Our Wondrous God: Sarah Laughs
Our Wondrous God: Sarah Laughs.
“Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in years. The way of women had ceased to be with Sarah. So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, “After I am worn out, and my lord is old, shall I have pleasure? Then Yahweh said to Abraham, ‘Why did Sarah laugh, saying ‘Shall I in truth bear a child, old as I am?’ For, is anything too wondrous (“pala”) for Yahweh to do? Is there anything that is too difficult for Yahweh to accomplish?” (Genesis 18:11-14).
“Pala” is the Hebrew word most often used to mean wondrous; miraculous; unsurpassed; something so wonderful that it is beyond comprehension; remarkable, extraordinary, marvelous; so awesome it cannot be understood by humans; so amazing that it seems impossible or too difficult to accomplish; so uniquely set apart from human understanding that it is God’s secret.
“Too Difficult?” Some translations of the Hebrew Bible take the word “pala” and put a negative spin on it. Instead of translating the word as wondrous, marvelous, or extraordinary, they put it as, “Is nothing ‘too difficult’ for the Lord?” Or “Is there anything ‘impossible’ for God to accomplish?” Yes, it’s obviously true that nothing is impossible for God, but why not put “pala” in a more positive, wondrous light since that’s a perfectly acceptable meaning of the word? After all, our God is so wondrous that there is nothing impossible for Him to accomplish.
The Talmud, the official rabbinic source for Judaism, includes a Hall of Fame that includes seven women. These are the prophetesses, the “Holy Women of Israel,” who hold places of honor and are of central importance in biblical history. These women are: Sarah (Genesis 11-23); Miriam (Exodus 2,15); Deborah (Judges 4-5); Hannah (1 Samuel 1-2); Abigail (1 Samuel 25); Huldah (2 Kings 22); and Esther.
Speaking God’s Mind. In some cases, the Hebrew word for woman prophet, “nebiah,” was used in Scripture, which was an official title of sorts for an accepted spokeswoman for the Lord, a proclaimer of God’s word. But in other cases, the term prophetess included a woman who was divinely inspired, able to receive divine messages about the present or the future, as well as divine interpretations of the past. Prophets male and female were those who spoke what was on God’s mind, and often held up as models of personal sanctity and intimacy with God. In one way or another, during one time or another, the biblical prophetesses were honored as mouthpieces of God and vital to the history of the Jewish people.
“Truly, I will bless Sarah richly, and she shall become the mother of many nations; kings of nations will come from her and will be her descendants.” (Genesis 17:16).
Father Abraham casts quite a long shadow in the biblical story and in human history. He was the pioneer of Judaism, of monotheism, of the three primary religions in the world. But at the same time, we wouldn’t have Father Abraham without Mother Sarah. Unlike too many Christians, Jewish believers do not in any way neglect to honor Sarah. She has long been declared a prophetess in Hebrew history, she is the founding mother of the Jewish faith, she is the matriarch of the Covenant. Lord Yahweh gave her that special blessing in Genesis 17 that promised her a unique place in His plans for the Jewish people. Sarah wasn’t merely a dutiful wife who followed her husband away from her home to places unknown. She wasn’t just someone in the shadows of a monumentally great husband who didn’t bother to tell her what was going on most of the time. If we are to take seriously the two-as-one marital idea when Creator God anointed marriage in the very beginnings of the world, then we have to acknowledge that Sarah’s story is inextricably linked with Abraham’s story. Despite biblical evidence that Christians spiritually came through Sarah just as much as Abraham, and therefore is a mother of the Christian faith; despite the fact that Messiah Jesus was a descendant from her family tree with Abraham; despite the fact that she is the first woman mentioned in the Hebrew Hall of Fame in Hebrews 11… Despite all that, Sarah tends to be a neglected and underappreciated person in our faith history. Yes, as Paul says in Galatians 3:29, “And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” Fine, but it takes two to tango, and at the crucial time in this miraculous conception, it wasn’t just Abraham’s seed that was involved. Both Father Abraham and Mother Sarah are our spiritual forbears. Sarah was an amazing, trail-blazing saint in her own right, so let’s take her out from her husband’s shadow.
Sarah’s Early Years. With the given name of Sarai (“my princess”), she was born and raised in the thoroughly pagan nation of Ur, what is now known as Iraq. Ur was ruled by the Chaldeans, and that nation was committed to the worship of as many as 2,000 different gods. In recent archeological digs, Ur at that point was a highly educated and prosperous society, an advanced nation with lavish homes, impressive schools, and a very sophisticated system of trade and commerce. Sarai was a 10th generation descendant of Noah through Shem. When Sarai was of marrying age, her half-brother Abraham married her, and little did they know at that time what an adventure awaited them in their life together. Their common father Terah at some point, decided to pack up everyone in the family and move to Haran, now known as Turkey. Terah and his family, including Abraham and Sarai, settled down in Terah for about twenty years, until Terah died there. It was in Haran that Lord Yahweh tapped Abraham on the shoulder, or maybe it felt more like a bolt of lightning, and told him that Yahweh had special plans for Abraham and all his family (Gen. 12). Abraham was about 75 years of age, and Sarah about 65, when he got the call from Yahweh to leave Haran and go to parts unknown in the land of Canaan. Abraham was to be especially blessed, says the Lord, and his family will be a unique blessing to the rest of the world as well. Yahweh’s call was personally to Abraham, but it might as well have been to Sarai too, since marriages are a package deal. Whenever God called Abraham, Sarai was likewise expected to be there right at his side the whole way.
