INTRODUCTION

One of the unique features of the Bible is the way it exalts women. Far from ever demeaning or belittling women, Scripture often seems to go out of the way to pay homage to them, to ennoble their roles in society and family, to acknowledge the importance of their influence, and to exalt the virtues of women who were particularly godly examples.
From the very first chapter of the Bible, we are taught that women, like men, bear the stamp of God’s own image (Gen. 1:27; 5:1–2). Women play prominent roles in many key biblical narratives. Wives are seen as venerated partners and cherished companions to their husbands, not merely slaves or pieces of household furniture (Gen. 2:20–24; Prov. 19:14; Eccl. 9:9). At Sinai, God commanded children to honor both father and mother (Ex. 20:12). That was a revolutionary concept in an era when most pagan cultures were dominated by men who ruled their households with an iron fist while women were usually regarded as lesser creatures—mere servants to men.
Of course, the Bible recognizes divinely ordained role distinctions between men and women—many of which are perfectly evident from the circumstances of creation alone. For example, women have a unique and vital role in childbearing and nurturing little ones. Women themselves also have a particular need for support and protection, because physically, they are “weaker vessels” (1 Peter 3:7 nkjv). Scripture establishes the proper order in the family and in the church accordingly, assigning the duties of headship and protection in the home to husbands (Eph. 5:23) and appointing men in the church to the teaching and leadership roles (1 Tim. 2:11–15).
Yet women are by no means marginalized or relegated to any second-class status (Gal. 3:28). On the contrary, Scripture seems to set women apart for special honor (1 Peter 3:7). Husbands are commanded to love their wives sacrificially, as Christ loves the church—even, if necessary, at the cost of their own lives (Eph. 5:25–31). The Bible acknowledges and celebrates the priceless value of a virtuous woman (Prov. 12:4; 31:10; 1 Cor. 11:7). In other words, from cover to cover, the Bible portrays women as extraordinary.
The biblical accounts of the patriarchs always give due distinction to their wives. Sarah, Rebekah, and Rachel all loom large in the Genesis account of God’s dealings with their husbands. Miriam, sister of Moses and Aaron, was both a prophetess and a songwriter—and in Micah 6:4, God Himself honors her alongside her brothers as one of the nation’s leaders during the Exodus. Deborah, also a prophetess, was a judge in Israel prior to the monarchy (Judg. 4:4). Scriptural accounts of family life often put wives in the position of wise counselors to their husbands (Judg. 13:23; 2 Kings 4:8–10). When Solomon became king, he publicly paid homage to his mother, standing when she entered his presence, then bowing to her before he sat on his throne (1 Kings 2:19). Sarah and Rahab are expressly named among the heroes of faith in Hebrews 11. Moses’ mother (Jochebed) is included as well by implication (v. 23). In Proverbs, wisdom is personified as a woman. The New Testament church is likewise represented as a woman, the bride of Christ.
In the social and religious life of Israel and the New Testament church, women were never relegated to the background. They partook with men in all the feasts and public worship of Israel (Deut. 16:14; Neh. 8:2–3). Women were not required to be veiled or silent in the public square, as they are in some Middle Eastern cultures even today (Gen. 12:14; 24:16; 1 Sam. 1:12). Mothers (not merely fathers) shared teaching responsibilities and authority over their children (Prov. 1:8; 6:20). Women could even be landowners in Israel (Num. 27:8; Prov. 31:16). In fact, wives were expected to administer many of the affairs of their own households (Prov. 14:1; 1 Tim. 5:9–10, 14).
All of that stands in sharp contrast to the way other ancient cultures routinely degraded and debased women. Women in pagan societies during biblical times were often treated with little more dignity than animals. Some of the best-known Greek philosophers—considered the brightest minds of their era—taught that women are inferior creatures by nature. Even in the Roman Empire (perhaps the very pinnacle of pre-Christian civilization) women were usually regarded as mere chattel—personal possessions of their husbands or fathers, with hardly any better standing than household slaves. That, once again, was vastly different from the Hebrew (and biblical) concepts of marriage as a joint inheritance, and parenthood as a partnership where both father and mother are to be revered and obeyed by the children (Lev. 19:3).
Pagan religion tended to fuel and encourage the devaluation of women even more. Of course, Greek and Roman mythology had its goddesses (such as Diana and Aphrodite). But don’t imagine for a moment that goddess-worship in any way raised the status of women in society. The opposite was true. Most temples devoted to goddesses were served by sacred prostitutes—priestesses who sold themselves for money, supposing they were performing a religious sacrament. Both the mythology and the practice of pagan religion has usually been overtly demeaning to women. Male pagan deities were capricious and sometimes wantonly misogynistic. Religious ceremonies were often blatantly obscene—including such things as erotic fertility rites, drunken temple orgies, perverted homosexual practices, and, in the very worst cases, even human sacrifices.
Christianity, born in a world where Roman and Hebrew cultures intersected, elevated the status of women to an unprecedented height. Jesus’ disciples included several women (Luke 8:1–3), a practice almost unheard of among the rabbis of His day. Not only that, He encouraged their discipleship by portraying it as something more needful than domestic service (Luke 10:38–42). In fact, Christ’s first recorded explicit disclosure of His own identity as the true Messiah was made to a Samaritan woman (John 4:25–26). He always treated women with the utmost dignity—even women who might otherwise be regarded as outcasts (Matt. 9:20–22; Luke 7:37–50; John 4:7–27). He blessed their children (Luke 18:15–16), raised their dead (Luke 7:12–15), forgave their sins (Luke 7:44–48), and restored their virtue and honor (John 8:4–11). Thus he exalted the position of womanhood itself.
It is no surprise, therefore, that women became prominent in the ministry of the early church (Acts 12:12–15; 1 Cor. 11:11–15). On the day of Pentecost, when the New Testament church was born, women were there with the chief disciples, praying (Acts 1:12–14). Some were renowned for their good deeds (Acts 9:36); others for their hospitality (Acts 12:12; 16:14–15); still others for their understanding of sound doctrine and their spiritual giftedness (Acts 18:26; 21:8–9). John’s second epistle was addressed to a prominent woman in one of the churches under his oversight. Even the apostle Paul, sometimes falsely caricatured by critics of Scripture as a male chauvinist, regularly ministered alongside women (Phil. 4:3). He recognized and applauded their faithfulness and their giftedness (Rom. 16:1–6; 2 Tim. 1:5).
Naturally, as Christianity began to influence Western society, the status of women was dramatically improved. One of the early church fathers, Tertullian, wrote a work titled On the Apparel of Women sometime near the end of the second century. He said pagan women who wore elaborate hair ornaments, immodest clothing, and body decorations had actually been forced by society and fashion to abandon the superior splendor of true femininity. He noted, by way of contrast, that as the church had grown and the gospel had borne fruit, one of the visible results was the rise of a trend toward modesty in women’s dress and a corresponding elevation of the status of women. He acknowledged that pagan men commonly complained, “Ever since she became a Christian, she walks in poorer garb!”1 Christian women even became known as “modesty’s priestesses.”2 But, Tertullian said, as believers who lived under the lordship of Christ, women were spiritually wealthier, more pure, and thus more glorious than the most extravagant women in pagan society. Clothed “with the silk of uprightness, the fine linen of holiness, the purple of modesty,”3 they elevated feminine virtue to an unprecedented height.
Even the pagans recognized that. Chrysostom, perhaps the most eloquent preacher of the fourth century, recorded that one of his teachers, a pagan philosopher named Libanius, once said: “Heavens! what women you Christians have!”4 What prompted Libanius’s outburst was hearing how Chrysostom’s mother had remained chaste for more than two decades since becoming a widow at age twenty. As the influence of Christianity was felt more and more, women were less and less vilified or mistreated as objects for the amusement of men. Instead, women began to be honored for their virtue and faith.
In fact, Christian women converted out of pagan society were automatically freed from a host of demeaning practices. Emancipated from the public debauchery of temples and theaters (where women were systematically dishonored and devalued), they rose to prominence in home and church, where they were honored and admired for feminine virtues like hospitality, ministry to the sick, the care and nurture of their own families, and the loving labor of their hands (Acts 9:39).
After the Roman emperor Constantine was converted in 312 ad, Christianity was granted legal status in Rome and soon became the dominant religion throughout the Empire. One of the measurable early results of this change was a whole new legal status for women. Rome passed laws recognizing the property rights of women. Legislation governing marriage was revised, so that marriage was legally seen as a partnership, rather than a virtual state of servitude for the wife. In the pre-Christian era, Roman men had power to divorce their wives for virtually any cause, or even for no cause at all. New laws made divorce more difficult, while giving women legal rights against husbands who were guilty of infidelity. Philandering husbands, once an accepted part of Roman society, could no longer sin against their wives with impunity.
This has always been the trend. Wherever the gospel has spread, the social, legal, and spiritual status of women has, as a rule, been elevated. When the gospel has been eclipsed (whether by repression, false religion, secularism, humanistic philosophy, or spiritual decay within the church), the status of women has declined accordingly.
Even when secular movements have arisen claiming to be concerned with women’s rights, their efforts have generally been detrimental to the status of women. The feminist movement of our generation, for example, is a case in point. Feminism has devalued and defamed femininity. Natural gender distinctions are usually downplayed, dismissed, despised, or denied. As a result, women are now being sent into combat situations, subjected to grueling physical labor once reserved for men, exposed to all kinds of indignities in the workplace, and otherwise encouraged to act and talk like men. Meanwhile, modern feminists heap scorn on women who want family and household to be their first priorities—disparaging the role of motherhood, the one calling that is most uniquely and exclusively feminine. The whole message of feminist egalitarianism is that there is really nothing extraordinary about women.
That is certainly not the message of Scripture. As we have seen, Scripture honors women as women, and it encourages them to seek honor in a uniquely feminine way (Prov. 31:10–30).
Scripture never discounts the female intellect, downplays the talents and abilities of women, or discourages the right use of women’s spiritual gifts. But whenever the Bible expressly talks about the marks of an excellent woman, the stress is always on feminine virtue. The most significant women in Scripture were influential not because of their careers, but because of their character. The message these women collectively give is not about “gender equality”; it’s about true feminine excellence. And this is always exemplified in moral and spiritual qualities rather than by social standing, wealth, or physical appearance.
According to the apostle Peter, for instance, true feminine beauty is not about external adornment, “arranging the hair, wearing gold, or putting on fine apparel”; real beauty is seen instead in “the hidden person of the heart .… the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God” (1 Peter 3:3–4 nkjv). Paul, likewise, said godliness and good works are the real essence of feminine beauty; not artificial embellishments applied to the outside (1 Tim. 2:9–10). That truth is exemplified to one degree or another by every woman featured in this book.
The faithfulness of these women is their true, lasting legacy. I hope as you meet them in Scripture and get to know more about their lives and characters, they will challenge you, motivate you, encourage you, and inspire you with love for the God whom they trusted and served. May your heart be set ablaze with the very same faith, may your life be characterized by a similar faithfulness, and may your soul be overwhelmed with love for the extraordinary God they worshiped.

