Sarah was Abraham’s wife and Isaac’s mother. Her original name was Sarai, and Genesis introduces her as having no children. Her father-in-law, Terah, set out from Ur of the Chaldeans toward Canaan with Abram, Sarai, and his grandson Lot, but settled in Haran.
When God told Abram to go to a land he would show him, Sarai left Haran with her husband. Lot, their possessions, and their household went too. They traveled through Shechem and Bethel in Canaan toward the south. A severe famine then brought them to Egypt.
As they approached Egypt, Abram thought he might be killed because of Sarai and asked her to say she was his sister rather than his wife. She was taken into Pharaoh’s house, and Abram received livestock and servants. God sent plagues upon Pharaoh and his household because of Sarai. Pharaoh challenged Abram for concealing their marriage and told him to take her away. Abram and Sarai left Egypt with their possessions.
Back in Canaan, Abram and Lot separated. Abram settled near Mamre by Hebron. After ten years in Canaan, Sarai still had no child. She sought children through Hagar, her Egyptian servant, and gave Hagar to Abram as a wife. Abram followed Sarai’s proposal, and Hagar became pregnant.
Hagar despised Sarai after conceiving. Sarai held Abram responsible for the wrong she was suffering. When he said she could do as she saw fit, Sarai treated Hagar harshly, and Hagar fled. In the wilderness, God’s messenger told her to return and gave a promise about her son. Hagar bore Ishmael when Abram was eighty-six.
When Abram was ninety-nine, God changed his name to Abraham and told him to call Sarai Sarah. He promised to bless Sarah, give her a son, and make nations and kings come from her. Abraham laughed as he considered whether a man of one hundred and Sarah at ninety could have a child. God named the promised son Isaac and said Sarah would bear him at the appointed time the following year.
When three visitors came to Mamre, Abraham told Sarah to make bread from three seahs of fine flour. A seah was a unit for measuring grain. From behind the tent entrance, Sarah heard that she would have a son. She and Abraham were old, and she had passed the age of childbearing. Sarah laughed inwardly as she thought about their age. When God asked why she had laughed, she denied it because she was afraid. God answered that she had laughed and promised a son at the appointed time.
At Gerar, Abraham introduced Sarah as his sister, and King Abimelech took her. The king said Sarah had also called Abraham her brother. God warned him in a dream that she was another man’s wife, and Abimelech had not approached her. Abraham explained that he had asked her to call him her brother wherever they went, and that she shared his father but not his mother. The king returned Sarah and gave Abraham livestock, servants, and a thousand pieces of silver. He told Sarah that the silver vindicated her before the people.
Sarah bore a son at the time God had promised. Abraham was one hundred and named the child Isaac. He circumcised him on the eighth day. Sarah said that God had made her laugh and that everyone who heard would laugh with her. She also spoke of nursing a son in her old age.
Abraham held a great feast when Isaac was weaned. Sarah saw Hagar’s son mocking and demanded that Hagar and her son be sent away, saying he could not share Isaac’s inheritance. Abraham was deeply grieved because of his son. God told him to listen to Sarah: his offspring would be named through Isaac. Ishmael would also become a nation because he was Abraham’s child. The next morning Abraham gave Hagar bread and water and sent her away with her son.
When the water ran out in the wilderness, Hagar placed the boy under a shrub and sat at a distance, crying. God heard the boy and promised to make him a great nation. He opened Hagar’s eyes to a well. She fetched water and gave it to her son. God was with Ishmael, who grew up in the wilderness.
Sarah died in Hebron in Canaan at one hundred twenty-seven. Abraham mourned and wept, then asked the Hittites for a burial place he could own.
The Hittites offered Abraham a choice of their tombs. He asked to buy Ephron’s cave of Machpelah. When Ephron named four hundred shekels of silver, Abraham weighed out the amount. A shekel was a unit of weight for the silver. Before the people gathered at the city gate, the field, cave, and trees within its boundary were confirmed as Abraham’s possession. He buried Sarah in the cave, and the field and cave became his burial property.