By Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein
From the moment that Abraham’s wife is introduced in Genesis 12:29 and for the next five and a half chapters, her name is always given as Sarai (seventeen times). In Genesis 17:15, Hashem tells Abraham that his wife Sarai’s name should no longer be Sarai, but rather Sarah. From then on through the rest of the book of Genesis, she is consistently referred to as Sarah (thirty-eight times). The only other time her name appears again in the Bible is in Isaiah 51:2, when the prophet Isaiah exhorts the Jewish People to remember their forebears, Abraham and Sarah. In this essay, we will discuss the names Sarai and Sarah borne by Abraham’s wife.
Both names, Sarai and Sarah, are related to the word sar (“prince/officer/minister”) and denote the princeliness and prominence of Abraham’s wife. Even though those names, as well as the word sar, are typically spelled with an initial sin-reish, Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim in Cheshek Shlomo traces the word sar to the biliteral root samech-reish (based on the interchangeability of the letters sin and samech). He explains the core meaning of that root to refer to “removal” (i.e., moving something away from its original place or position), and a corollary of that core meaning is the idea of asirah (“jailing/incarcerating”), which removes a prisoner’s freedom of movement. The way Rabbi Pappenheim explains it, the word sar derives from this branch of the samech-reish root because a sar uses his position of authority to limit his subordinates’ movements and dictate how they may or may not act.
If both Sarai and Sarah are related to sar, then what is the difference between them and what is the significance of Hashem changing the name of Abraham’s wife?
The difference between the names Sarai and Sarah is that the former is spelled with a yod as the final letter, while the latter is spelled with a hey as the final letter. There are two rabbinic traditions regarding the yod which was taken away from the name Sarai. One tradition states that the yod (which holds a gematria value of ten) was split in two resulting in two heys (each of which holds a gematria value of five). Then, one hey was given to Abraham (to switch his name from Avram to Avraham), and the other hey was given to his wife (to switch her name from Sarai to Sarah).
The other tradition relates that when Hashem removed the letter yod from Sarai’s name, the letter complained to Him, arguing that just because it is the smallest of letters, that does not mean that it is less significant. In response, Hashem upgraded the position of the letter yod by prepending that letter to the name of Moses’ protégé Hosea, whose name was changed to Joshua (Num. 13:16). In doing so, the letter yod went from being the last letter in the name of a righteous woman to being the first letter in the name of a righteous man (see Jerusalemic Talmud Sanhedrin 2:6, Babylonian Talmud Sanhedrin 107a, and Bereishit Rabbah §47:1).
The Talmud (Brachot 13a; see also Tosefta Brachot 1:14 and Bereishit Rabbah §47:1) explains the significance of Sarai/Sarah’s name change by noting that the name Sarai implies that she was a princess only of her own nation, while the name Sarah means that she is a princess over the entire world. Rashi (to Brachot 13a and Gen. 17:15) further clarifies that this distinction is derived from the fact that the yod at the end of Sarai is reminiscent of the first-person possessive, which limits Sarai’s prominence. Similarly, Maharal (Tiferet Yisrael ch. 49) writes that the appearance of yod as the final letter in Sarai implies diminution and limitation because yod is orthographically the smallest letter in the Hebrew Alphabet, while the hey of Sarah implies expansion and growth.
Interestingly, in the Septuagint (that is, the Greek translation of the Torah), Abraham’s wife is originally named Sara and her name is then changed to Sarra. As Philo of Alexandria explains it, this name change represents a shift from Abraham’s wife serving as his “personal princess” to her universal role as a “princess” in general, with her newer name relating to serarah (“authority/rulership”), not unlike the Talmud’s exegesis cited above.
A similar interpretation is offered by Abarbanel, who writes that Sarai was named such by her parents to allude to her destiny as the lady of a special man (i.e., Abraham), but Hashem changed her name to Sarah to stress her absolute specialness in her own right. Likewise, Rabbi Shlomo Astruc explains that Sarai was only destined to be the mistress over her own household, while her new name Sarah implies that she is to serve as the mistress of the world in general.