EVE: MOTHER OF ALL LIVING

CHAPTER 1
Adam called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.—Genesis 3:20 nkjv

Eve must have been a creature of unsurpassed beauty. She was the crown and the pinnacle of God’s amazing creative work. The first female of Adam’s race was the last living thing to be called into existence—actually fashioned directly by the Creator’s own hand in a way that showed particular care and attention to detail. Remember, Eve wasn’t made out of dust like Adam, but carefully designed from living flesh and bone. Adam was refined dirt; Eve was a glorious refinement of humanity itself. She was a special gift to Adam. She was the necessary partner who finally made his existence complete—and whose own existence finally signaled the completion of all creation. Eve, the only being ever directly created by God from the living tissue of another creature, was indeed a singular marvel. God had composed a vast universe of wonders out of nothing. Then He made Adam from a handful of dust. But nothing in the whole expanse of the universe was more wonderful than this woman made from a handful of Adam. If the man represented the supreme species (a race of creatures made in the image of God), Eve was the living embodiment of humanity’s glory (1 Cor. 11:7). God had truly saved the best for last. Nothing else would have sufficed quite so perfectly to be the finishing touch and the very zenith of all creation. In her original state, undefiled by any evil, unblemished by any disease or defect, unspoiled by any imperfection at all, Eve was the flawless archetype of feminine excellence. She was magnificent in every way. Since no other woman has ever come unfallen into a curse-free world, no other woman could possibly surpass Eve’s grace, charm, virtue, ingenuity, intelligence, wit, and pure innocence. Physically, too, she must have personified all the best traits of both strength and beauty. There is no doubt that she was a living picture of sheer radiance.
Scripture, however, gives us no physical description of Eve. Her beauty—splendid as it must have been—is never mentioned or even alluded to. The focus of the biblical account is on Eve’s duty to her Creator and her role alongside her husband. That is a significant fact, reminding us that the chief distinguishing traits of true feminine excellence are nothing superficial. Women who are obsessed with image, cosmetics, body shapes, and other external matters have a distorted view of femininity. Indeed, Western culture as a whole (including a large segment of the visible church) seems hopelessly confused about these very issues. We need to go back to Scripture to see what God’s ideal for a woman really is. And the biblical account of Eve is an excellent reminder of what a woman’s true priorities ought to be.
As “the mother of all living,” Eve is obviously a major character in the story of humanity’s fall and redemption. Yet in all of Scripture, her name is used only four times—twice in the Old Testament (Gen. 3:20; 4:1), and twice in the New Testament (2 Cor. 11:3; 1 Tim. 2:13). Not only is no physical description of her given; we don’t even know such details as how many children she had, how long she lived, or where and how she died (Gen. 5:3–5). The way Scripture tells her story, almost in abbreviated fashion, helps us focus more clearly on the aspects of her life that have the most significance.
Although Scripture is silent about many things we might like to know about Eve, we are given detailed accounts of her creation, her temptation and fall, the curse that was placed on her, and the subsequent hope that she clung to. Naturally, that’s where we’ll focus our study of this truly extraordinary woman.

HER CREATION
The biblical account of Eve’s remarkable creation is given in Genesis 2:20–25:
So Adam gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man. And Adam said: “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. (nkjv)
In other words, God performed a surgical procedure on Adam. Scripture describes the operation with a surprising measure of detail. Adam was anesthetized—not by any artificial means, but God simply caused him to fall into a deep sleep. In such a slumber (especially in a world that was still a perfect paradise), Adam would feel no pain, of course. But, more significantly, the pure, passive restfulness of Adam’s sleep makes an ideal illustration of how God’s grace is always received. Grace is never set in motion by any effort or activity or volunteerism on our part, but it always flows freely from the sovereign will of God. Notice there’s nothing to indicate that Adam asked God for a wife. Adam certainly wasn’t given any conditions to fulfill as a prerequisite to receiving God’s kindness. God Himself instigated this whole event and single-handedly brought it to pass—as an expression of sheer grace and benevolence to Adam. Adam was instrumental only in that he contributed a rib, but even that was done while he was asleep. The work was wholly and completely God’s.
Adam’s side was opened, a rib was carefully removed, and the incision was closed again. With such an infinitely skilled surgeon, and in the paradise of Eden prior to the curse, there was no danger of infection, none of the discomfort of postoperative pain, and (in all likelihood) not even a scar. God took a redundant bone that Adam would never miss and made for him the one thing he lacked: a soul mate. Adam lost a rib, but he gained a loving companion, created especially for him by the Giver of every good and perfect gift (James 1:17).
The Hebrew expression describing how God “made [the rib] into a woman” denotes careful construction and design. Literally, it means God built a woman. He carefully assembled a whole new creature with just the right set of attributes to make her the ideal mate for Adam.
Specially created by God for Adam from his own flesh and bone, Eve suited Adam perfectly in every way. She is a wonderful illustration of the goodness of God’s grace and the perfect wisdom of His will. Again, God made her while Adam was asleep, without any tips or suggestions from him. Yet she perfectly met every need Adam had, satisfied every longing he may ever have felt, and delighted every faculty of his senses. She answered his need for companionship; she was a source of joy and gladness to him; and she made possible the procreation of the human race. She complemented Adam perfectly, and she enhanced everything about his existence. Eden was now truly a paradise.
When Adam awoke and found Eve, he must have been overjoyed! The moment he saw her, he loved her. His first words upon meeting her express a profound sense of wonder, genuine delight, and abiding satisfaction: “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.” Clearly, he already felt a deep, personal attachment to Eve. She was a priceless treasure to be cherished, a worthy partner to encourage him, and a pleasing spouse who would love him in return. Instantly, he adored her and embraced her as his own.
The unique method of Eve’s creation is deliberately emphasized, I think, in order to remind us of several crucial truths about womanhood in general.
First, it speaks of Eve’s fundamental equality with Adam. The woman was “taken out of man.” They shared the same essential nature. She was not a different kind of creature; she was of exactly the same essence as Adam. She was in no way an inferior character made merely to serve him, but she was his spiritual counterpart, his intellectual coequal, and in every sense his perfect mate and companion.
Second, the way Eve was created reminds us of the essential unity that is the ideal in every marriage relationship. Jesus referred to Eve’s creation in Matthew 19:4–6 to prove that God’s plan for marriage was established at the very beginning of human history and was based on the principles of monogamy, solidarity, and inviolability. “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate” (nkjv). So the one-flesh principle is perfectly illustrated in the method of Eve’s creation. As a matter of fact, this is where that principle finds its true origin.
Third, the circumstances of Eve’s creation illustrate how deep and meaningful the marriage of husband and wife is designed to be. It is not merely a physical union, but a union of heart and soul as well. Eve was Adam’s complement in every sense, designed by God to be the ideal soul-companion for him. And the intimacy of her relationship with her husband derives from her being literally taken from his side. In his classic commentary on the Bible, Puritan author Matthew Henry wrote these familiar words, which have been adapted and quoted in many marriage ceremonies: “The woman was made of a rib out of the side of Adam; not made out of his head to rule over him, nor out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be beloved.”
The symbolism Matthew Henry saw in Adam’s rib accords well with what Scripture teaches about the proper relationship between husbands and wives. It reminds us, again, of how Scripture exalts women.
Fourth, Eve’s creation contains some important biblical lessons about the divinely-designed role of women. Although Eve was spiritually and intellectually Adam’s peer; although they were both of one essence and therefore equals in their standing before God and in their rank above the other creatures; there was nonetheless a clear distinction in their earthly roles. And this was by God’s own deliberate creative design. In the words of the apostle Paul, “Man is not from woman, but woman from man. Nor was man created for the woman, but woman for the man” (1 Cor. 11:8–9 nkjv). Adam was created first; then Eve was made to fill a void in his existence. Adam was the head; Eve was his helper. Adam was designed to be a father, provider, protector, and leader. Eve was designed to be a mother, comforter, nurturer, and helper.
That God has ordained these different functions for men and women is clearly evident from nature alone (1 Cor. 11:14). Men and women do not possess equal physical strength. They are bodily and hormonally different (in a number of rather obvious ways). A mountain of empirical and clinical evidence strongly suggests that men and women are also dissimilar in several other important ways—including socially, emotionally, and psychologically.
To acknowledge that there are such fundamental differences between the genders, and that men and women were designed for different roles, may not correspond with modern feminist sensibilities, but this is, after all, what God’s own Word says. God created men and women differently with a purpose, and His plan for them reflects their differences. Scripture is clear in teaching that wives should be subject to the authority of their husbands in marriage (Eph. 5:22–24; Col. 3:18; 1 Peter 3:1–6) and that women are to be under the authority and instruction of men in the church (1 Cor. 11:3–7; 14:34–35).
First Timothy 2:11–15 is a key passage on this issue, because that is where the apostle Paul defends the principle of male headship in the church. The first reason Paul gives for this arrangement stems from creation, not from the fall: “Adam was formed first, then Eve” (1 Tim. 2:13 nkjv). So the principle of male headship was designed into creation. It was not (as some have suggested) a consequence of Adam’s sin and therefore something to be regarded as a fruit of evil. And when Scripture assigns men the role of headship in the church and in marriage, it reflects God’s blueprint as Creator. I’m convinced that if people today would simply embrace God’s purpose and seek to fulfill the roles God has designed for our respective genders, both men and women would be happier, the church would be healthier, and marriages would be stronger.
Adam was the representative head and archetype for the whole human race. But remember, although Eve was given a subordinate role, she remained Adam’s spiritual and intellectual equal. She was his “helper,” neither his supervisor nor his slave. By calling her Adam’s “helper,” Scripture stresses the mutuality and the complementary nature of the partnership. Eve was in no way inferior to her husband, but she was nonetheless given a role that was subordinate to his leadership.
Subordinate, yet equal? Yes. The relationships within the Trinity illustrate perfectly how headship and submission can function within a relationship of absolute equals. Christ is in no sense inferior to the Father. “In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily” (Col. 2:9 nkjv). He has eternally existed “in the form of God … [and] equal with God” (Phil. 2:6 nkjv). “I and My Father are one,” He testified (John 10:30 nkjv). The apostle John made it as clear as possible: From eternity past, Jesus was with God and was Himself God (John 1:1–2). Three divine Persons (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) constitute the one true God of Scripture. All three are fully God and are fully equal. Yet the Son is subordinate to the Father. Jesus said, “I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me” (John 5:30 nkjv). “I always do those things that please Him” (John 8:29 nkjv).
The apostle Paul drew a clear parallel between Jesus’ willing submission to his Father and a wife’s willing submission to her husband: “I want you to know that the head of every man is Christ, the head of woman is man, and the head of Christ is God” (1 Cor. 11:3 nkjv). So if you wonder how two persons who are truly equal can have a relationship where one is head and the other submits, you need look no further than the doctrine of the Trinity. God Himself is the pattern for such a relationship.
Eve’s creation establishes a similar paradigm for the human race. Here is the sum of it: Men and women, though equal in essence, were designed for different roles. Women are in no sense intellectually or spiritually inferior to men, but they were quite clearly created for a distinctive purpose. In the economy of church and family, the Bible says women should be subordinate to the authority of men. Yet Scripture also recognizes that in a completely different sense, women are exalted above men—because they are the living and breathing manifestation of the glory of a race made in God’s image (1 Cor. 11:7).
That was precisely Eve’s position after creation and before the fall. She was under her husband’s headship, yet she was in many ways an even more glorious creature than he, treasured and extolled by him. They were partners and companions, fellow laborers in the garden. God dealt with Adam as head of the human race, and Eve was accountable to her husband. Far from consigning Eve to menial servitude or a state of domestic enslavement, this arrangement utterly liberated her.
This was true paradise, and Adam and Eve constituted a perfect microcosm of the human race as God designed it to be.
But then it was all ruined by sin. Tragically, Eve was the unwitting portal through which the tempter gained access to assault Adam.

