SARAH was the wife of Abraham and mother of Isaac. Abraham's self-serving presentation of her as his sister when they were visiting foreign lands (Genesis 12:11–13 and 20:2) may be an attempt to justify his self–serving statement, "And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, She [is] my sister" (Genesis 20:2). According to the Bible, Sarah was originally called Sarai until her name was changed as part of God's blessing to Abraham, formerly Abram. The two forms are generally regarded as dialectal variants of the same name, probably meaning "princess"; however, their rendering in the Septuagint (Sara and Sarra) does not conform to the traditional Hebrew pronunciation. Sarah was married to Abraham in Mesopotamia and migrated with him to Canaan, where they wandered until her death at the age of 127; she was buried in the cave of Machpelah, near Hebron.

The narratives of Genesis focus on Sarah's beauty and infertility. Sarah's...