffering, like Mary’s, having redemptive significance and intercessory power: “Because of the suffering of his mother, in Your compassion return to us what we ask.”^[12]

Sarah wants to participate – Memra II presents Sarah, when she learns of Abraham’s plan, demanding, unsuccessfully, to participate: “Let me go up with you to the burnt offering and let me see my only child being sacrificed.”^[13] She further instructs Isaac: “Stretch out your hands to the bonds... stretch out your neck before his knife; stretch out your neck like a lamb.”^[14]

Upon their return, Abraham tests Sarah by claiming Isaac has died. She grieves not that he died but that she was absent, wishing she could see “the place where my only child, my beloved, was sacrificed, that I might see the place of his ashes... and bring back a little of his blood to be comforted by its smell.”^[15] When Isaac enters alive, she embraces him and praises God.

These Christian traditions developed explicitly from understanding Sarah as prefiguring Mary. Both experience maternal anguish over their sons’ sacrifices, both demonstrate spiritual strength rather than weakness, both survive to continue their maternal roles, and both mothers’ suffering has redemptive significance.

Sarah’s Death is Unconnected to the Akedah: Genesis Rabbah

The earliest rabbinic connection between Sarah’s death and the Akedah appears in Genesis Rabbah (4^th–5^th century C.E.), which draws on the biblical account, in which the report of her death appears almost immediately after the Akedah, perhaps suggesting that she died immediately afterwards, or perhaps even that her death was precipitated by the Akedah:

^{בראשית כג:א} וַיִּהְיוּ חַיֵּי שָׂרָה מֵאָה שָׁנָה וְעֶשְׂרִים שָׁנָה וְשֶׁבַע שָׁנִים שְׁנֵי חַיֵּי שָׂרָה. ^כג:ב וַתָּמָת שָׂרָה בְּקִרְיַת אַרְבַּע הִוא חֶבְרוֹן בְּאֶרֶץ כְּנָעַן וַיָּבֹא אַבְרָהָם לִסְפֹּד לְשָׂרָה וְלִבְכֹּתָהּ.

^{Gen 23:1} Sarah’s lifetime—the span of Sarah’s life—came to 127 years. ^23:2 Sarah died in Kiriath-arba—now Hebron—in the land of Canaan; and Abraham came to mourn for Sarah and to bewail her.”^[16]

What does it mean that Abraham “came” to mourn her? Where was Abraham coming from? Genesis Rabbah answers:

^{בראשית רבה נח:ה} וַיָּבֹא אַבְרָהָם לִסְפֹּד לְשָׂרָה (בראשית כג:ב), מֵהֵיכָן בָּא, רַבִּי לֵוִי אָמַר מִקְבוּרָתוֹ שֶׁל תֶּרַח לְשָׂרָה בָּא.

^{Gen Rab 58:5} And Abraham came to mourn Sarah. Where did he come from? Rabbi Levi said, from the burial of Terach [his father] he came to Sarah.

אָמַר לוֹ רַבִּי יוֹסֵי וַהֲלוֹא קְבוּרָתוֹ שֶׁל תֶּרַח קָדְמָה לִקְבוּרָתָהּ שֶׁל שָׂרָה שְׁתֵּי שָׁנִים, אֶלָּא מֵהֵיכָן בָּא מֵהַר הַמּוֹרִיָּה.

Rabbi Yosi said, were there not two years from the burial of Terach to the burial of Sarah? Rather, from where did he come? From Mount Moriah.^[17]

This midrash does not suggest that Sarah knew about the Akedah or that her death was related to it—merely that it immediately followed it. In the first printing in Constantinople 1512 and an early 18^th-century Yemenite manuscript, however, we find an explanatory addition attributing her death to the binding of Isaac:

^{בראשית רבה נח:ה} וּמֵתָה שָׂרָה מֵאוֹתוֹ צַעַר, לְפִיכָךְ נִסְמְכָה עֲקֵדָה לְוַיִּהְיוּ חַיֵּי שָׂרָה.

^{Gen Rab 58:5} And Sarah died from that grief, which explains why the story of the binding of Isaac comes right before the passage [that commences], “And the life of Sarah was...”^[18]

That Genesis Rabbah originally did not connect Sarah’s death to the Akedah was likely strategic.