HER TEMPTATION
Genesis 2 ends with a succinct description of the innocence of Eden’s paradise: “They were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed” (v. 25 nkjv).
Genesis 3 then introduces the tempter, a serpent. This is clearly Satan, who has somehow manifested himself in the form of a reptile, though Scripture doesn’t formally identify this creature as Satan until the final book of Revelation (Rev. 12:9; 20:2).
Satan was an angel who fell into sin. Isaiah 14:12–15 and Ezekiel 28:12–19 make reference to the demise of a magnificent angelic creature who is described as the highest and most glorious of all created beings. This can only be Satan. We’re not told in Scripture precisely when Satan’s fall occurred or what circumstances led to it. But it must have been sometime during the events described in Genesis 2, because at the end of Genesis 1, all creation—including everything in the visible universe as well as the spirit world—was complete, pristine, and unblemished. “God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good” (Gen. 1:31 nkjv, emphasis added). But then in Genesis 3:1, we meet the serpent.
The chronology of the account seems to suggest that a very short time elapsed between the end of creation and the fall of Satan. A similarly short time appears to have elapsed between Satan’s fall and Eve’s temptation. It might have been only a few days—or perhaps even only a matter of hours. But it could not have been very long. Adam and Eve had not yet even conceived any children.
In fact, that is undoubtedly one of the main reasons the tempter wasted no time deceiving Eve and provoking her husband to sin. He wanted to strike at the head of the human race before the race had any opportunity to multiply. If he could beguile Eve and thereby cause Adam to fall at this moment, he could sabotage all of humanity in one deadly act of treason against God.
Here is the biblical account in full from Genesis 3:1–7:
Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?”
And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’ ”
Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings. (nkjv)
Satan came to Eve in disguise. That epitomizes the subtle way he intended to deceive her. He appears to have singled her out for this cunning deception when she was not in the company of Adam. As the weaker vessel, away from her husband, but close to the forbidden tree, she was in the most vulnerable position possible.
Notice that what the serpent told her was not only plausible; it was even partially true. Eating the fruit would indeed open her eyes to understand good and evil. In her innocence, Eve was susceptible to the devil’s half-truths and lies.
The serpent’s opening words in verse 1 set the tenor for all his dealings with humanity: “Has God indeed said … ?” Skepticism is implicit in the inquiry. This is his classic modus operandi. He questions the Word of God, suggesting uncertainty about the meaning of God’s statements, raising doubt about the truthfulness of what God has said, insinuating suspicion about the motives behind God’s secret purposes, or voicing apprehension about the wisdom of God’s plan.
He twists the meaning of God’s Word: “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?” God’s commandment had actually come to Adam as a positive statement: “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat” (Gen. 2:16–17 nkjv, emphasis added). The serpent casts the command in negative language (“You shall not eat of every tree”), making God’s expression of lavish generosity sound like stinginess. He was deliberately misrepresenting the character and the command of God.
It is likely that Eve had heard about God’s only restriction not directly from God, but from her husband. Genesis 2:16–17 records that God gave the prohibition just prior to her creation, at a time when Adam must have been the lone recipient. This concurs perfectly with the biblical truth of Adam’s position as the representative and head of the whole human race. God held him directly accountable. Eve’s instruction and her protection were his responsibility as head of his family. Consequently, the farther she went from his side, the more she was exposed.
In the innocent bliss of Eden, of course, Eve was unaware that any danger like this existed. Even if (as it appears) the serpent discovered her looking at the tree, she was not thereby sinning. God had not forbidden the couple to look at the tree. Contrary to Eve’s statement in Genesis 3:3, God had not even forbidden them to touch the tree. She was exaggerating the rigors of God’s one restriction.
Notice that she also understated the severity of God’s warning, softening God’s decisive tone of absolute certainty (“in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” [Gen. 2:17 nkjv]) to the language of a mere potentiality (“lest you die” [Gen. 3:3 nkjv]).
At this point, however, it seems she was more flustered and confounded than anything else. There’s no reason to assume she was purposely misrepresenting the facts. Perhaps for her protection, to put a fence around the danger, Adam had advised Eve not to “touch” the forbidden fruit. In any case, Eve was doing nothing wrong by simply looking at it. She would naturally have been curious. Satan seized the opportunity to beguile her, and thereby tempt Adam.
The second time the serpent speaks to Eve he does not merely misquote God’s Word in order to put a sinister spin on it. This time he flatly contradicts what God had told Adam. God’s word to Adam was, “In the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Gen. 2:17 nkjv). Satan’s reply to Eve was the exact opposite: “You will not surely die” (3:4 nkjv).
Then Satan went on to confound Eve with his version of what would happen if she ate: “God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (v. 5 nkjv). This was another partial truth. If Eve ate, her eyes would be open to the knowledge of good and evil. In other words, she would forfeit her innocence.
But buried in the middle of those words is the lie of all lies. It is the same falsehood that still feeds the carnal pride of our fallen race and corrupts every human heart. This evil fiction has given birth to every false religion in human history. It is the same error that gave birth to the wickedness of Satan himself. This one lie therefore underlies a whole universe of evil: “You will be like God” (v. 5 nkjv).
Eating the fruit would not make Eve anything like God. It would (and did) make her like the devil—fallen, corrupt, and condemned.
But Eve was deceived. She “saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise” (v. 6 nkjv). Notice the natural desires that contributed to Eve’s confusion: her bodily appetites (it was good for food); her aesthetic sensibilities (it was pleasant to the eyes); and her intellectual curiosity (it was desirable for wisdom). Those are all good, legitimate, healthy urges—unless the object of desire is sinful, and then natural passion becomes evil lust. That can never result in any good. Thus we are told by the apostle John, “All that is in the world; the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life; is not of the Father but is of the world” (1 John 2:16 nkjv).
Eve ate and then gave to her husband to eat. Scripture doesn’t say whether Adam found Eve near the forbidden fruit or she went and found him. Either way, by Adam’s act, according to Romans 5:12, “sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men” (nkjv). That is known as the doctrine of original sin. It’s one of the most important, truly foundational doctrines in Christian theology, and therefore certainly worth the effort to understand in the context of Eve’s story.
People sometimes ask why it was Adam’s failure that was so decisive for humanity and why Scripture treats Adam’s disobedience as the means by which sin entered the world. After all, Eve actually ate the forbidden fruit first. She was the one who succumbed to the original temptation, allowed herself to be drawn away by an appeal to lust, and disobeyed God’s command. Why is Adam’s transgression deemed the original sin?
Remember, first of all, that 1 Timothy 2:14 says, “Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression” (nkjv). Adam’s sin was deliberate and willful in a way Eve’s was not. Eve was deceived. But Adam chose to partake of the fruit Eve offered him with full knowledge that he was engaging in deliberate rebellion against God.
There is, however, an even more important reason why Adam’s sin, rather than Eve’s, led to the fall of all humanity. Because of Adam’s unique position as head of the original family and therefore captain of the whole human race, Adam’s headship had particular significance for all of humanity. God dealt with him as a kind of legal delegate for himself, his wife, and all their offspring. When Adam sinned, he sinned as our representative before God. When he fell, we fell with him. That is precisely why Scripture teaches that we are born sinful (see Gen. 8:21; Ps. 51:5; 58:3) and that we all share in Adam’s guilt and condemnation (Rom. 5:18).
In other words, contrary to what many people assume, we don’t fall from a state of complete innocence into sin individually, on our own. But Adam, who in effect was acting as an agent and proxy for the entire human race, plunged all of humanity at once into sin. In the words of Romans 5:19, “By one man’s disobedience many were made sinners” (nkjv). Every one of Adam’s progeny was condemned by his actions. And that is why the whole human race is said to be guilty because of what he did, and not because of what Eve did.
It is impossible to make sense of the doctrine of original sin if we ignore this principle of Adam’s headship. Ultimately, it is impossible to make sense of Scripture at all without understanding this vital principle. In an absolutely crucial sense, even the truth of the gospel hinges on this very same idea of representative headship. Scripture says that Adam’s headship over the human race is an exact parallel of Christ’s headship over the redeemed race (Rom. 5:18; 1 Cor. 15:22). In the same way that Adam brought guilt on us as our representative, Christ took away that guilt for His people by becoming their head and representative. He stood as their proxy before the bar of divine justice and paid the price of their guilt before God. Jesus also did everything Adam failed to do, rendering obedience to God on behalf of His people. Therefore, “by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous” (Rom. 5:19 nkjv). In other words, Christ’s righteousness counts as ours, because He took His place as the representative Head of all who trust Him. That is the gospel in a nutshell.
Don’t get the idea, however, that Eve’s sin was excusable because it wasn’t as deliberate or as far-reaching as Adam’s. Eve’s sin was exceedingly sinful, and her actions demonstrated that she was a full and willing partner with Adam in his disobedience. (Incidentally, in a similar way, we all demonstrate by our own willful deeds that the doctrine of original sin is perfectly just and reasonable. No one can legitimately cast off the guilt of the human race by protesting that it is unfair for the rest of us to be tainted with guilt for Adam’s behavior. Our own sins prove our complicity with him.)
Eve’s sin subjected her to God’s displeasure. She forfeited the paradise of Eden and inherited a life of pain and frustration instead. The divine curse against sin targeted her in a particular way.

