Sarah was originally called Sarai (שָׂרַי / שָׂרָי , Standard Hebrew Saray, Tiberian Hebrew Śāray / Śārāy) and was married to and lived with her husband, then called Abram (אברם) in the city of Haran.
When Abraham announced to Sarah that they would leave their home and journey to a new land that God would show them, Sarah didn’t ask about the size of house they could afford or the type of work that Abraham would do or how good the school system might be. Sarah obeyed and went. And when drought hit the land and they had to journey to Egypt for food where Abraham passes off Sarah as his sister to save his skin, Sarah obeys and lives with the Pharoah in his palace. As Abram had feared, Sarai was taken by Pharaoh, who rewarded Abram richly on her account. However, God struck Pharaoh and all his house with severe plagues, after which Pharaoh suspected the truth. He censured Abram and bade him to take his wife and depart. And as year after year go by and there is no place to call home, Sarah stands by her man. Sarah is the epitome of the devoted wife, wanting no more than to please her man. And Abraham appears to be the loving husband.
But Sarah has a very specific role. Her role was to give birth to an heir, a male heir. But year after year goes by and she doesn’t conceive. The promised heir does not arrive. Sarah is a failure, a failure in the one thing that the culture expected of her more than anything else. God had made promises to Abraham, promises that he would be the father of many nations. And Sarah was not able to produce even one heir
In her failure Sarah gives to Abraham her handmaiden Hagar. The promised heir will have to come from her, Sarah mistakenly assumes. Ishmael is born. But matters only become worse, and Sarah feels her failure more deeply. Later, her jealousy will drive her to ask Abraham to send Hagar and Ishmael away into the desert. Years go by, Sarah becomes older and still no child. Her child-bearing time has long since ended. She cannot help but laugh when visitors from the Lord announce that she would have a son within a year.
But God had promised an heir and God would provide an heir. And so at last a son is born to Sarah. He is named Isaac, which means ‘he laughs.’ “God has brought me laughter,” Sarah said, “and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me.”
As we read the life of Sarah in Genesis, we read of a woman who conformed very much to the expectations of her time. She was an obedient wife who wanted nothing more than to please her husband. Her identity, her fulfillment in life, was closely tied to her husband Abraham. She accepted the role that was given to her by her culture even though she was not able to fulfill those expectations until late in her life when God blessed her with Isaac.
But Sarah was far from perfect. Her sense of inadequacy, her jealous hold on her husband, led her to do things that she should not have done. Keeping faith in God’s promises for those many years was difficult. She had her lapses. Yet, despite all of these failings that the Scripture point out very plainly, Sarah is remembered today as a person of faith, a person who persevered and passed the test of believing God and believing God’s promises. People of faith in the Bible are never perfect people.
Gal 4:22For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the free woman.
23His son by the slave woman was born in the ordinary way; but his son by the free woman was born as the result of a promise.
30But what does the Scripture say? "Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman's son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman's son."
31Therefore, brothers, we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman.