When reading through Genesis, my impressions of Sarah tend to be more negative than positive. I’ll get to that in a moment. But first I should clarify that the reason I refer to her in the subject heading as “princess” is because that’s what her original name Sarai means. God later changed her name to Sarah, “mother of nations” (Gen. 17:15). She was the wife of Abraham, whose name God also changed — from Abram, “exalted father,” to Abraham, “father of a multitude” (Gen. 17:5).
Sarah was “a woman beautiful in appearance” (Gen. 12:11). So Abraham got himself a catch — a beautiful princess for a wife! So far, so good.
Abraham and Sarah were initially from Ur, which was located in what is now the country of Iraq (Gen. 11:31). But the Lord told Abraham to leave his country and family to go to a land that God would show him. God also promised to bless Abraham and make his name great so that he would be a blessing. (Gen. 12:1-3). Abraham obeyed God and took his wife Sarah with him.
God led them to the land of Canaan, but there was a famine in the land, so Abraham and Sarah “went down to Egypt” (Gen. 12:10). Eventually they came back to Canaan, where Abraham and Lot parted ways. Abraham and Sarah “settled by the oaks of Mamre, which are at Hebron” (Gen. 13:18).
Fast forward a few chapters later, and that’s where I start seeing Sarah in a somewhat negative light. In Genesis 16, Sarah is still barren, even though God has promised Abraham a son (Gen. 15:4). So Sarah tells Abraham to have children by Hagar, Sarah’s maid. So he has sexual relations with Hagar, and she winds up pregnant. When Hagar finds out she’s pregnant, she starts treating Sarah with contempt. But then Sarah deals so harshly with her, that Hagar runs away into the wilderness. The angel of the Lord tells Hagar to go back and submit to Sarah, while at the same time promising Hagar that the Lord is aware of her affliction and will make her son great.
In Genesis 17, God reassures Abraham when he is nearly a hundred years old and Sarah is ninety, that she is going to give birth to a son “at this time next year” (Gen. 17:22). In chapter 18, God reiterates this promise to Abraham. When Sarah overhears it, she laughs in disbelief. The Lord asks Abraham why Sarah laughed at the notion of having a baby. Afraid, Sarah denies it, saying, “I didn’t laugh.” But the Lord says, “No, you did laugh” (Gen. 18:15).
Sure enough, Sarah bears a son, and Abraham names him Isaac, which means “laughter” (how appropriate!). Later, when they hold a feast on the day that Isaac is weaned, Sarah’s sees Hagar’s son Ishmael laughing. Sarah tells Abraham, “Get rid of that slave woman and her son” (Gen. 21:10). This grieves Abraham, since Ishmael is his son. But God tells Abraham, “Do not be upset over the boy…. Do whatever Sarah tells you…” (Gen. 21:12).
So early the next morning Abraham sends Hagar and Ishmael away with nothing but a loaf of bread and a container of water. Later on this mother and her son are so famished, they’re about to die. Hagar puts her son under the shade of a bush and sits by herself a stone’s throw away, saying as she bursts into tears, “I don't want to watch the boy die” (Gen. 21:16). But God hears her cry and rescues them. Long story short, Ishmael becomes a great nation, just as God promised.
But I couldn’t get over why Abraham, given how rich he was, sent Hagar and her son away with so little. A loaf of bread and skin of water? But then I remembered the Lord’s words to Abraham: “Do as Sarah tells you.” Could it be that Sarah cruelly insisted that Hagar and Ishmael be sent away with nothing more? This certainly seems to be the case.
So, to summarize, Sarah tells Abraham to have a son by Hagar, then gets mad when he does, and she treats Hagar horribly. Later, Sarah laughs at God’s promise that she will bear a son. Then she denies laughing when confronted about it. After Isaac is weaned, and Sarah sees Ishmael laughing, she insists that Abraham sends Hagar and Ishmael away without even enough food and water to survive.
Sarah has some serious hangups and glaring flaws! She’s quite the sinner! Yet the New Testament makes her look like a saint! Hebrews 11:11 says, “By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised.” (Apparently she ended up believing God after all.) Peter refers to Sarah as a holy woman of God who made herself beautiful by obeying her husband (1 Pet. 3:4-6).
As I thought about God’s assessment of Sarah in the New Testament, I went back to the Old Testament and began to think about some other things, like how hard it must have been Sarah to move away from her family and home in order to follow her husband, who went without knowing where he was going (Heb. 11:8). I thought about how Sarah obeyed Abraham, even when he wasn’t always right and seemed more concerned about this own well-being than hers (see Gen. 12:10-13).
So Sarah is the princess that perplexes me. She is, at the same time, a woman of faith and a woman with flaws. But I really shouldn’t be all that perplexed, because each and every child of God is, as the Reformer Martin Luther put it, Simul Justus et Peccator — “at the same time righteous and sinful.” In and of ourselves, we’re still sinners. But through our faith in Christ, God counts us as righteous (Rom. 5:1).
As the late theologian R. C. Sproul stated, “This is the very heart of the gospel” — and it gives us every reason to celebrate. We are forgiven and reconciled to God, not by our own righteousness, but the righteousness of God himself which comes through faith in Christ (Phil. 3:9).
If you can, take an extra few minutes to watch R. C. Sproul explain this glorious truth in a simple, colorful way. It’s a great reminder that although we are great sinners, Christ is a great Savior!