HER HUMILIATION
The serpent was right about one thing: eating the forbidden fruit opened Eve’s eyes so that she knew good and evil. Unfortunately, she knew evil by experiencing it—by becoming a willing participant in sin. And in a moment, her innocence was gone. The result was agonizing shame.
Scripture describes it in a few picturesque words: “Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings” (Gen. 3:7 nkjv).
Their famous attempt to make clothing of fig leaves perfectly illustrates the utter inadequacy of every human device ever conceived to try to cover shame. Human religion, philanthropy, education, self-betterment, self-esteem, and all other attempts at human goodness ultimately fail to provide adequate camouflage for the disgrace and shame of our fallen state. All the man-made remedies combined are no more effective for removing the dishonor of our sin than our first parents’ attempts to conceal their nakedness with fig leaves. That’s because masking over shame doesn’t really deal with the problem of guilt before God. Worst of all, a full atonement for guilt is far outside the possibility of fallen men and women to provide for themselves.
That was the realization Adam and Eve awoke to when their eyes were opened to the knowledge of good and evil. The Lord, of course, knew all about Adam’s sin before it even occurred. There was no possibility of hiding the truth from Him, and He certainly did not have to come physically to the garden to find out what the first couple were up to. But Genesis tells the story from an earthly and human perspective. What we read in Genesis 3:8–13, in essence, is what Eve heard and saw:
And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, “Where are you?”
So he said, “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.”
And He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?”
Then the man said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.”
And the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” (nkjv)
It is evident that the shame of our first parents was accompanied by a deep sense of fear, dread, and horror at the prospect of giving account to God for what they had done. That is why they tried to hide. Like the fig leaves, their hiding place was inadequate to conceal them from the all-seeing eye of God.
Adam’s reply reflects his fear, as well as a note of deep sorrow. But there’s no confession. Adam seems to have realized that it was pointless to try to plead innocence, but neither did he make a full confession. What he did was try to pass off the blame. He immediately pointed the finger at the one closest to him: Eve.
Also implicit in Adam’s words (“The woman whom You gave”) was an accusation against God. So quickly did sin corrupt Adam’s mind that in his blame shifting, he did not shy away from making God Himself an accessory to the crime. This is so typical of sinners seeking to exonerate themselves that the New Testament epistle of James expressly instructs us, “Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am tempted by God’; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed” (James 1:13–14 nkjv). Adam, however, was subtly trying to put at least some of the blame on God himself.
But Adam handed most of the culpability to Eve. The Lord responded, not by arguing with Adam about it, but by turning to Eve and confronting her directly. Obviously, this was not a signal that Adam was off the hook. Rather, the Lord was giving Eve an opportunity to confess her part.
But she just tried to push the blame off onto the serpent: “The woman said, ‘The serpent deceived me, and I ate’ ” (Gen. 3:13 nkjv). That was true enough (1 Tim. 2:14), but the serpent’s guilt did not justify her sin. Again, James 1:14 stands as a reminder that whenever we sin, it is because we are drawn away by our own lust. No matter what means Satan may use to beguile us into sin—no matter how subtle his cunning—the responsibility for the deed itself still lies with the sinner and no one else. Eve could not escape accountability for what she had done by transferring the blame.
Notice, however, that the Lord made no argument and entertained no further dialogue. There was enough to condemn Adam and Eve in their own words, despite their efforts to avoid a full confession. All their excuses were no better at concealing their guilt than the fig leaves had been.
So in Genesis 3:14–19, the Lord simply pronounces a comprehensive curse that addresses the guilty parties in turn—first the serpent, then Eve, and finally Adam:
So the Lord God said to the serpent: “Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all cattle, and more than every beast of the field; on your belly you shall go, and you shall eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.”
To the woman He said: “I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; in pain you shall bring forth children; your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.”
Then to Adam He said, “Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it’: cursed is the ground for your sake; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for dust you are, and to dust you shall return.” (nkjv)
To examine the entire curse exhaustively might consume many chapters. It would certainly require more space than would be reasonable for a chapter like this. What we are chiefly interested in, of course, is how this curse relates to Eve in particular. Notice that the curse has three sections. The first part is addressed to the serpent; the second part to Eve; and the third part to Adam. But all three sections had serious ramifications for Eve. In order to see this clearly, let’s start with the final section, which is addressed to Adam, and work our way backward.
Bear in mind, first of all, that the curse on Adam applied not only to him personally, but also to the entire human race. It furthermore promised significant changes in the earthly environment. So the curse on Adam had immediate and automatic implications for Eve (and for all their offspring) also. The loss of paradise and the sudden change in all of nature meant that Eve’s daily life would be filled with onerous consequences, just as Adam’s life would be. Her toil, like his, would become a burden. The sweat, the thorns and thistles, and ultimately the reality of death would all be part of her lot in life too. So the curse on Adam was a curse on Eve as well.
It is significant, I think, that the shortest section of the curse is the part dealing with Eve directly. Eve’s part is completely contained in one verse of Scripture (v. 16), and it has two elements. One direct consequence of Eve’s sin would be a multiplication of the pain and sorrow associated with childbirth. The other would be a struggle that would occur in her relationship with her husband. In other words, when the curse addresses Eve in particular, it deals with the two most important relationships in which a woman might naturally seek her highest joy: her husband and her children.
The first part of verse 16 is simple and straightforward: “I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; in pain you shall bring forth children.” Of course, sin is what brought sorrow and misery into the world in the first place. The expression multiply your sorrow does not suggest that there would have been a lesser degree of anguish or distress in an uncursed Eden anyway. Presumably, even childbirth would have been as painless and as perfect as every other aspect of Paradise. But this language simply recognizes that now, in a fallen world, sadness, pain, and physical difficulties would be part and parcel of the woman’s daily routine. And in childbirth, the pain and sorrow would be “greatly multiplied”—significantly increased over the normal woes of everyday life. The bearing of children, which originally had the potential to bring the most undiluted kind of joy and gladness, would instead be marred by severe pain and difficulty.
The second part of the verse is a little harder to interpret: “Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.” Clear light is shed on the meaning of that expression by a comparison with Genesis 4:7, which uses exactly the same language and grammatical construction to describe the struggle we wage with sin: “Sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it” (nkjv). In other words, sin desires to gain mastery over you, but you need to prevail over it instead.
Genesis 3:16, using the very same language, describes a similar struggle that would take place between Eve and her husband. Before Adam sinned, his leadership was always perfectly wise and loving and tender. Before Eve sinned, her submission was the perfect model of meekness and modesty. But sin changed all of that. She would now chafe under his headship and desire to gain dominance over him. His tendency would be to suppress her in a harsh or domineering way. And thus we see that tensions over gender roles go all the way back to our first parents. It is one of the immediate effects of sin and the awful curse that it brought upon our race.
Paradise was utterly ruined by sin, and the severity of the curse must have shattered Eve’s heart. But God’s judgment against her was not entirely harsh and hopeless. There was a good deal of grace, even in the curse. To the eyes of faith, there were rays of hope that shone even through the cloud of God’s displeasure.
For example, Eve might have been made subject to the serpent to whom she had foolishly acquiesced. But instead, she remained under the headship of her husband, who loved her. She might have been utterly destroyed, or made to wander alone in a world where survival would have been difficult. Instead, she was permitted to remain with Adam, who would continue to care for her and provide for her. Although their relationship would now have tensions that did not exist in Eden, she remained Adam’s partner. Even though she might have justly been made an outcast and a pariah, she retained her role as a wife.
In the worst case, Eve might have even been forbidden to bear children. Instead, although the experience would now be painful and accompanied by sorrow, Eve would still be the mother of all living. In fact, her very name, given to her by Adam after the pronouncement of the curse, gave testimony to that fact. “Adam called his wife’s name Eve; because she was the mother of all living” (Gen. 3:20 nkjv).
As a matter of fact, the promise that Eve would still bear children mitigated every other aspect of the curse. That one simple expectation contained a ray of hope for the whole human race. There was a hint in the curse itself that one of Eve’s own offspring would ultimately overthrow evil and dispel all the darkness of sin. Eve had set a whole world of evil in motion by her disobedience; now, through her offspring, she would produce a Savior. This powerful hope had already been implicitly given to her, in the portion of the curse where the Lord addressed the serpent.

