Sarah

Sarah is absent from the biblical account of Isaac’s binding, and there’s no indication that Abraham even discussed God’s command with her. Would she have been an active participant, a faithful supporter, or a grief-stricken mother? Later interpreters filled in her role according to their religious and cultural contexts.

In the 2nd century C.E., when Christianity emerged as a religion, theologians such as Justin and Chrysostom interpreted Paul’s letters to mean that Christians with faith in Jesus are Abraham’s spiritual descendants through Sarah. Jews, in contrast, are only his flesh descendants, banished like Hagar. Genesis Rabbah responds that after Sarah’s death, Abraham remarried Hagar—now called Keturah, “adorned” (kitra) with commandments and good deeds—and had many more children with her than he did with Sarah.

In the Ugaritic Aqhat Epic (ca. 14th cent. B.C.E., Syria), Danel laughs with unrestrained joy at El’s promise of a son. Why do Abraham and Sarah respond with nervous, uneasy laughter when YHWH makes the same promise?

In ancient Judah, death was a two-step journey: the body was laid in a tomb, and the spirit passed to She’ol. Ancestral spirits were believed to influence the fortunes of the living and could be consulted, as when Saul summons Samuel through the woman of Endor, who exclaims, “I see an ʾelohim coming up from the earth.” Biblical authors rejected these practices and replaced them, establishing communal ancestors entombed in the cave of Machpelah and asserting that YHWH Elohim alone can intervene to ensure fertility, land, and well-being.

In protest against the binding of Isaac, Sarah returns alone to Hebron, the site where YHWH promised her a son. This move marks the moment when she stops following her husband Abraham and finds her own path.

When Pharaoh takes Sarai into his palace, rather than being a passive victim, as in the Bible, the midrash has Sarai taking her complaint directly to God and commanding an angel regarding her protection and the punishment of her captors.

Abraham does not comply with the very first command that YHWH gives him, and throughout his life, he doubts and questions YHWH. Does Abraham ultimately become the man of faith he is reputed to be?

Abram’s journey from Ur of the Chaldeans to Canaan, and God’s changing his name to Abraham, “father of a multitude of nations,” presage the struggles and aspirations of his descendants’ return migration from Babylon to Judah. At stake is Isaiah’s vision about the place of Israel among the nations.

Abraham, Isaac and David are literally or figuratively blind to YHWH’s intentions. It is their wives who take decisive action to shape Israel’s future.

When Sarah overhears that she and Abraham will have a baby, she laughs. When confronted, she denies it, fearing Abraham’s reaction. After all, Abraham has consistently put Sarah in difficult situations, neglected her, and seemed content with Ishmael, Hagar’s son, as his heir.

Abused by Sarai, Hagar flees to the wilderness. An angel of God appears to her and instructs her to return and continue her suffering and enslavement under Sarai, but he promises that Ishmael will be free. Hagar responds by naming YHWH El-Roi, “God has seen me.” Hagar’s story parallels Israel in Egypt, highlighting that God cares about people beyond just Israel.

The sister-wife story of Abraham and Sarah in Egypt reworks the sister-wife story of Isaac and Rebekah in Gerar. The passage is an intertextual bricolage, composed to have Abraham, the paradigmatic “first Israelite,” personally experience the nation's core redemptive event.

Hagar and Sarah are the matriarchs of the Arabs and the Jews in Jewish and Muslim interpretation. In the Bible, the feud between the two women is never mended, but Jewish and Muslim feminist readers have used midrash-style poetry to rewrite the ending of their story, in hope of reconciling the contemporary conflict between their putative descendants.

In the introductory verses of the Akedah (Binding of Isaac), God refers to Isaac as Abraham’s only son, ignoring the existence of Ishmael. Ishmael’s absence has bothered even the earliest readers of the text, but a documentary approach obviates the problem. The key is understanding the relationship between Abraham and Hagar.

The story of the Akedah appears to present Abraham’s actions in a uniformly positive light. However, Isaac’s absence at the end of the story, and Sarah’s death immediately afterwards, suggested to some traditional and modern commentators a criticism of Abraham.

Set in between two stories that describe Sarah as old and withered is the episode of Abimelech taking Sarah. Why does he desire her?

The earliest version of the birth and sacrifice of Isaac account questioned the identity of the boy’s father and concluded with Abraham sacrificing him to God.

The liturgical readings of Rosh Hashanah tell of Sarah, Rachel, and Hannah being “remembered” by God, making barrenness and conception the locus of divine providence.

Maimonides believes that any story in the Bible with angels is a prophetic vision. Nahmanides calls this position “forbidden to believe” and claims they are real occurrences. Must the Torah be historically true or just philosophically?

The Bible pays little attention to the death of its female characters, writing only cursory death notices, or sometimes none at all. Second Temple period authors retell the Torah’s stories to give more pride of place to the death scenes of its heroines.

The literary similarities between the expulsion of Ishmael account and that of the Akedah implies that a trial is taking place.

“The Lord visited Sarah” (Genesis 21:1) – When God (and his angels) appears to Abraham to announce the birth of Isaac, the text implies a hidden visit to Sarah. Does this mean, as both Philo and Paul claim, that Isaac was born from a divine conception?