Women with a story to tell - 3

 I suspect that the epitaph on my tombstone will say: “He never could keep a job.” Over a 50-year period of work I have had careers as a college professor, a grain merchandiser, a pastor, a missionary, and a seminary professor. No, I was not lost. Not all who wander are lost. But I do believe, following A. W. Tozer, that God’s will for our lives may not be one big project, but several steps in a journey. Each had a purpose, and God has been up to something that is beyond me. 

One of the most well-known women in the Bible is Sarah. Do I have to add, ‘the wife of Abraham’? Perhaps that is the problem; women are often categorized, and limited, by their relationship with men. Sarah is not one-dimensional, not a cardboard cut-out. 

 If you read the texts or review what has been written about Sarah since the biblical stories were written, then you will come across these words and phrases: a faithful wife, the mother of Isaac, a beautiful woman, a woman who struggled with infertility, and a woman of great patience. Like a well-cut diamond sparkling in the light, each facet illuminates, but the gem cannot be appreciated with just a glance.  

 Perhaps Sarah is best known as the wife of Abraham, the father of the Hebrews (Jews), the Arabs (Muslims), and all who have faith in Christ. Less well-known is the report that she is also the sister of Abraham. Actually, the half-sister; same father but a different mother. At least that is how Abraham explains it (Genesis 20: 12). Today, that needs a further explanation.

 We are familiar with the practice of Pharaohs who took their sister as their wife. There is a cultural logic to such unions. In the case of the Pharaohs, they were such sacred persons, near gods, that no suitable woman could be found to foster the next generation except some just as sacred. That would be a sister. And their children faced the same dilemma; thus several generations of brother/sister marriage occurred.  

 Of course, commoners are not so sacred, but there is an additional cultural logic. In many places, in earlier times, survival depended on building alliances among families, and so women were sent out of the clan to marry men of other clans. This is the rule of exogamy, ‘marry out’. It links local clans in defense against more distant peoples. 

 However, in the Middle East, another cultural logic dominated, and that was the rule of endogamy, ‘marry in’. The greater concern among cattle and sheep herders was to conserve their wealth in the family. Marrying out brought alliances but at a cost; women often carried wealth out (a dowry) and incoming men gained a portion of the family’s wealth. In the Middle East, Arabs as well as Jews are more concerned about conserving wealth within the family. Therefore, the ideal marriage is between the children of two brothers or the children of male first cousins. 

 So, like all people, Sarah and Abraham were guided by their culture to believe that the best marriage for them was to a half-sibling. Many generations later, such close marriages are declared to be incestuous (Leviticus 18: 9). But at the time, it was a proper union.

 When Sarah is introduced into the biblical story, her primary identity is revealed, and it is a difficult burden to bear. 

 “Now there are the descendants of Terah. Terah was the father of Abraham, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran the father of Lot. Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his birth…. Abraham and Nahor took wives; the name of Abraham’s wife was Sarai, …. Now Sarai was barren; she had no child” (Genesis 11: 27-30). 

 How would you like to be introduced that way? Actually, it is even worse than we imagined. As Bill Arnold points out, one major theme of Genesis up to this point has been God’s command to “be fruitful and multiply” (Bill T. Arnold, Genesis, 2009, Page 128).  And, that is what happened. The birds, the bees, and the human beings all produced offspring in abundance. For the first time in Genesis, someone is defined differently. Not fruitful, barren. Not abundant, childless.

 To top it off, the next event that we read about is Yahweh (YHWH God) promising Abraham that he will "make of you a great nation” (Genesis 12: 2). Like that’s going to happen! No pressure; except that your husband now has an enhanced reason to want children, and he has even brought God into the picture. What will she hear from her peers, the other women who are wives and are producing children? Will she find a sympathetic ear? 

 We live now in a more sympathetic age, at least we have most of my life. Still, I can remember when a word was spoken, a gesture performed, that drew attention to someone else’s imagined flaw. I have done it myself, much to my chagrin. Do we know anyone well enough to remind them of what society thinks about them? Are they barren, are they too fat, too skinny, too slow, nearsighted, awkward? In whose eyes? Do we understand the cultural forces at work in their lives? Do we help or do we just add to their burden?