HER EXPECTATION
God’s curse on the serpent was the most severe of all. In the most literal and obvious sense, the curse appears to be addressed to the actual reptile. But remember, this reptile was somehow indwelt or controlled by Satan. The true significance of the curse, therefore, actually looks beyond the snake and his species. Its primary message is a grim sentence of condemnation against Satan himself.
Still, the curse does have important implications for the literal serpent and his species. Don’t miss the fact that the Lord implicitly declares “all cattle, and … every beast of the field” accursed (Gen. 3:14 nkjv). Of course, God did not hold the animal kingdom culpable for Adam’s sin. (Scripture never portrays animals as morally sentient beings, and this is no exception. Even in the case of the serpent, the moral fault lay in the satanic spirit who used the reptile’s form, and not in the beast itself.) But God cursed even the animals for Adam’s sin. In other words, the curse on them was part of God’s judgment against Adam.
Remember, the curse had negative ramifications for Adam’s whole environment. Evil is infectious, and, therefore, when Adam sinned, his entire domain was tainted. The sweeping extent of the curse reflects that truth. That is why, in verse 17, the Lord cursed even the ground. Obviously, the animal kingdom would be likewise subject to the many and far reaching effects of Adam’s rebellion. Every beast of the field would henceforth live in a decaying and dying world. They, too, would be subject to disease, destruction, disaster, death, and various other hardships that all stemmed from the presence of evil. Therefore the animals were also formally included in God’s curse. They were consigned to suffer the miseries of evil that Adam’s sin had brought into his environment. This was all part of Adam’s judgment, a constant reminder to him about God’s displeasure over sin.
But the serpent would be cursed above all species, reduced to crawling on his belly in the dust. This seems to suggest that serpents originally had legs. We’re not given a physical description of the serpent prior to the curse, but it could well have been a magnificent and sophisticated creature. From now on, however, all serpents would be demoted to the dirt, condemned to writhe on the ground, and therefore unable to avoid eating the offscouring of all kinds of filth along with their food. Whatever the glories of this creature prior to the fall, he now would take a form that signified the loathsomeness of the tempter who indwelt him.
Furthermore, the serpent would forever bear the stigma of human contempt. The very real effects of this pronouncement are clearly evident in the human species’ near universal hatred of snakes. No other creature arouses so much fear and loathing.
But again, the full meaning of this text really looks beyond the reptile and addresses the satanic spirit who controlled him. The serpent’s degradation to the dust simply mirrors and illustrates Satan’s own demotion from heaven. “How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground” (Isa. 14:12 nkjv). The loathing of all humanity likewise applies to Satan. Although our race is fallen and spiritually aligned with Satan against God (John 8:44), the devil himself is a reproach and a disgrace among Eve’s children. People, as a rule, are naturally repulsed by Satan and satanic imagery.
But that’s not all this means. The important spiritual implications of the curse against the serpent are even more profound than that. And I believe Eve understood this in some measure. Genesis 3:15 is often referred to as the Protevangelium (meaning, literally, “the first gospel”). Here is the earliest glimmer of good news for fallen humanity, and it comes in the opening words of God’s curse! He says to the evil spirit indwelling the snake: “I will put enmity … between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel” (nkjv).
Though framed as a malediction against the tempter, that part of the curse was a bright ray of light for Eve. Here was an explicit promise that her Seed would bruise the evil one’s head. She could not possibly have grasped the full scope of the divine pledge concealed in those words, but she could hardly have failed to take heart from what she heard.
First of all, the mere mention of “her Seed” indicated that she would bear children and have the opportunity to raise a family. At the very least, she now knew she was not going to be instantly and abruptly destroyed because of her sin. She would not be consigned to unmitigated condemnation alongside the serpent. Instead (and Eve surely understood that this was only owing to God’s great grace and mercy), she would still have the opportunity to become the mother of the human race. Moreover, God would ensure that enmity would perpetually exist between Eve’s descendents and that evil creature. All of this was clearly good news from Eve’s perspective.
Even better, however, was the promise that her seed would bruise the serpent’s head. This was a guarantee that her race would not be hopelessly subordinated to the evil one’s domination forever. In fact, whether Eve fully grasped it or not, this curse against the serpent hinted at an ultimate remedy for her sin, giving Eve reason to hope that someday one of her descendants would inflict a crushing blow to the tempter’s head, utterly and finally destroying the diabolical being and all his influence—and, in effect, overturning all the wickedness Eve had helped to unleash.
Make no mistake; that is precisely what these words meant. The curse against the serpent held a promise for Eve. Her “Seed” would crush the serpent’s head. Her own offspring would destroy the destroyer.
This sense of Genesis 3:15 reflects the true divine intention. And that fact is made absolutely clear by the rest of Scripture. (Indeed, it is the main plot of the story the rest of Scripture tells.) For example, there is an echo of this same language in Romans 16:20: “The God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly” (nkjv). Hebrews 2:14 says Christ (who, of course, is the eternal “God of peace”) took on human form—literally became one of Eve’s offspring—so “that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil” (nkjv). First John 3:8 says, “For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil” (nkjv). Thus Christ, who was uniquely “born of a woman” (Gal. 4:4 nkjv)—the offspring of a virgin, and God in human form—literally fulfilled this promise that the Seed of the woman would break the serpent’s head.
How much of this did Eve genuinely understand? Scripture does not say, but it seems clear that Eve clung to the hope that eventually one of her own offspring would wound her mortal enemy. To borrow words from a slightly different context, she seemed to sense that her species would, by God’s grace, be “saved in childbearing” (1 Tim. 2:15 nkjv). We can be certain that her deep enmity toward the tempter never wavered as long as she lived. She must have longed for the day when one of her children would smash his head.
Evidence of that hope is seen in her great joy upon first becoming a mother. Genesis 4:1 describes the birth of Cain, Eve’s eldest son. Eve said, “I have acquired a man from the Lord” (nkjv). The Hebrew expression might literally be translated, “I have acquired a man; yhwh.” Some commentators have suggested that perhaps she thought Cain was God incarnate, the promised Redeemer. Scripture gives us few reasons to think her messianic hope was quite that highly developed. Certainly, if she even assumed Cain would be the promised Seed, she was sorely disappointed. He crushed his mother’s heart rather than the serpent’s head, by murdering Abel, his younger brother.
Whatever Eve may have meant by that expression in Genesis 4:1, it was nonetheless a clear expression of hope and rejoicing because of God’s grace, compassion, kindness, and forgiveness toward her. There’s a tone of exultation in it: “I have acquired a man from the Lord.”
It is also clear that her hope was personified in her own children. She saw them as tokens of God’s goodness and reminders of the promise that her seed would be the instrument by which the tempter’s ultimate destruction was accomplished. In fact, when Eve bore Seth—after Cain had already broken her heart by murdering Abel—Scripture says, she “named him Seth [meaning, “appointed one”], ‘For God has appointed another seed for me instead of Abel, whom Cain killed’ ” (Gen. 4:25 nkjv). The reference to the “appointed seed” does suggest that her heart had laid hold of the promise concealed in the curse, and she treasured the undying hope that one day her own Seed would fulfill that promise.
Were Adam and Eve saved? I believe they were. God’s grace to them is exemplified in the way He “made tunics of skin, and clothed them” (Gen. 3:21 nkjv). In order for Him to do that, some animals had to be slain. Thus the first ever blood sacrifice was made by the hand of God on their behalf. Furthermore, concealed in God’s declaration that the woman’s Seed would defeat the serpent was an implicit promise that their sin and all its consequences would one day be vanquished and the guilt of it would be eradicated. We know from a New Testament perspective that this promise involved the sending of God’s own Son to undo what Adam’s sin did.
They believed that promise, insofar as they understood it. Scripture records that Seth founded a line of godly people: “As for Seth, to him also a son was born; and he named him Enosh. Then men began to call on the name of the Lord” (Gen. 4:26 nkjv). Where would their knowledge of the Lord have come from? Obviously, it came from Adam and Eve, who had more direct and firsthand knowledge of God than anyone else since the fall. This godly line (which endures in the faith of millions even today) was to a large degree their legacy. Happily for Eve, it will eventually prove to be an infinitely more enduring legacy than her sin. After all, heaven will be filled with her redeemed offspring, and they will be eternally occupied with a celebration of the work of her Seed.

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MacArthur, J. (2005). Twelve extraordinary women : How God shaped women of the Bible and what He wants to do with you (2). Nashville, Tenn.: Nelson Books.

SARAH: HOPING AGAINST HOPE

CHAPTER 2
By faith Sarah herself also received strength to conceive seed, and she bore a child when she was past the age, because she judged Him faithful who had promised.
Hebrews 11:11 nkjv

Let’s be honest: there are times in the biblical account when Sarah comes off as a bit of a shrew. She was the wife of the great patriarch Abraham, so we tend to think of her with a degree of dignity and honor. But reading the biblical account of her life, it is impossible not to notice that she sometimes behaved badly. She could throw fits and tantrums. She knew how to be manipulative. And she was even known to get mean. At one time or another, she exemplified almost every trait associated with the typical caricature of a churlish woman. She could be impatient, temperamental, conniving, cantankerous, cruel, flighty, pouty, jealous, erratic, unreasonable, a whiner, a complainer, or a nag. By no means was she always the perfect model of godly grace and meekness.

In fact, there are hints that she may have been something of a pampered beauty; a classic prima donna. The name given to her at birth, Sarai, means “my princess.” (Her name was not changed to Sarah until she was ninety years old, according to Genesis 17:15). Scripture remarks repeatedly about how stunningly attractive she was. Wherever she went, she instantly received favor and privilege because of her good looks. That kind of thing can spoil the best of women.
By the way, the biblical account of Sarah’s life doesn’t really even begin until she was already sixty-five years old. Amazingly, even at that age, her physical beauty was so remarkable that Abraham regularly assumed other powerful men would want her for their harems. And he was right. First a pharaoh, then a king, not realizing she was Abraham’s wife, had designs on obtaining her as a wife. To this day, Sarah is remembered for her legendary beauty. A famous Moslem tradition teaches that Sarah resembled Eve. (That is especially significant in light of another Moslem tradition, which says Allah gave Eve two-thirds of all beauty, and then divided what remained of beauty among all other women.) But it’s not necessary to embellish Sarah’s glamour with fables. From the biblical account alone, it is clear that she was an extraordinarily beautiful woman.
From the time she became Abraham’s wife, Sarah desired one thing above all others, and that was to have children. But she was barren throughout her normal childbearing years. In fact, that is practically the first thing Scripture mentions about her. After recording that Abraham took her as a wife in Genesis 11:29, verse 30 says, “But Sarai was barren; she had no child” (nkjv).
She was obviously tortured by her childlessness. Every recorded episode of ill temper or strife in her household was related to her frustrations about her own barrenness. It ate at her. She spent years in the grip of frustration and depression because of it. She desperately wanted to be a mother, but she finally concluded that God Himself was restraining her from having children (Gen. 16:2). So badly did she want her husband to have an heir that she concocted a scheme that was immoral, unrighteous, and utterly foolish. She rashly persuaded Abraham to father a child by her own housemaid.
Predictably, the consequences of such a carnal ploy nearly tore her life apart and seemed to leave a lasting scar on her personality. Her bitterness seethed for thirteen years, and she finally insisted that Abraham throw the other woman out, along with the child he had fathered by her.
Sarah’s faults are obvious enough. She was certainly fallen. Her faith, at times, grew weak. Her own heart sometimes led her astray. Those shortcomings were conspicuous and undeniable. If those things were all we knew about Sarah, we might be tempted to picture her as something of a battle-ax—a harsh, severe woman, relentlessly self-centered and temperamental. She wasn’t always the kind of person who naturally evokes our sympathy and understanding.
Fortunately, there was much more to Sarah than that. She had important strengths as well as glaring weaknesses. Scripture actually commends her for her faith and steadfastness. The apostle Peter pointed to her as the very model of how every wife should submit to her husband’s headship. Although there were those terrible flashes of petulance and even cruelty (reminders that Sarah was an embattled, fleshly creature like us), Sarah’s life on the whole is actually characterized by humility, meekness, hospitality, faithfulness, deep affection for her husband, sincere love toward God, and hope that never died.
A study in contrasts and contradictions, Sarah was indeed one extraordinary woman. Although she gave birth to only one son and didn’t become a mother at all until she was well past the normal age of fertility, she is the principal matriarch in Hebrew history. Although her enduring faithfulness to her husband was one of the most exemplary aspects of her character, the most notorious blunder of her life involved an act of gross unfaithfulness. She sometimes vacillated, but she ultimately persevered against unbelievable obstacles, and the steadfastness of her faith became the central feature of her legacy. In fact, the New Testament enshrines her in the Hall of Faith: “because she judged Him faithful who had promised” (Heb. 11:11 nkjv).
The full spectacle of Sarah’s amazing faith doesn’t really become apparent until we contemplate the many seemingly insurmountable obstacles to that faith.

