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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadGreater Men and Women of the Bible by James Hastings: 084. Sarah
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Literature
Blackley, T., Practical Sermons, iii. (1826), 49.
Dixon, A. C., Christian Character, 47.
Farningham, M., Women and their Work, 8.
Gollancz, H., Sermons and Addresses (1909), 108.
Horton, R. F., Women of the Old Testament (1898), 16.
Kitto, J., Daily Bible Illustrations, i. (1866) 177, 246, 265.
Mackay, W. M., Bible Types of Modern Women (1912), 178.
Maclaren, A., Expositions: Genesis (1904).
Matheson, G., The Representative Women of the Bible (1907), 55.
Miller, T. E., Portraits of Women of the Bible (1910), 20.
Simeon, J., Some Women of the Old Testament (1905), 25.
Welldon, J. E. C., The Fire upon the Altar (1891), 105.
Whyte, A., Bible Characters: Adam to Achan (1896), 140.
Williams, I., Female Characters of Holy Scripture (1890), 12.
Churchman's Pulpit: First Sunday in Lent, v. 357 (A. F. Taylor), 359 (J. Baines).
Preachers' Monthly, vii. (1884) 182 (W. H. Davison).
Treasury (New York), xx. (1903) 765 (E. O. Sharpe).
1. In approaching the study of Sarah we may assume that we stand upon firm ground, and are dealing, not with a legendary but with an historic person. And we may observe at once that the whole of the portrait-the earliest portrait of a woman in the Bible-is drawn with so firm a hand that, as Charles Reade maintained, it must be either the most masterly fiction or a copy from the life. It is well to remember that our character-sketch is understood to belong to a period some 2000 years before the birth of Christ; and while human nature has changed but little, there is considerable change in the manners and customs as between those old-world Eastern people and ourselves.
The Scripture narrative itself is almost filled with the grand figure of Abraham. Sarah is hardly visible in the shadow of her distinguished husband. But her presence is always felt. We have the impression, which is no doubt true, that she had considerable strength of character and practical ability. Abraham was something of an idealist, something of a dreamer. Sarah was much more matter of fact. Abraham's was the more patient and enduring character; Sarah's perhaps was the more assertive and shrewd. Abraham, if we may reverently so put it, had the better knowledge of God; Sarah perhaps had the better knowledge of human nature. Abraham's characteristic attitude was that of waiting upon God; Sarah was more of a schemer. From Abraham came the impulses and the high purposes of their united life; but it says much for the shrewd and practical woman that she acquiesced in these impulses and high purposes.
Yet if Abraham was the father, Sarah was the mother, of the faithful. And if in Eve we see our ancestress as men, in Sarah we see our ancestress as believers in God. It is therefore all the more encouraging to us in our frailties and failures that no more in the case of the woman than in that of her husband is any attempt made to conceal the declensions and the faults which marred a noble character. Indeed, while of Abraham most of the things that are told illustrate his virtues, of Sarah most of the episodes display her infirmities, though we are left in no doubt concerning the virtues which underlie them.
2. All that we know of Sarah's early history is what Abraham himself has left on record concerning her. In his interview with Abimelech he said that she was his half-sister, the daughter of his father, though not the daughter of his mother. With Abraham she came out from her idolatrous kindred, and with him was willing to lead the life of a stranger and a pilgrim. During the ten years' tabernacle sojourn in the land of Canaan she was the faithful companion of her husband, the sharer of his joys and sorrows, and witness of all the mercies bestowed upon him by God. Although on two occasions she is said to have become partaker of her husband's duplicity, and though she had recourse to carnal devices to accomplish the Divine purpose, yet was she on the whole one of the holy women who trusted in God, and whose “adorning” was “the hidden man of the heart,” even “the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.” St. Peter, commending her obedience to Abraham as her lord, proposes her as an example to Christian matrons, while all believing women who do well and have no reason to fear are said to be “her daughters.”
In 1856 Marion McLaren became my wife. God allowed us to be together till the dark December of 1884. Others could speak of her charm, her beauty, her gifts and goodness. Most of what she was to me is for ever locked in my heart. But I would fain that, in any notices of what I am, or have been able to do, it should be told that the best part of it all came and comes from her. We read and thought together, and her clear, bright intellect illumined obscurities and “rejoiced in the truth.” We worked and bore together, and her courage and deftness made toil easy and charmed away difficulties. She lived a life of nobleness, of strenuous effort, of aspiration, of sympathy, self-forgetfulness, and love. She was my guide, my inspirer, my corrector, my reward. Of all human formative influences on my character and life hers is the strongest and the best.1 [Note: Dr. McLaren of Manchester, 271.]
I sometimes think “the woman” is the representative in the family of the third person in the Holy Trinity, the Comforter, the Holy Ghost, who is the fountain of all the beautiful, the tender, the motherly, the womanly-the human family being considered the reflex of the Divine, who said, “Let us make man in our image after our likeness,” and then we read, “male and female created he them.” Nothing will destroy the worship of the Virgin Mother in the Romish Church, where in their pictures she is blasphemously placed upon the same throne with the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit, whom she has replaced, only hovering as a dove over her head-nothing, I believe, will dethrone her and destroy her worship but a scriptural understanding of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit as the tender, the motherly, the womanly. It was after the Athanasian Creed was made (and you cannot put love and tenderness into a hard, dogmatic creed) that the personal love and most melting tenderness of the Holy Spirit was lost sight of, and His throne and worship profanely given to Mary. But any holy woman is such as she, a representative on earth of Him; and what a pure consecration does not this thought give to you, in your office as a comforter, a pleader with souls, as thus the Holy Spirit pleads with them to draw them to Christ. It is not you that speak, but the Holy Spirit that is in you, and this is woman's special mission, in this rough and dark and weary world, by love, by gentleness, by most sisterly tenderness, by whatsoever things are lovely, and through all gates called Beautiful, to draw souls, as the Holy Spirit draws them to the Saviour, to testify, as He does of Him, to take, as He does of the things of Christ, and show them to the soul.2 [Note: W. B. Robertson of Irvine (by J. Brown), 425.]