The Maharsha (to Brachot 13a) explains the shift slightly differently: Initially, Sarai’s prominence and prestige was to be limited to her own lifetime, because as long as she lived, people would look up to her, but once she died, she would have had no progeny to continue her legacy. Afterwards, once she was renamed Sarah, this extended her princely role to beyond her lifetime, as Sarah (but not Sarai) was destined to bear a son, Isaac, whose descendants would continue on with her life mission.
Rabbi David Luria, in explaining how the Midrash (Bereishit Rabbah §47:1) understands the passage (Gen. 17:15) about Hashem changing Sarai’s name to Sarah, writes that when Hashem said to Abraham “Do not call her name Sarai,” this means “Do not think that you are the one who bestows upon her the name Sarai,” implying that her princess-like prominence and importance stems from the fact that she is Abraham’s wife. Rather, “for her name is Sarah”—she herself is a ruler and important person in her own right. In fact, Rabbi Luria understands that Midrash as highlighting that Sarah’s rulership extends over others and that her husband is crowned by her achievements, and not vice versa.
Rabbi Shmuel David Luzzatto, also known as Shadal, explains (in his commentary to Gen. 17:15) the switch from Sarai to Sarah by noting that the ancient practice was that when commoners ascended to a position of greatness, they assumed a new name. This is seen when Pharaoh renamed Joseph as Tzafnat Paneach (Gen. 41:45), Moses renamed Hosea as Joshua (Num. 13:16), Nebuchadnezzar renamed Matanyahu as Zedekiah (II Kgs. 24:17), and then Nebuchadnezzar later renamed Daniel, Chananya, Mishael, and Azaria as Beltshazzar, Shadrach, Meishach, and Aved-Nego respectively (Dan. 1:7).
Shadal also suggests that the additional hey added to Abram (to become Abraham) and Sarai (to become Sarah) signifies femininity, and was added to both Avraham and Sarah’s names as a sign of fertility and procreation (see Kli Yakar to Gen. 17:15 who offers a similar explanation).
Moreover, Shadal also writes that the name Sarah is related to the Arabic word shara, which apparently means “having lots of children.” My friends Rabbi Yosef Kerman and Rabbi Shaul Goldman are unsure as to exactly what Arabic word Shadal meant to refer. Rabbi Goldman suggests that he meant to refer to the Arabic word zara (“sowed, seeded, planted”) or the Arabic word dhara (“grain, seed, produce”), but then wonders why Shadal had to resort to Arabic to prove this point, if a Hebrew cognate zera (“seed/offspring”) would have sufficed to illustrate the same idea. Indeed, Rabbi Goldman notices that the root zayin-reish-ayin from whence zera derives may be viewed as related to the three-letter string sin-reish-hey (which spells out the name Sarah) because sin and zayin are interchangeable, and hey and ayin are interchangeable. In fact, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (in his comments to Gen. 17:15) compares sin-reish-hey to zayin-reish-ayin when elaborating on how the transformation from “Sarai” to “Sarah” is symbolic, as Abraham’s wife shifts from an isolated figure to one embodying moral leadership for all, a role in which each daughter of Israel is seen as aspiring to emulate.
To be continued….n
Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein is an author and freelance researcher based in Beitar Illit. He studied in Yeshiva Gedolah of Los Angeles, the Mir Yeshiva in Jerusalem, and Beth Medrash Govoha of America in Lakewood, and received semichah from leading rabbis. He also holds an MA in Jewish Education from Middlesex University/London School of Jewish Studies. Rabbi Klein authored two popular books that were published by Mosaica Press, as well as countless scholarly articles published in various venues. His articles on Hebrew synonyms are commissioned by Yeshivas Ohr Somayach in Jerusalem and have appeared on their website since 2016.