HER BACKGROUND IN UR OF THE CHALDEANS
Sarah was half-sister to her husband, Abraham. In Genesis 20:12, Abraham describes for King Abimelech his relationship with his wife: “She is truly my sister. She is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife” (nkjv). Terah was father to both of them, Sarah being ten years younger than Abraham (Gen. 17:17). We’re not told the names of either of their mothers.
Incidentally, that kind of half-sibling marital relationship was not deemed incestuous in Abraham’s time. Abraham’s brother, Nahor, married a niece; and both Isaac and Jacob married cousins. Such marriages to close relatives were not the least bit unusual or scandalous in the patriarchal era—nor in previous times extending all the way back to creation. Obviously, since Adam and Eve were the only humans God originally created, it would have been absolutely essential in the beginning for some of Adam’s offspring to wed their own siblings.
Scripture made no prohibition against consanguine marriages (matrimony between close relatives) until well after Abraham’s time. No doubt one of the main reasons the Lord ultimately forbid the practice was because of the accumulation of genetic mutations in the human gene pool. When you begin with two genetically perfect creatures, there is no risk of any hereditary defects. Only gradually did the dangers associated with inbreeding arise. Therefore, no legal prohibition against incest even existed until the time of Moses. Then Leviticus 18:6–18 and 20:17–21 explicitly forbade several kinds of incest, including marriage between half-siblings. But the patriarchs should not be evaluated by laws that were only handed down many generations later. It was no sin for Abraham to take Sarah as his wife.
Scripture says virtually nothing about their early years of marriage. In fact, all we know about that era in their lives is the bitter truth that perpetually grated on Sarah’s own consciousness: “Sarai was barren; she had no child” (Gen. 11:30 nkjv). That one statement sums up everything Scripture has to say about the first sixty-five years of Sarah’s life! It is no wonder if she occasionally exhibited flashes of frustration and resentment.
Notice that the biblical account of Abraham’s life likewise doesn’t really begin until he was seventy-five. All we are told is that he had been born and raised in Sumeria, lower Mesopotamia, near the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. (That’s close to the head of the Persian Gulf in a region that is part of present-day Iraq.) Abraham’s hometown was a famous urban center known as Ur of the Chaldeans.
Ur was the heart of a sophisticated pagan culture.. Sarah and Abraham would have lived there during the very height of its power and affluence. The city government was a superstitious theocracy supposedly under the Babylonian moon god. (This was the same culture that built the famous ziggurats, those massive terraced towers upon which pagan temples were set.)
Abraham, of course, was a worshiper of yhwh. His knowledge of the true God was probably passed down to him by way of his ancestors. After all, Abraham was only a ninth-generation descendent from Shem, son of Noah.
It is obvious that the world cultures of Abraham’s time were highly paganized. Going back even before the tower of Babel episode, love for the truth had obviously been in sharp decline for many generations. By the time Abraham came on the scene, idolatrous worship thoroughly dominated every world culture.
But there was still a scattered remnant of true believers. It is entirely likely that dispersed here and there among the world’s population were faithful families who still knew and worshiped yhwh, having maintained their faith across the generations from Noah’s time. For example, judging from details given in the book of Job, including the length of Job’s life span, Job was probably a close contemporary of Abraham’s. Job and his friends (lousy counselors though they were) had a thorough familiarity with the God of their ancestors. They lived in the land of Uz. The precise location of Uz is not certain, but it was clearly in the Middle East (Jer. 25:20)—yet not in the vicinity of Ur of the Chaldeans, where Abraham’s family lived. So the remnant who still worshiped yhwh were not confined to any single location or limited to any one family.
In fact, in the biblical account of Abraham’s life, we are also introduced to Melchizedek (Gen. 14:18). He represented an order of itinerant priests who knew the one true God and served Him. Abraham met Melchizedek somewhere in the Dead Sea region. Clearly, a few diverse remnants of faithful yhwh worship did still exist in Abraham’s time.
The Lord’s purpose in choosing and calling Abraham was to make him the father of a great nation that would be His witness to the world. That nation, Israel, would be formally covenanted with yhwh. Through them, the truth would be kept alive and preserved in perpetuity. Scripture says “the oracles of God” were committed to them (Rom. 3:2 nkjv). In other words, from the nation that came out of Abraham, prophets would arise. Through them the Scriptures would be given to the world. God would dwell in their midst and set His sanctuary among them. By their lineage a Deliverer, the Messiah, would arise. And in Him, all the nations of the world would be blessed (Gen. 18:18).
Sarah obviously had a key role to play in this plan. Abraham could never become the patriarch of a great nation if she did not first become mother to his offspring. She was surely aware of the Lord’s promises to Abraham. She certainly would have longed to see those promises fulfilled. As long as she remained childless, however, the sense that everything somehow hinged on her must have pressed on her like a great burden on her shoulders.

HER JOURNEY TO THE LAND OF PROMISE
Apparently, while Abraham was still a young man living in Ur, the Lord spoke to him, saying, “Get out of your country, from your family and from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you” (Gen. 12:1 nkjv).
Abraham obeyed, and Hebrews 11:8 expressly commends him for his obedience: “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going” (nkjv). But the journey was long and slow. It appears Abraham did not immediately separate from his family and his father’s house. Instead, he took his father with him. Abraham may have been somewhat reluctant at first to sever the parental apron strings.
In fact, as Scripture recounts the first leg of the move from Ur of the Chaldeans, it appears that Abraham’s father, Terah, was still acting as head of the extended family. “Terah took his son Abram and his grandson Lot, the son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, his son Abram’s wife, and they went out with them from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to the land of Canaan; and they came to Haran and dwelt there” (Gen. 11:31 nkjv). Clearly, Terah was still in charge. Scripture portrays him as the leader of the journey, with Abraham, Sarah, and Lot in tow.
But the first long leg of the journey stalled at Haran, about 650 miles northwest, roughly following the course of the Euphrates. Perhaps Terah was too old to travel anymore. We don’t know how long Abraham and Sarah remained in Haran. But they did not get moving again until Terah died, and that was evidently some time. Scripture says Terah was more than two hundred years old when he died, and Abraham was seventy-five when he finally left Haran for the promised land.
That means Sarah was now sixty-five, the exact age most people today think is ideal for retirement. Sarah was by no means a young woman, even by the standards of the patriarchal era, when people obviously lived much longer and remained agile, healthy, and vigorous well past their sixties. The life of a nomad would be hard for anyone at sixty-five. And yet there is no sign whatsoever that she was reluctant or unwilling to go with Abraham to a land neither of them had ever seen.
In fact, what we know of Sarah suggests that far from complaining, she went eagerly, gladly, and enthusiastically with Abraham. She was utterly and completely devoted to her husband. Knowing that God wanted to make him the father of a great nation, she earnestly longed to give birth to the child who would set that whole process in motion.
Leaving Haran after burying his father, Abraham still had quite a large caravan. Scripture tells us, “Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people whom they had acquired in Haran, and they departed to go to the land of Canaan. So they came to the land of Canaan” (Gen. 12:5 nkjv).
That account suggests the final leg of the journey to Canaan was direct and uninterrupted. It was some 350 miles on foot (making the total journey from Ur more than a thousand miles). With a large caravan, moving a reasonable distance of eight to ten miles in a typical day, the trip from Haran to Canaan would have required only about six or seven weeks. Abraham seems not to have stopped until he reached Bethel, a fertile area with abundant springs.
Abraham’s first act upon arrival there was the building of a stone altar. At that time, the Lord also appeared to Abraham. He expanded His original promises to Abraham, now adding that He would give all the surrounding land to Abraham’s descendants. Although Abraham and Sarah remained nomads and vagabonds for the remainder of their days, this place and its altar remained their anchor. (This was also the very same place where Abraham’s grandson Jacob would later be visited by yhwh and have that famous dream about a ladder that reached to heaven.)
But circumstances quickly forced Abraham to keep moving south. “There was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to dwell there, for the famine was severe in the land” (Gen. 12:10 nkjv). It was there, for the first time, that Abraham tried to pass Sarah off as his sister. He did this out of fear that if Pharaoh knew she was his wife, he would kill Abraham in order to have Sarah. Abraham’s great faith wavered somewhat at this point. He succumbed to the fear of men. Had he simply trusted God, God would have protected Sarah (as He did in the end anyway).
But Scripture says that before they even entered Egypt, Abraham discussed with Sarah the dangers this place posed for a man with a beautiful wife. “When the Egyptians see you … they will say, ‘This is his wife’; and they will kill me, but they will let you live,” he told her (Gen. 12:12 nkjv). And so at Abraham’s suggestion, she agreed to pose as his sister (v. 13). Abraham’s motives were selfish and cowardly, and the scheme reflected a serious weakness in his faith. But Sarah’s devotion to her husband is nonetheless commendable, and God honored her for it.
Stewards of Pharaoh saw her, pointed her out to Pharaoh, and brought her to his house. Scripture says Pharaoh showed favor to “brother” Abraham for Sarah’s sake, lavishing him with livestock, apparently in anticipation of requesting her hand in marriage (v. 16). Meanwhile, by God’s providence, Pharaoh did not violate her (v. 19). And to see that he did not, the Lord troubled Pharaoh’s house with “great plagues” (v. 17 nkjv).
Somehow Pharaoh discovered the reason for the plagues, and he confronted Abraham with the deception, expelling the patriarch and his wife from Egypt (Gen. 12:19–20). Nonetheless, Pharaoh, preoccupied with more pressing things, did no harm to either of them, and when Abraham left Egypt, Pharaoh’s favor toward Sarah had made Abraham a very wealthy man (Gen. 13:2). He and Sarah returned to Bethel, “to the place of the altar which he had made there at first. And there Abram called on the name of the Lord” (13:4 nkjv).
Henceforth, the Lord himself would be their dwelling place. Together, they “dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents … [while they] waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God” (Heb. 11:9–10 nkjv). That is as good a summary as any of the earthly life Sarah inherited when she stepped out in faith to follow her husband: earthly inconvenience, mitigated by the promise of eternal blessing.

HER YEARNING FOR THE PROMISED BLESSING
Remember, Abraham and Sarah both came from an urban environment. They were not, as is commonly supposed, lifetime nomads or Bedouins who simply wandered all their lives because that is all they knew. Bear in mind that they did not start wandering until Abraham was already in his mid-seventies and Sarah was only a decade behind that. Life on the road was not something Sarah was accustomed to; it was something she had to learn to embrace.
What energized Sarah’s willingness to leave all familiar surroundings, sever ties with her family, and commit to a life of rootless wandering?
Notice the nature of the vast promise God had made to Abraham: “I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen. 12:2–3 nkjv). That is the first recorded hint of the Abrahamic Covenant, a formal pledge God made to Abraham and to his offspring forever. God’s promise was unconditional and literally unlimited in the scope of its blessings. God would bless Abraham, make him a blessing, and make him a vehicle through which blessing would come to the whole world (Gal. 3:9–14). The promised blessing even had eternal implications.
In other words, redemption from sin and the means of salvation from divine judgment were part and parcel of the promise (Gal. 3:8, 16–17). Sarah understood that promise. According to Scripture, she believed it.
We know without question, from a New Testament perspective, that God’s covenant with Abraham was an affirmation of the very same messianic promise God had already made to Eve in the garden when He declared that her seed would crush the head of the serpent. Just as Christ was the Seed of the woman who overthrows the serpent, He is also the Seed of Abraham by whom all the world will be blessed. Paul wrote, “Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, ‘And to seeds,’ as of many, but as of one, ‘And to your Seed,’ who is Christ” (Gal. 3:16 nkjv). This same promise is the central theme that extends all through Scripture, from Genesis 3 to its final fulfillment in the closing chapters of Revelation.
Abraham was the human channel through which the world would see the outpouring of God’s redemptive plan. He understood that. Sarah understood and also embraced it. “She judged Him faithful who had promised” (Heb. 11:11 nkjv).
But despite her faith, she knew from a human perspective that her long years of childlessness already loomed large as a threat to the fulfillment of God’s pledge. Sarah must have constantly pondered these things, and as time went by, the weight of her burden only increased.
Yet God kept giving her reasons to hope. In Genesis 15:7–21, yhwh restated and expanded His promise to Abraham, then formally ratified the covenant. It is significant that verse 12 says a deep sleep fell on Abraham; then the Lord single-handedly carried out the covenant ceremony. (Incidentally, the Hebrew word used in verse 12 is the same word describing the “deep sleep” that Adam fell into when the Lord took his rib to make Eve.) This detail about Abraham’s sleep is given to stress the convenant was completely unconditional. The covenant was a unilateral promise from God to Abraham about what He, yhwh, would do. It made no demands of Abraham or Sarah whatsoever. It was a completely one-sided covenant.
If Sarah had simply realized that truth and embraced it, her whole burden would have been instantly lifted.