Sarah-Mary Typology in Genesis Rabbah

The midrash often uses Marian imagery to elevate Sarah.^[19] For example, adapting the image of Mary as the virgin mother of Jesus, Genesis Rabbah suggests that Sarah did not need sexual desire and that she was impregnated by God:^[20]

^{בראשית רבה נג:ו} אָמַר רַבִּי יְהוּדָה בְּרַבִּי סִימוֹן אַף עַל גַּב דְּאָמַר רַבִּי הוּנָא מַלְאָךְ הוּא שֶׁהוּא מְמֻנֶּה עַל הַתַּאֲוָה, אֲבָל שָׂרָה לֹא נִצְרְכָה לַדְּבָרִים הַלָּלוּ אֶלָּא הוּא בִּכְבוֹדוֹ, וַה' פָּקַד אֶת שָׂרָה

^{Gen Rab 53:6} Rabbi Yehuda ben Rabbi Simon said: Even though Rabbi Huna said there is an angel that is in charge of desire [and procreation], Sarah did not require such things, but rather, it was He Himself in His glory – “And the Lord remembered Sarah.”

We might, therefore, have expected Genesis Rabbah to also include Marian imagery in its account of Sarah’s death. Christian tradition, however, had granted Mary a dignified, peaceful death,^[21] and thus a narrative of Sarah dying from traumatic shock over the binding of Isaac would have contradicted the midrash’s competitive positioning of Sarah against the developing Christian theology of Mary.

Pesikta de Rav Kahana and Leviticus Rabbah, which were roughly contemporary with Genesis Rabbah, pursued a very different strategy to counter Christian adoption of Sarah as pre-figuring Mary; they undermined the comparison by highlighting Sarah’s fatal weakness.

Sarah’s Response to the Akedah is Unlike Mary: Pesikta de Rav Kahana

Pesikta de Rav Kahana, in a passage that focuses on how to cope with grief properly, emphasizes silence in the face of trauma. Abraham is presented as an exemplar of how the righteous contain their grief. In that context, it provides a detailed account of Sarah’s death.^[22] After Isaac returns to Sarah, he tells her what happened:

^{פסיקתא דרב כהנא כו} וכיון שבא אצל אמו אמרה לו בני מה עשה לך אביך.

^{Pesikta de Rav Kahana 26} When he got back to his mother, she asked him: My son, what did your father do to you?^[23]

Isaac emphasizes the details of his near-sacrifice:

^{פסיקתא דרב כהנא כו} א' לה נטלני אבא והעלני הרים והורידני גבעות והעלני לראש הר אחד, ובנה מזבח וסידר את המערכה והעריך את העצים והעקידני על גבי המזבח ונטל את הסכין בידו לשחטני, אילולי שא' לו הקב"ה אל תשלח ידך אל הנער (שם) כבר הייתי שחוט.

^{Pesikta de Rav Kahana 26} He replied: My father took and led me up mountains and down the hills below them until he brought me finally to the top of one mountain where he built an altar, set up a pile of wood, arranged the kindling, bound me upon the altar, and took the knife into his hand to slay me. Had not the Holy One said to him Lay not thy hand upon the lad (ibid.), I would have been slain.

Sarah is so stricken by his account that she dies:

^{פסיקתא דרב כהנא כו} אמרה לו ווי לך ברא דעלובתא, אילולי דאמ' קודשא בריך הוא אל תשלח ידך אל הנער כבר היית שחוט. לא הספיקה לגמור את הדבר עד שיצתה נשמ'.

^{Pesikta de Rav Kahana 26} His mother then said: Alas for you, son of a mother so hapless that if the Holy One had not said Lay not thy hand upon the lad (ibid.), you would have been slain. She had not yet finished speaking when her soul left her.

In contrast, Abraham’s response to Sarah’s death is practical:

^{פסיקתא דרב כהנא כו} ויבא אברהם לספוד לשרה ולבכותה (שם כג:ב), מהיכן בא, מהר המורייה.