Sarai’s Beauty. The Talmud claims that Sarai was one of the four most beautiful women in the Hebrew Scriptures, the others being Rahab, Abigail and Esther. Her beauty was such that she attracted a lot of attention wherever they traveled. Early on when in Egypt (Gen. 12:14), Sarai was quickly noticed and asked to be in Pharaoh’s harem, and later on the same thing happened in Gerar with King Abimelech (Gen. 20). In both cases, Abraham was afraid that the authorities would kill him in order to take Sarai into the palace. Evidently murder was considered less immoral than adultery. So in both cases Abraham told the half-truth of Sarai being his sister. Both Pharoah and the king of Gerar took Sarai into the palace, only to find out that Sarai was actually Abraham’s husband. Neither ruler could countenance committing adultery, so they let her go in both cases. For some reason, in neither case did Abraham consider what Sarai might have to endure for the sake of saving his own life. Abraham was not exactly gallant in these two delicate situations, but the Lord saved Sarah’s virtue and honor both times. Between possibly compromising Sarah’s purity to save himself, and then telling a manipulative half-truth both times, these two situations were not Abraham’s finest hours.
Sarai’s Barren Womb. Sarai had to endure a terrible stigma put on women of that day, her infertility. A barren woman was covered in shame back in the day, because a woman’s barrenness was considered a punishment from God. People would look at the barren woman as somehow deserving her fate, that there must be a major flaw in her character or a major sin in her past. So the infertile woman was typically considered less than a complete woman because of her misfortune. On the one hand, then, Sarai had to be strong to make sure she wasn’t taken advantage of in light of her beauty. On the other hand, Sarai had to stay strong and not be riddled with self-doubts as she faced the social rejection of her infertility. Sarai had to learn to be doubly strong, and she learned her lesson well. There were three biblical matriarchs to the Jewish faith, and they all three were barren. Sarai, Rebecca and Leah were all infertile, and one wonders if God wanted to teach us all something with this. Perhaps the Lord reminds all of us here that every pregnancy is a miracle, every child is a miracle child, and that just as our three matriarchs of the faith, we need to depend on the Lord for every pregnancy, every child. Children are a gift, and these three mothers confirm that, don’t they?
Sarai’s Laughter. When the Lord finally, in His wisdom, confirmed His promise of a world-changing family line (Gen. 17), by telling Abraham and Sarai they would have a child within a year, Sarah’s initial reaction was that the whole idea was laughable. To get pregnant at 90 years of age, and to enjoy sexual pleasure again, with a husband who is every bit of a 100, was quite a shocker. Was Sarai’s laughter one of disbelief, or the irony of it all? Was it a laugh of joyful relief, or of bewildered confusion? Was her laugh one of faith and wonder, or was it a laughter of friendly sarcasm, her thinking, “Pardon me, Lord, but isn’t this a bit ridiculous? You wait until I’m 90!” Sarai’s laughter might naturally have been a very human combination of all these emotions and thoughts. As a matter of fact, husband Abraham joined in the laughter to the point of falling on his face (Gen 17:17). It’s no wonder their miracle child was named Isaac, which is Hebrew for “laughter.” But Hebrews 11 makes a special point that sooner or later Sarah knew she could trust God with this outlandish development, and so Sarah proved to be a profound woman of faith. (Heb. 11:11). After a time, their shared laughter was now rooted in sheer joy, because, as Frederick Buechner said in his Peculiar Treasures, “… It suddenly dawned on them that the wildest dreams they’d ever had hadn’t been half wild enough.”
Sarai’s Name Change. Immediately after the Lord again confirmed His Covenant with Abraham and his family (Gen 17), Yahweh changed her name, from Sarai (“my princess”) to Sarah (“princess of all”). Whenever a name was changed in biblical times, it usually meant a change in both identity and destiny for that person. God plans on Sarah becoming the “mother of nations,” so His name change for Sarah makes complete sense. The root word for both her names meant “princess,” but now the Lord is putting a finer point on just what kind of princess God wants Sarah to become. This is the first and only time in Scripture that God has changed a name for a woman.
Sarah’s Pregnancy. So God keeps His word, of course, and returns a year later. But many have wondered at the meaning of Gen. 21:1, “The Lord visited Sarah as He had said, and the Lord did for her as He had promised.” Certainly, we are in our rights to trip over that verse. The Hebrew word for “visited” is paqad, and it can mean to visit, pay attention to, interact with, to attend. Was the Holy Spirit involved here somehow? It was a physical act of procreation, wasn’t it? When Paul said Isaac was a “son of the promise, born according to the work of the Spirit” (Gal. 4:28-29), does that mean Isaac wasn’t actually a son of the flesh? On the other hand, also to be considered is the Lord’s declaration in Gen. 15:4 that Abraham would have a natural child from his physical being. How was Abraham involved in this pregnancy if God made this happen “for Sarah” and not for Abraham? The bottom line is that, since they served a wondrous God, and nothing is too difficult for Him, Abraham was miraculously enabled to perform physically, Sarah’s womb was healed, the Holy Spirit was right in the middle of things, and the result was a child of the Covenant being born.
Sarah’s Only Child. Sure enough, Sarah gave birth to her precious miracle child that was destined to continue the family line to eventually produce the Savior of the world, a blessing for all the nations indeed. When the reality hit Sarah that she would be nursing a child at 90 years of age, she laughed once again out of pure joy, saying “God has made me laugh again, and all who hear about this will laugh right along with me!” (Gen. 21:6-7). God kept His promise, they now have their destiny child that was promised so long ago, and they raised Isaac together for the next 37 years.