HER FOOLISHNESS IN THE MATTER OF HAGAR
Instead, Sarah took it upon herself to hatch a scheme that was so ill-advised and so completely fleshly that she regretted it for the rest of her days. As a matter of fact, the evil consequences of that one act had unbelievably far-reaching implications. Frankly, some of the tensions we see in the Middle East today are rooted in Sarah’s foolhardy ploy to try to concoct a man-made solution to her dilemma.
To be fair, from a purely human viewpoint, we can understand Sarah’s despair. Ten more fruitless years passed after Abraham and Sarah arrived in Canaan (Gen. 16:3 nkjv). Sarah was now seventy-five years old, post-menopausal, and still childless. If God planned to make her the mother of Abraham’s heir, why had He not done so by now? It was natural for her to think God was deliberately withholding children from her. As a matter of fact, He was. When His time came for the promise to be fulfilled, no one would be able to deny that this was indeed God’s doing. His plan all along was for Sarah to have her first child in her old age, after every prospect of a natural fulfillment of the prophecy was exhausted and after every earthly reason for hope was completely dead. Thus yhwh would put His power on display.
But as she considered her circumstances, Sarah concluded that a kind of surrogate parenting was the only possible solution to her predicament. If God’s promise to Abraham were ever going to be fulfilled, Abraham had to father children by some means. Sarah thus took it upon herself to try to engineer a fulfillment of the divine promise to Abraham. She unwittingly stepped into the role of God.
Sarah had a maidservant, named Hagar, whom she had acquired during their time in Egypt. Sarah apparently reasoned that since she owned Hagar, if Abraham fathered a child by Hagar, it would in effect be Sarah’s child. “So Sarai said to Abram, ‘See now, the Lord has restrained me from bearing children. Please, go in to my maid; perhaps I shall obtain children by her.’ And Abram heeded the voice of Sarai” (16:2 nkjv).
This was the first recorded case of polygamy in Scripture involving a righteous man. The very first bigamist on biblical record was Lamech (Gen. 4:19). He was an evil descendant of Cain. (He is not to be confused with another Lamech, described in Genesis 5:25–29, who was Noah’s father and who descended from the line of Seth.)
Abraham took a concubine, at his wife’s urging. “Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar her maid, the Egyptian, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife” (Gen. 16:3 nkjv). This was a sorry precedent for the patriarch of the nation to set. In generations to come, Jacob would be duped by his uncle into marrying both Leah and Rachel (29:23–31); David would take concubines (2 Sam. 5:13); and Solomon would carry polygamy to an almost unbelievable extreme, maintaining a harem of more than a thousand women (1 Kings 11:1–3).
But God’s design for marriage was monogamy from the beginning. “A man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh” (Matt. 19:4–5 nkjv, emphasis added). Paul likewise made clear what God’s ideal for marriage is: “Let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband” (1 Cor. 7:2 nkjv, emphasis added). Disobedience to that standard has always resulted in evil consequences. David’s polygamous heart led to his sin with Bathsheba. Solomon’s marital philandering destroyed him and divided his kingdom (1 Kings 11:4). No good has ever come from any violation of the “one-flesh” principle of monogamy. Abraham’s union with Hagar is certainly no exception.
As soon as Hagar conceived, Sarah knew it was a grave mistake. Hagar suddenly became haughty and contentious toward Sarah: “When she [Hagar] saw that she had conceived, her mistress [Sarah] became despised in her eyes” (Gen. 16:4 nkjv).
Here, then, is the first outburst of temper we see from Sarah: “Sarai said to Abram, ‘My wrong be upon you! I gave my maid into your embrace; and when she saw that she had conceived, I became despised in her eyes. The Lord judge between you and me’ ” (Gen. 16:5 nkjv).
It is true that Sarah was being unreasonable. This whole sordid plan was, after all, her big idea. Yes, as the spiritual head of the household, Abraham should have rejected Sarah’s plan out of hand—but it’s still not quite fair to pin all the guilt on him. On the other hand, this fit of Sarah’s was deliberately provoked by Hagar. Her insolent treatment of Sarah was utterly indefensible. No doubt, Hagar knew all too well about Sarah’s extreme grief over her own barrenness. Now she was deliberately putting salt in Sarah’s wound. Since Hagar was the servant and Sarah the one in charge, this was the most brazen kind of deliberate impudence.
A section of the book of Proverbs deals with precisely this situation:
Under three things the earth quakes,
And under four, it cannot bear up:
Under a slave when he becomes king,
And a fool when he is satisfied with food,
Under an unloved woman when she gets a husband,
And a maidservant when she supplants her mistress. (Prov. 30:21–23 nasb)
The truth, however, is that every party in this whole affair was guilty, and all of them ended up reaping bitter fruit from what they had sown.
Abraham recognized the legitimacy of Sarah’s complaint. He might have been wise to step in as an arbitrator and seek a solution that would have been fair to both women. But given Sarah’s disposition at that moment, he did what most husbands would probably do and simply let Sarah deal with Hagar her own way. “Abram said to Sarai, ‘Indeed your maid is in your hand; do to her as you please.’ And when Sarai dealt harshly with her, she fled from her presence” (Gen. 16:6 nkjv).
To understand Sarah’s extreme frustration, let’s follow Hagar for a moment. Notice first that although Sarah dealt harshly with her maid-servant, the Lord showed extreme grace to Hagar. The Angel of the Lord sought her out. In all likelihood, this was no created angel, but a visible manifestation of yhwh himself in angelic or human form. (I’m inclined to think that this Angel was actually the preincarnate Son of God. We meet the same Angel several times in the Old Testament, including Genesis 22:11–18; Exodus 3:2–5; and 1 Kings 19:5–7). Notice that He spoke to Hagar in the first person as yhwh, not in the third person, as an angelic messenger speaking on yhwh’s behalf would do.
His words to Hagar were gentle and full of mercy. He first approached her by asking where she had come from and where she was going. He addressed her directly as “Hagar, Sarai’s maid,” however, both to make clear that he knew exactly who she was and to remind her of her duty. Then, to make this explicit, when Hagar answered truthfully, the Angel said, “Return to your mistress, and submit yourself under her hand” (Gen. 16:9 nkjv). As a legally indentured servant, she had no right to run away, and she needed to go back and be humbly obedient.
The Angel then made an amazing, completely unsolicited promise to Hagar: “I will multiply your descendants exceedingly, so that they shall not be counted for multitude” (Gen. 16:10 nkjv). Prophetically, he described her unborn son for her, saying she would call him Ishmael and that he would be wild, yet dwell in the presence of his brethren (16:12).
She, in return, acknowledged Him by a unique name: “El-Roi,” or “the God who sees,” a reference to the omniscient eye that followed her and sought her out even when she tried to hide (16:13 nkjv).
Consider this, however: Sarah had never received such a promise from God. Sarah’s faith resided in promises God had made to Abraham. Up to this point, Sarah had never explicitly been named in the covenant God made with Abraham. God had already confirmed His promise to Abraham on no less than three major occasions. He first told Abraham he would be the father of a great nation (12:3). He then promised to make Abraham’s seed as the dust of the earth—“so that if a man could number the dust of the earth, then your descendants also could be numbered” (13:16 nkjv). When Abraham later reminded the Lord that he still lacked a legitimate heir, God promised once again that Abraham’s seed would be like the stars of the sky in number (15:1–6).
On none of those occasions had God ever expressly stated that Sarah would be matriarch to the nation in question. That was her hope and expectation. But what the episode with Hagar shows is that Sarah’s hope was beginning to wane. She was slowly losing heart.

HER PERSEVERANCE THROUGH YEARS OF SILENCE
When Ishmael was born to Hagar, Scripture says Abraham was eighty-six years old (Gen. 16:16). Thirteen more frustrating years passed for Sarah after that. She remained barren. By that time she was eighty-nine years old. She had lived in Canaan for twenty-four years. Her husband was about to have his hundredth birthday. If her hope was not utterly shattered, it must have hung by a very thin thread.
Here’s where the greatness of Sarah’s faith shines through. She had harbored hope for so long. Year after year had come and gone. She was now an old woman, and no matter how often she and Abraham tried to conceive, the promise was still unfulfilled. Most women would have given up long before this. A lesser woman might have despaired of ever seeing yhwh’s promise fulfilled and turned to paganism instead. But we are reminded again that Sarah “judged Him faithful who had promised” (Heb. 11:11 nkjv). This is what made her so extraordinary.
Finally, when Abraham was ninety-nine, the Lord appeared to him again and once more renewed the covenant. This was an especially important restatement of the covenant. The passage is long, and there’s not enough space here to cover it in detail, but the Lord once again reiterated and expanded the vital promises he had made to Abraham. Every time the promises came, they got bigger: “My covenant is with you, and you shall be a father of many nations” (Gen. 17:4 nkjv). Not just “a great nation”; not merely descendants as numerous as the stars or the dust; but “many nations.” To this aged man who had managed to father only one son (and that by less than honorable means), God said, “I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you” (17:6 nkjv).
It was also at this point that God gave Abraham his name, changing it from his birth name, Abram (17:5 nkjv). Abram means “exalted father”; Abraham means “father of many nations.”
The Lord also formally extended the Abrahamic Covenant across the generations, making the whole land of Canaan “an everlasting possession” for Abraham’s offspring forever (17:7–8 nkjv). Finally, God gave Abraham the sign of circumcision, with instructions for how it was to be administered (17:10–14). Circumcision became the sign and the formal seal of the covenant. Everything germane to the covenant was now in place.
Significantly, at the beginning of the chapter, yhwh revealed Himself to Abraham with a new name: “Almighty God,” El Shaddai in Hebrew (17:1 nkjv). The name deliberately highlighted God’s omnipotence. After hearing these promises so many times, Abraham might have been wondering whether he would ever see the son who embodied the fulfillment of the promises. The name was a subtle reminder to Abraham that nothing was too hard for God.
Having said all that, the Lord then turned the subject to Sarah. For the first time on record, He specifically brought Sarah by name into the covenant promises: “Then God said to Abraham, ‘As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai [“my princess”], but Sarah [“Princess”] shall be her name. And I will bless her and also give you a son by her; then I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of peoples shall be from her’ ” (17:15–16 nkjv). By removing the possessive pronoun (“my”), the Lord was taking away the limiting aspect of her name, since she was to be ancestor to many nations.
There’s no indication that Sarah was present to hear this; the context suggests that she was not. We can be certain she heard about it from Abraham at the first opportunity. Notice his reaction: “Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said in his heart, ‘Shall a child be born to a man who is one hundred years old? And shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?’ ” (17:17 nkjv). There was probably as much relief and gladness in the laughter as there was incredulity. Surely we can understand Abraham’s amazement, perhaps even tinged with a measure of uncertainty. But don’t mistake it for unbelief. In Romans 4:20–21, the apostle Paul, speaking of this very moment, says Abraham “did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, and [was] fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform” (nkjv).
Abraham also pleaded with God not to overlook Ishmael, at this point thirteen-years-old and no doubt beloved by his father: “Abraham said to God, ‘Oh, that Ishmael might live before You!’ ” (Gen. 17:18 nkjv).
The Lord immediately reiterated the promise regarding Sarah: “No, Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac; I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his descendants after him” (v. 19 nkjv). Sarah’s son, not Hagar’s, would be the child in whom the covenant promises would find their fulfillment (Gal. 4:22–28).
The Lord had one thing left to say: “And as for Ishmael, I have heard you. Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly. He shall beget twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation. But My covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this set time next year” (Gen. 17:20–21 nkjv). For the first time, here was a promise, with a fixed date, assuring Sarah of her place in the covenant. With that, the interview was over, and Scripture says simply that He “went up from Abraham” (v. 22 nkjv).
Abraham must have immediately found Sarah and reported to her all that the Lord said. Whatever her reaction, she certainly understood that Abraham believed the promise, because he immediately was circumcised, and he had every male in his household circumcised as well, whether they had been “born in the house or bought with money from a foreigner” (vv. 23–27 nkjv).

