Bible Wonders - The 4 Mothers - Sarah

Did you ever wonder? Did you ever wonder?

I do. Did you ever wonder? Why the sun always rises, but the stars never fall? Why dry land is never satisfied by water? And why fire never says enough?

Enough. If you ever go to a Passover Seder, they'll talk about the four mothers and the three fathers. And those three, excuse me, those four mothers were Sarah and Rebecca and Leah and Rachel. And so we're going to do an episode on each of those, starting off with the idea of motherhood and with this case, the first of the matriarchs, which is Sarah. And so I thought it would be, I find it fascinating to hear what all the Jews teach on this through the Talmud and things that they find in the Torah that they read through, you know, when you look at it in Hebrew, it reads differently in some cases.

And we'll go into a little bit of that. But when it comes to the idea of Sarah, I just think it's really cool that they teach that her name or given name when she was born was actually Jessica. And Jessica is the idea of a looker that Sarah was a great looking woman, but also that she had the gift of prophecy. And she was the first female prophet in the Bible from their perspective. And I think that's accurate that clearly she had those qualities that Solomon was referring to. And certainly he was meaning the matriarchs when he said, you know, a virtuous woman or a woman who brings a troop with her when she comes. And clearly, Sarah was that. But in her first name or given name and that life, she was called Jessica. But when she married Abraham, as the Jews teach, that he, like a lot of husbands, referred to her as his princess, Sarai, right? And that idea of his princess.

And I know lots of friends that they call their wives their princess. And I can see that. And she certainly was that in so many different ways. And so as the story unfolds, you know, they go to Canaan.

As the case may be, I'm going to rush through some things and then stop at certain places. And then the other things that they teach that a lot of people don't know are there when the 15th of Nisan comes and they go back from Canaan down into Egypt is the day that Sarai was kidnapped by the Pharaoh. That reason that that 15th of Nisan becomes important is it was on the 15th of Nisan that she was taken captive into Egypt. It was on the 15th of Nisan that Isaac was born. And it was on the 15th of Nisan that was the original Passover that all happened, interestingly, on that. And as a result of that being the 15th of Nisan, a lot of folks believe that it was Good Friday was the 15th of Nisan. I can see that some people say the 14th through the 16th.

However, that works. It was certainly that time of year when Jesus went to the cross. And so that date becomes significant in that when you start to see the picture that God is painting as Sarai is kidnapped and goes into Pharaoh's court. And that in itself sets off a chain of events that they end up making Abraham essentially very wealthy. And he also ends up with Hagar as his bond servant, which Hagar, according to what the Jews teach, was actually an Egyptian princess herself. And that that marriage or that connection to Abraham was part of what the royalty that would allow things to happen later in Egypt. And that at one point in time that Sarai was actually a princess of Egypt as well. And we make reference back to that when we get to the story of Rachel and Leah.

But for now, we'll just move on and say that we know that Hagar ended up having Ishmael as a child. And that during this time, they note that during this time, Sarah had three very unique supernatural type of gifts. And those were, as you see clearly in the picture when the angels come to visit Abraham, that Abraham goes to Sarah and asked her to bake bread. And the reason is that they teach that Sarah had a unique ability to bake a bread that had a very unique blessing, especially for people that weren't Jewish, that they were showing hospitality to and wanting to bring them into the fold of like, what's in that bread that makes that bread so spectacular that you can't get enough of it?

Like the word of God, Sarah had a bread that was very tasty. And then she also had this idea of a candle that stayed lit from Shabbat to Shabbat. In other words, from the Sabbath evening when they lit, the namami would always traditionally in a Jewish home lights the candle to bring out the darkness or to bring, you know, like God brought chaos out of darkness when he said, let there be light.

Well, the namami in the family brings the light on Sabbath evening. And the idea is eventually that we know that Mary would bring the light of the world. And so it's taught that Sarah had this candle that stayed lit from Shabbat to Shabbat.

And the third thing that she had was a cloud of glory, the Shekinah glory that was over her tent. And the place that we next move to is in the story where, you know, Sarai tells her husband at this point in time, she becomes Sarah as she becomes pregnant and gets and has Isaac. And then Hagar is making or she sees Ishmael mocking and she tells Abraham that she needs to he needs to get the bond woman out with her son. Well, interestingly, very interestingly and beautifully in that story, you'll notice if you look closely in that verse in Genesis, I believe it's twenty one twelve, you'll see that God told Abraham very specifically to listen to Sarah's voice. He doesn't just tell her to listen to Sarah. He adds that word voice. And the idea there is God doesn't waste any words in the Torah. And so since that word is there, there must have been some inflection, something in Sarah's voice that would help him to not be grieved by the fact that he was losing his son and Hagar.