^{Pesikta de Rav Kahana 26} “Abraham came to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her” (Gen 23:2). And from where did he come? From Mount Moriah.

By portraying Sarah as weak, Pesikta de Rav Kahana undermines Christian attempts to present her as prefiguring Mary, who witnessed her son’s actual death and survived (e.g., John 19:25–27).

Gender and Grief in the Greco-Roman World

Pesikta de Rav Kahana’s narrative of Sarah dying from hearing about her son’s near-death is intentionally playing on Greco-Roman attitudes about gender and emotions that shaped the ancient world that the rabbis inhabited; keeping your emotions in check was seen as a core marker of masculine virtue, civilization, and spiritual advancement. The Roman moralist Plutarch (ca. 45–120 C.E.) had earlier made the hierarchy explicit. Mourning is “womanish and ill-suited to decent men who can claim to be educated and free-born,” while “women are more given to it than men.”^[24]

The Stoic philosopher Seneca (ca. 1 B.C.E – 65 C.E.) even legislated temporal limits on mourning by gender:

Our ancestors have decreed a year of mourning for women...For men, no time was set, because it is not honourable to mourn.^[25]

Yet even this gendered system recognized maternal grief as culturally legitimate—as long as women acted within strict boundaries. A mother could grieve actual loss but was expected to survive, recover, and continue functioning through philosophical self-control.^[26]

Elisheva’s Reaction to the Death of Her Sons

Crucially, Pesikta de Rav Kahana follows the account of Abraham and Sarah with that of Elisheva bat Aminadav, Aaron’s wife, whose two sons are consumed by fire from YHWH (Lev 10). The text’s parallel structure links Abraham and Elisheva through common opening formulae:

^{פסיקתא דרב כהנא כו} אברהם לא שמח בעולמי ואתם מבקשים לשמוח בעולמי.

^{Pesikta de Rav Kahana 26} Abraham did not get to rejoice in My world, yet you, [the wicked], expect to rejoice in My world!

^{פסיקתא דרב כהנא כו} אלישבע בת עמינדב לא שמחה ואתם מבקשי' לשמוח בעולמי.

^{Pesikta de Rav Kahana 26} Elisheba, daughter of Amminadab, did not get to rejoice, yet you, [the wicked], expect to rejoice in My world.

(Sarah is not introduced with this formula.) Like Abraham, Elisheva is presented as an exemplar of the righteous experiencing grief:^[27]

^{פסיקתא דרב כהנא כו} אלישבע בת עמינדב ראת ארבע שמחות ביום אחד, בעלה כהן גדול, ויבמה מלך, ואחיה נשיא, ושני בניה סגני כהונה, וכיון שנכנסו יצאו שרופים, נהפכה שמחתה לאבל.

^{Pesikta de Rav Kahana 26} In one day Elisheba, daughter of Amminadab, knew four joys: her husband as High Priest, her brother-in-law as king, her brother as prince, and two of her sons as adjutants of the High Priest. But when [her other two sons] came [into the Tabernacle] and were taken out [their souls] burnt [out of them], her joy was turned to mourning.^[28]

Elisheva experiences actual loss (her two sons die), yet she meets Seneca’s standard of legitimate maternal sorrow contained within proper bounds, followed by philosophical recovery and continued life.

Where Abraham and Elisheva model controlled grief and continued functioning, Sarah becomes the counter-example of fatal emotional failure. In this respect, Sarah was completely unlike Mary and could not pre-figure her.

Amplifying the Difference between Sarah and Abraham: Leviticus Rabbah

Leviticus Rabbah intensifies Sarah’s reaction to Isaac’s story:

בְּאוֹתָהּ שָׁעָה צָוְחָה שִׁשָּׁה קוֹלוֹת כְּנֶגֶד שִׁשָּׁה תְּקִיעוֹת, אָמְרוּ לֹא הִסְפִּיקָה אֶת הַדָּבָר עַד שֶׁמֵּתָה

^{Lev Rab 20:2} At that moment, she wailed six cries corresponding to the six soundings [of the Shofar].^[29] They say that she could not complete the matter before she died.”^[30]

It then adds a scene after Sarah’s death in which Abraham worries that he may have performed the sacrifice incorrectly:

וְהָיָה אַבְרָהָם מְהַרְהֵר בְּלִבּוֹ וְאוֹמֵר שֶׁמָּא חַס וְשָׁלוֹם נִמְצָא בּוֹ פְּסוּל וְלֹא נִתְקַבֵּל קָרְבָּנוֹ, יָצְתָה בַּת קוֹל וְאוֹמֶרֶת לוֹ (קהלת ט, ז): לֵךְ אֱכֹל בְּשִׂמְחָה לַחְמֶךָ.

