[5] According to Book of Genesis 20:12, in conversation with the Philistine king Abimelech of Gerar, Abraham describes Sarah as both his wife and his half-sister ("my father's daughter, but not my mother's").

[10] A minority of scholars derive Sarai from the root SRY, meaning "contend with" or "withstand", similar to the name Israel.

[12] Following God's command, Abram took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, and the wealth and slaves that they had acquired, and traveled to Shechem in Canaan.

On the journey to Egypt, Abram instructed Sarai to identify herself only as his sister, fearing that the Egyptians would kill him in order to take his wife, saying, I know what a beautiful woman you are.

[16] After having lived in Canaan for ten years and still childless, Sarai suggested that Abram have a child with her Egyptian handmaiden Hagar, to which he agreed.

[18] In Genesis 17 when Abram was ninety-nine years old, God declared his new name: "Abraham" – "a father of many nations", and gave him the covenant of circumcision.

The patriarch, then a hundred years old, named the child "Isaac" (Hebrew yitschaq, "laughter") and circumcised him when he was eight days old.

It was during this banquet that Sarah happened upon the then teenaged Ishmael mocking Isaac[22] and was so disturbed that she requested that both he and Hagar be banished.

Abimelech, who had not laid hands on her, inquired if he would also slay a righteous nation, especially since Abraham had claimed that he and Sarah were siblings.

[25] Early the next morning, Abimelech informed his servants of his dream and approached Abraham inquiring as to why he had brought such great guilt upon his kingdom.

"[34] In the early and middle 20th century, leading archaeologists such as William Foxwell Albright and biblical scholars such as Albrecht Alt believed that the patriarchs and matriarchs were either real individuals or believable composites of people who lived in the "patriarchal age", the 2nd millennium BCE.

His thesis centered on the lack of compelling evidence that the patriarchs lived in the 2nd millennium BCE, and noted how certain biblical texts reflected first-millennium conditions and concerns.

Van Seters examined the patriarchal stories and argued that their names, social milieu, and messages strongly suggested that they were Iron Age creations.

[35]: 18–19  By the beginning of the 21st century, archaeologists had given up hope of recovering any context that would make the patriarchs and matriarchs credible historical figures.

[36][37]: 98 and fn.2 Sarah first appears in the Book of Genesis, while the Midrash and Aggadah provide some additional commentary on her life and role within Judaism and its ancestral form, Yahwism.

She was the daughter of Haran[38] and the granddaughter of Terah, an idolater who worshiped the Moon god Nanna[39] and high-ranking servant of Nimrod,[citation needed] the king of Shinar, or Mesopotamia, but not of his wife, Amathlai.

No details are given as to her life or her religious beliefs before Abraham's return to Ur Kaśdim to thwart Nimrod's efforts to proclaim himself a god.

It is known she wed Abraham, then called Abram, sometime between the ages of forty and five and following her husband's public humiliation of Nimrod, she, along with her father Terah, her orphaned nephew Lot, her manservant Eliezer, and some three hundred others left Ur Kaśdim for Canaan, the present-day Levant, to save Abraham from a plot by Nimrod to destroy him, commanded to do so by Yahweh.

[citation needed] For Pharaoh's unintentional transgression against Abraham, he and members of his household, save for Sarah, are stricken with plague.

It is said that Sarah died at the age of one hundred and twenty seven years, caused in part by the events of the Binding of Isaac.

[43] Not only are a relatively large number of drashot dedicated to the matriarch, but she is repeatedly depicted as a model of personal and religious excellence.

[44] According to another version, Pharaoh persisted in annoying her after she had told him that she was a married woman; thereupon the angel struck him so violently that he became ill, and was thereby prevented from continuing to trouble her.

[47] In Genesis 17:15, God changes her name to Sarah (princess) ("a woman of high rank") as part of the covenant with El Shaddai after Hagar bears Abram his first born son Ishmael.

Hagar, when pregnant by Abraham, began to act superciliously toward Sarai, provoking the latter to treat her harshly, to impose heavy work upon her, and even to strike her.

[49] According to one myth, when her fertility had been restored and she had given birth to Isaac, the people would not believe in the miracle, saying that the patriarch and his wife had adopted a foundling and pretended that it was their own son.

Sarah invited the women, also, who brought their infants with them; and on this occasion she gave milk from her breasts to all the strange children, thus convincing the guests of the miracle.

The compound, located in the ancient city of Hebron, is the second holiest site for Jews (after the Temple Mount in Jerusalem), and is also venerated by Christians and Muslims, both of whom have traditions which maintain that the site is the burial place of three biblical couples; Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, and Jacob and Leah.

however dispute that view, instead arguing the opposite - that sisters in the region were often awarded the title "wife" in order to give them much greater status in society.

In the Christian fiction novel Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers, the protagonist, called "Angel" throughout the duration of the story, is barren.

At the end of the book, she reveals that her birth name is "Sarah" to her husband, who takes the revelation as a promise from God that they will one day be able to have children.