And when you think about it, you know, kind of what would the neighbors think? Because Abraham was known as this person was super hospitality and he was just a nice guy and he loved everybody. And you can imagine it says his heart was grieved when Sarah told him he had to get rid of the bond woman and her son. This is this is my son. But also, you know, I like everybody. Everybody is welcome in my house.

I have hospitality. I can't imagine kicking out my own son and this bond woman. So his heart was grieved. But interestingly, God apparently was very concerned with that grief. And he was telling Abraham the way to get rid of that grief is to listen to his wife's voice, that his voice voice apparently had some kind of a compassion in it, had something that would tell him that this is what God has in mind, that he is going to take care of Ishmael. He's going to take care of Hagar. And this is going to work out for your good Isaac.

Here's the idea. I mean, Abraham, as Isaac, is going to be the one that will bring forth the Messiah at some point. And I think it's just beautiful that in that particular case, she was that idea of a virtuous woman, that that she was bringing a troop, in other words, overriding Abraham's own way that he would have done things. You know, she literally changes all of history by, you know, creating this situation where Isaac and Abraham would be alone for the big test that was coming, which that big test that came, according to what the Jews teach, when Sarah got word that Isaac had been bound, that that was more than she could take and she died. And they say, and there's a beautiful, beautiful commentary by a commentator, a Jewish commentator by the name of Rashi, that when you get to this next verse, and very much worth studying, is Genesis 2467. And in Genesis 2467, Rashi says that in Hebrew, when you study it hard enough, you will see that there is mentioned these three gifts again that Sarah had, the candle that stayed lit, the bread that had the special blessing, and the Shekinah glory that went over the cloud of her tent. And so I wanted to, because here at the point that she has died, it says in Genesis 2467 to read that verse, And Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah's tent, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife, and he loved her, and Isaac was comforted after his mother's death. Well, the way Rashi isolates these different words that when the Torah says into his mother Sarah's tent, that he took her and brought her into his mother Sarah's tent, that the word mother there has to do with the idea of the candle, because mommy lit the Shabbat candle, but you can also see that in Hebrew it points to that, and that Sarah would be the idea of that special bread, and the idea of tent would be again the idea of the Shekinah glory that was over the tent. And when you read that in Hebrew, you can actually see where he gets that, and that being the case, it seems to me as you think about that, that it's so consistent with what God teaches throughout the Bible, because if you think about it, that as the Jews would go off into exile, well, maybe before we get to the Jews in exile, here we got a situation where if this is the case, that Isaac would have this same thing in his tent that his mother and father had, where they would have this candle that burned, they would have the Shekinah glory, and they would have this amazing dough, and that is the way that they would live their life and have that blessing.

Well, when the Jews make their way out of Egypt, think about what God does. He provides them a light, right? The tower of fire by night, and the cloud of the Shekinah glory by day, which, by the way, shows up in the tabernacle later. So it's not unusual to see that Shekinah over the tent, as there's actually passages that show that. And then the idea of the manna, right? The bread that came from heaven. And so interestingly, God provided that in the desert for the Israelites, just as if Sarah was still there doing her work. And then, really cool, in Isaiah 4, which again is worth reading, in my opinion, Isaiah 4-5, you're going to see that God is going to have that same thing come for all of us. It's the prophecy that we'll again have the light.

We'll again have the Shekinah glory. And we know that we always have the word of God, which is that bread. And so as we think about that blessing that Sarah brought as a mom, it's the same as God will continue to bring on into eternity, this idea of the unbelievable light that brings chaos out of the darkness.

Like mommy can turn on a light like nobody else can, okay? And then there's this idea of bread. And I hope you see how wonderful it is that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, and there's so much about the bread that we all enjoy. But again, without a mother, without Mary, without Sarah, we would never be able to enjoy that bread, okay?

And then, of course, the presence of God as a result of Jesus' sacrifice and all that, we continue to have this presence in a cloud that we will even see greater one day as our eyes are opened. But think about how a mother brings that. I mean, if you had a wonderful mother, and I hope you did like I did. You know, my mother, she was the one that made sure that we knew what was right and what was wrong. She knew when we were lying and when we were stealing or when she knew how to do that. She knew how to have meals that brought fellowship where we all came together and sat down at the dinner table. In other words, there were so many things about my mother that brought the kingdom of God because when she came, you know, she was a troop. And so, like Sarah, started out as a looker and a prophetess. Then she became Abraham's princess, but she becomes everybody's princess as her name becomes Sarah. And that name, to this day, if you walk into a crowded room and you go, Sarah, your chances are you're going to see a bunch of heads pop up because God continues to honor that as they are truly, right? The princess.