HER JOY IN THE FULFILLMENT OF THE PROMISE
The next time the Lord appeared to Abraham, one of His express purposes was to renew the promise for Sarah’s sake so that she could hear it with her own ears. Genesis 18 describes how the Lord visited Abraham with two angels. Abraham saw them far off, and (perhaps even before he realized who they were) immediately had Sarah begin preparation of a meal for them. He promised them “a little water … [and] a morsel of bread,” but he actually had a calf slain and gave them a feast (Gen. 18:4–8 nkjv). Sarah’s willingness to entertain guests so elaborately on such short notice is one of the marks of her submission to Abraham mentioned by the apostle Peter when he held Sarah up as a model for wives. Peter wrote, “In this manner, in former times, the holy women who trusted in God also adorned themselves, being submissive to their own husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord” (1 Peter 3:5–6 nkjv). This was the very instance Peter had in mind. In fact, while Sarah is always portrayed as submissive to Abraham, Genesis 18:12 is the only place in the Old Testament record where she referred to him as “my lord” (nkjv).
While they were eating, the men asked, “Where is Sarah your wife?” (Gen. 18:9 nkjv).
“Here, in the tent,” Abraham replied, establishing that he knew she was within earshot. Scripture describes the details of the conversation that followed:
And He said, “I will certainly return to you according to the time of life, and behold, Sarah your wife shall have a son.” (Sarah was listening in the tent door which was behind him.)
Now Abraham and Sarah were old, well advanced in age; and Sarah had passed the age of childbearing. Therefore Sarah laughed within herself, saying, “After I have grown old, shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?”
And the Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh, saying, ‘Shall I surely bear a child, since I am old?’ Is anything too hard for the Lord? At the appointed time I will return to you, according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son.”
But Sarah denied it, saying, “I did not laugh,” for she was afraid. And He said, “No, but you did laugh!” (Gen. 18:10–15 nkjv)
Sarah’s laughter (just like Abraham’s earlier) seems to have been an exclamation of joy and amazement rather than doubt. Yet when the Lord asked, “Why did Sarah laugh?” she denied it. That denial was motivated by fear. She was afraid because she had not laughed aloud, but “within herself.” As soon as she realized this stranger had such a sure and thorough knowledge of her heart, she knew instantly and definitively that it was the Lord.
The year that followed was a difficult and busy year for Abraham and Sarah. That was the year God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 18:16–19:29). And during that same year, Abraham journeyed south again, this time into the land ruled by Abimelech, king of Gerar. Sarah, though now ninety, was still beautiful enough to stir the passions of a king. What had happened in Egypt twenty-five years earlier was replayed once more. Abraham again tried to pass Sarah off as his sister, and Abimelech, smitten with her beauty, began to pursue her. But God spared Sarah, by warning Abimelech in a dream that she was Abraham’s wife (Gen. 20:3). Scripture underscores the fact that Abimelech was not permitted by God to touch her (20:6), lest there be any question about whose child she would soon bear.
Abimelech, having been frightened when yhwh appeared to him in the dream, was gracious to Abraham and Sarah. He lavished gifts on Abraham and said, “See, my land is before you; dwell where it pleases you” (20:15 nkjv). To Sarah he said, “Behold, I have given your brother a thousand pieces of silver; behold, it is your vindication before all who are with you, and before all men you are cleared” (20:16 nasb).
Immediately after that incident, according to Scripture, “The Lord visited Sarah as He had said, and the Lord did for Sarah as He had spoken. For Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God had spoken to him” (21:1–2 nkjv). Sarah named him Isaac, meaning “laughter.” And Sarah said, “God has made me laugh, and all who hear will laugh with me” (21:6 nkjv). Thus she confessed the laugh she had previously tried to deny.
We’re given a fascinating insight into Sarah’s real character by the fact that she saw genuine humor in the way God had dealt with her. “Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? For I have borne him a son in his old age” (v. 7 nkjv). Despite her occasional bursts of temper and struggles with discouragement, Sarah remained an essentially good-humored woman. After those long years of bitter frustration, she could still appreciate the irony and relish the comedy of becoming a mother at such an old age. Her life’s ambition was now realized, and the memory of years of bitter disappointment quickly disappeared from view. God had indeed been faithful.

HER HARSHNESS IN HER TREATMENT OF ISHMAEL
Sarah plays a major role in only one more episode recounted by Scripture. Isaac was finally weaned—and from what we know of the culture, he would therefore have been a young toddler, probably two- or three-years-old. Scripture says, “Abraham made a great feast on the same day that Isaac was weaned” (21:8 nkjv). It was a time for celebration. But something happened that was the final straw for Sarah in her long struggle to accept Hagar as her husband’s concubine. She saw Ishmael making fun of Isaac (v. 9). Scripture doesn’t say why Ishmael was mocking. It was probably for some silly, childish reason. As any parent will attest, such behavior is by no means out of the ordinary for a child Ishmael’s age. He was probably no older than fourteen at this point, just emerging from childhood into young manhood—old enough to be responsible for his behavior, but not old enough to be wise.
But it was too much for Sarah to endure. She immediately said, “Cast out this bondwoman and her son; for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, namely with Isaac” (v. 10 nkjv).
For Abraham, all the joy instantly went out of the celebration. Ishmael was, after all, his firstborn son. He genuinely loved him. Remember Abraham’s earlier plea to God, “Oh, that Ishmael might live before You!” (Gen. 17:18 nkjv).
Was Sarah really being overly harsh? In truth, she was not. Virtually any woman forced to share her husband with a concubine would respond to a situation like this exactly as Sarah did. She was Abraham’s true wife. Hagar was an interloper. Besides, according to the promise of God Himself, Isaac was Abraham’s true heir, promised by God to be the one through whom the covenant blessing would eventually see fulfillment. It confused things beyond measure for Ishmael to be in a position to claim the right of the firstborn over the one true heir appointed by God to succeed Abraham. Ishmael was a threat to God’s purpose for Abraham’s line as long as he remained in any position to claim that he, rather than Isaac, was Abraham’s rightful heir.
So what may appear at first glance to be an extreme overreaction was actually another proof of Sarah’s great faith in God’s promise. God Himself affirmed the wisdom of her demand: “God said to Abraham, ‘Do not let it be displeasing in your sight because of the lad or because of your bondwoman. Whatever Sarah has said to you, listen to her voice; for in Isaac your seed shall be called’ ” (21:12 nkjv).
Ishmael was by no means totally abandoned. The Lord promised to make a great nation of Ishmael too—“because he is your seed” (v. 13 nkjv). yhwh subsequently appeared to Ishmael and Hagar in their extremity and promised to meet all their needs (vv. 14–21). Furthermore, some kind of family tie was continually maintained between the lines of Ishmael and Isaac, because when Abraham died, both sons working together buried their father alongside Sarah (25:9–10).
The apostle Paul uses the expulsion of Hagar as an illustration of the conflict between law and grace. He calls it “an allegory” (Gal. 4:24 kjv), but we’re not to think he is denying the historical facts of the Genesis account. Instead he is treating it as typology—or better yet, a living object lesson. Hagar, the bondwoman, represents the slavery of legalism (the bondage of trying to earn favor with God through works). Sarah, the faithful wife, represents the perfect liberty of grace. Paul was reminding the Galatian believers that “we, brethren, as Isaac was, are children of promise” (v. 28 nkjv)—saved by grace, not vainly hoping to be saved by works. “But, as he who was born according to the flesh then persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, even so it is now” (v. 29 nkjv). Just as Ishmael taunted Isaac, so the false teachers in Galatia were persecuting true believers. Paul’s conclusion? “Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman” (v. 30 nkjv). Harsh as it may have seemed, there was a very crucial, necessary, and positive spiritual principle in the expulsion of Hagar and Ishmael. This symbolized the important truth that the kind of religion that is dependent on human effort (symbolized by the carnal scheme that conceived Ishmael as an artificial fulfillment of God’s promise) is utterly incompatible with divine grace (symbolized by Isaac, the true heir of God’s promise). And the two are so hostile to one another that they cannot even abide in close proximity.

HER HAPPINESS IN HER WANING YEARS
After Hagar was cast out, Sarah returned to a healthy, monogamous life with her beloved husband and their child, Isaac, who was a perpetual reminder to both Sarah and Abraham of God’s staunch faithfulness. As far as we know, the rest of her years were lived out in joy and peace.
Sarah doesn’t even appear in the biblical account of Abraham’s near sacrifice of Isaac. That whole event was uniquely meant as a test of Abraham’s faith. Sarah seems to have been kept completely isolated from it until it was over. It occurred in the land of Moriah (Gen. 22:2). (In later generations, the city of Jerusalem surrounded the area known as Moriah, and Mount Moriah, at the heart of the city, was the precise spot where the Temple was situated, according to 2 Chronicles 3:1). Moriah was some forty-five miles from Beersheba, where Abraham was then residing (Gen. 21:33–34). In any event, Sarah’s faith had already been well tested. She had long since demonstrated her absolute trust in God’s promises. And the stamp of God’s approval on her is contained in those New Testament passages that recognize her for her steadfast faithfulness.
In fact, in the very same way the New Testament portrays Abraham as the spiritual father of all who believe (Rom. 4:9–11; Gal. 3:7), Sarah is pictured as the spiritual matriarch and the ancient epitome of all faithful women (1 Peter 3:6). Far from isolating those memorable instances where Sarah behaved badly, it commemorates her as the very epitome of a woman adorned with “the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit” (1 Peter 3:4 nkjv).
That is a fitting epitaph for this truly extraordinary woman.
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