^{Lev Rab 20:2} And Abraham ruminated in his heart and said, Perhaps, heaven forfend, a disqualifying blemish was found and my sacrifice was not accepted from me? A heavenly voice called out, ‘Go, eat your bread in rejoicing...’ (Eccl 9:7).

His practical concerns demonstrate emotional resilience along with awareness and concern for religious law (halakhah). The contrast between Sarah and Abraham reinforces Greco-Roman gender hierarchies. It shows masculine rationality and religious duty versus feminine emotional collapse.

Abraham Anticipates Sarah’s Weakness: Midrash Tanhuma

The Tanhuma (likely 8th–9th century, though it preserves earlier material) has Abraham explicitly applying assumptions about feminine emotional capacity to Sarah:

^{מדרש תנחומא, וירא כב} אָמַר אַבְרָהָם, מָה אֶעֱשֶׂה, אִם אֲגַלֶּה לְשָׂרָה, נָשִׁים דַּעְתָּן קַלָּה עֲלֵיהֶן בְּדָבָר קָטָן, כָּל שֶׁכֵּן בְּדָבָר גָּדוֹל כָּזֶה. וְאִם לֹא אֲגַלֶּה לָהּ וְאֶגְנְבֶנּוּ מִמֶּנָּה בְּעֵת שֶׁלֹּא תִרְאֶה אוֹתוֹ, תַּהֲרֹג אֶת עַצְמָהּ.

^{Midrash Tanchuma, Vayera 22} Abraham said to himself: What shall I do? If I tell Sarah all about it, consider what may happen. After all, a woman’s mind becomes distraught over insignificant matters; how much more disturbed would she become if she heard something as significant as this! However, if I tell her nothing at all, and simply steal him away from her when she is not looking, she will kill herself.^[31]

After Abraham and Isaac successfully resist Satan’s attempts to dissuade them from God’s command (a tradition already known from Genesis Rabbah 56:4 and shared in Islamic sources—more on this later),^[32] Tanhuma adds a third visit in which Satan approaches Sarah disguised as Isaac:

בְּאוֹתָהּ שָׁעָה הָלַךְ הַשָּׂטָן אֵצֶל שָׂרָה וְנִדְמָה לָהּ כִּדְמוּת יִצְחָק. כֵּיוָן שֶׁרָאֲתָה אוֹתוֹ אָמְרָה לוֹ: בְּנִי, מֶה עָשָׂה לְךָ אָבִיךָ? אָמַר לָהּ: נְטַלַנִי אָבִי וְהֶעֱלַנִי הָרִים וְהוֹרִידַנִי בְקָעוֹת וְהֶעֱלַנִי לְרֹאשׁ הַר אֶחָד וּבָנוּ מִזְבֵּחַ וְסִדֵּר הַמַּעֲרָכָה וְהֶעֱרִיךְ אֶת הָעֵצִים וְעָקַד אוֹתִי עַל גַּבֵּי הַמִּזְבֵּחַ וְלָקַח אֶת הַסַּכִּין לְשָׁחֳטֵנִי. וְאִלּוּלֵי שֶׁאָמַר לוֹ הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא אַל תִּשְׁלַח יָדְךָ אֶל הַנַּעַר, כְּבָר הָיִיתִי נִשְׁחָט.

^{Midrash Tanchuma, Vayera 23} When she saw him she asked: “What did your father do to you, my son?” He replied: “My father led me over mountains and through valleys until we finally reached the top of a certain mountain. There he erected an altar, arranged the firewood, bound me upon the altar, and took a knife to slaughter me. If the Holy One, blessed be He, had not called out, ‘Lay not thy hand upon the lad,’ I would have been slaughtered.”

