SARABIDI (s5-r5ibTm). See THORNS. SARAH (sa'rah).
1. Heb. saw-raw', princess, originally saw-rall'ee). The wife of Abraham, ten years his junior, married to him in Ur of the Chaldees (Gen. xi:28-31: xvii:17). She was also his half-sister, being the daughter of his father, but not of his mother (xx :12). Her name was originally Sarai, meaning perhaps princely or contentious. When Abraham departed from Haran to go to Canaan, Sarai was about sixty-five years old (xii :4). Evi dently she was a well-preserved woman; for she lived to be one hundred and twenty-seven years old. Shortly after leaving Haran, when about to enter Egypt, Abraham feared lest her beauty should attract the Egyptians and lead to his mur der, and he represented that she was his sister, when taken by Pharaoh, keeping back the fact that she was his wife. Years later he did so again at the court of Abimelech, king of Gerar (xx : 1-18). Why he did so it is not stated, nor is it said that Abimelech was influenced by her beauty. The king of Gerar may have thought of the de sirability of an alliance with the powerful He brew chieftain, and, with this end in view, deter mined to take a woman of the immediate family of Ahraham into his harem, as was frequently done by princes of that period when they con cluded alliances.
(1) Hagar. Sarai had a female slave, Hagar, but she herself worked for the household with her own hand (Gen. xviii :6). Sarai was childless ; and when about seventy-five years old she con eluded that she was an obstacle to the promise made to Abraham of numerous posterity, and she entreated her husband to take Ilagar as a sec ondary wife. He did so, apparently without ask
ing divine direction before doing so, and became the father of Ishmael (xvi :1-16).
(2) Birth of Isaac. Afterwards Sarai, when about eighty-nine, received a promise from God that she should herself bear a son (comp. Heb. xi :it, 12), and in the course of a year gave birth to Isaac, the child of promise. It was when this promise was made to her that God changed her name to Sarah, meaning princess (Gen. xvii :15 22 ; xviii :9-15 ; xxi :1-5).
(3) Expulsion of Hagar and Ishmael. When Isaac was weaned, she was provoked with Ish mael's ill usage of the boy, and never rested till Hagar and Ishmael were both expelled from the family.
(4) Death. Not long after the intended sac rifice of Isaac (which she seems to have known nothing of till it was over) Sarah died at Kir jath-arba (Hebron) at the age of 127 (xxiii 2), and was buried in the cave of Machpelah, which Abraham purchased at that time for a fam ily sepulcher.
(5) New Testament Reference. St. Paul rep resents her as a noted believer, an eminent pat tern in the honoring of her husband, and an em blem of the covenant of grace, and the gospel dis pensation (Heb. xi :ti; i Pet. iii :6; Gal. iv :22 31). (See ABRAHAM.) 2. (Heb. rr-V, seh'rakk, superfluity), Sarah, the daughter of Asher (Num. xxvi:46), called Serah (Gen. xlvia7). (See SERAH.)