לֹא הִסְפִּיק לִגְמֹר אֶת הַדָּבָר עַד שֶׁיָּצְאָה נִשְׁמָתָהּ, הֲדָא הוּא דִכְתִיב, וַיָּבֹא אַבְרָהָם לִסְפֹּד לְשָׂרָה וְלִבְכֹּתָהּ. מֵהֵיכָן בָּא? מֵהַר הַמּוֹרִיָּה.

He had hardly completed relating what had transpired when she fainted and died, as it is written: And Abraham came to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her (Gen 23:2). From where did he come? From Moriah.

The addition of Satan’s visit to Sarah serves a specific narrative purpose. Satan’s attempts to dissuade Abraham and Isaac aimed to prevent the sacrifice from occurring. His visit to Sarah, after the sacrifice has been averted and Isaac preserved, simply highlights her fatal weakness.

Sarah (Hagar) Accepts the Sacrifice of Isaac (Ishmael): Islamic Traditions

In Abd al-Razzaq’s (d. 826, Yemen) Quranic commentary, Satan (called Iblis in Islamic tradition) visits Sarah first:

Satan went to Sarah and said: “Do you know where Abraham went with Isaac?” She said, “No, I don’t know.” He said, “He went to sacrifice him.” She said, “Why would he do that?” He said, “He claims that God ordered him to do it.” She said, “If that’s the truth, he has done well to obey Him.”^[33]

Her response reveals theological reasoning—not merely passive acceptance but active approval of Abraham’s obedience to divine command—and is the exact opposite of Sarah’s portrayal in the Tanhuma.

Al-Tabari’s (839–923, Iran) historical traditions show even closer structural parallels to Tanhuma, suggesting either a common source or Islamic awareness of Jewish traditions,^[34] though the protagonists are Ishmael and his mother rather than Isaac and Sarah. (The Quran is ambiguous about which son was to be sacrificed.)^[35]

Satan attempts to dissuade each family member in turn. Following rejection by Abraham and Ishmael:

He went to Hagar and said, “Mother of Ishmael, do you realize where Abraham is going with Ishmael?” She said, “They have gone to fetch wood for us from the desert.” He said, “By God, his real purpose is to sacrifice him.” She said, “Why? What for?” He said, “He claims that his Lord commanded him to do it.”

She said, “If his Lord commanded him to do it, then one should surrender to the command of God.” The enemy of God returned enraged, for he had not achieved anything with the family of Abraham. They had all refused to deal with him, by God’s help, and they had agreed with God’s command, saying, “To hear is to obey.”^[36]

The parallel to Tanhuma is clear. Satan visits three family members in sequence, attempting to prevent the sacrifice by stirring up emotional resistance. But where Tanhuma’s Sarah dies from hearing the news, these Islamic sources have the mothers immediately recognize divine authority and submit.

The difference lies not in the scenario but in underlying assumptions about feminine spiritual capacity. The Islamic traditions expect ideal mothers to possess spiritual fortitude identical to Abraham’s and his son’s, capable of the same immediate recognition of and submission to divine command.

Midrash in Cultural Context

Because Sarah’s death follows immediately after the Akedah in Genesis, there was an exegetical opening—a question that invited interpretation. Contemporary Christian and Islamic sources show that ancient religious writers had multiple options for including Sarah in the Akedah. They could portray her as spiritually strong, as a rational moral agent, as an active participant, or as someone who survives with resilience. The comparative evidence thus demonstrates that honoring both masculine and feminine forms of spiritual strength was possible in late antiquity.

For Sarah, however, the rabbis chose a different path, presenting her death from hearing about the Akedah as a story of feminine constitutional failure that simultaneously distinguished Sarah from the increasingly venerated Mary of Christian tradition and reinforced Greco-Roman gender hierarchies. Significantly, the rabbis did not apply this framework universally; Elisheva bat Aminadav, Aaron’s wife, is portrayed as grieving appropriately.

Understanding these traditions as deliberate constructions rather than neutral readings helps contemporary readers recognize how ancient cultural assumptions about gender, emotion, and spiritual authority became embedded within religious texts.