🔼The name Sarai: Summary
- Meaning
- My Princess, My Senate
- Etymology
- From the noun שרה (sara), ruling body, from the verb שרר (sharar), to retain liquidity.
🔼The name Sarai in the Bible
Sarai is the original name of Sarah, the wife and half-sister of Abraham (same father, namely Terah: Genesis 20:12). Before the conception of Isaac, Sarah was called Sarai. Possibly, the name-change indicates a step from local to global, or specific to general.
Read about the Hebrews' powerful invention of the vowel notation — which made the writing of names such as Sarah and Sarai possible — in our article on Yahweh, the Name of the Lord.
🔼Etymology of the name Sarai
The name Sarai comes from the same word as the name Sarah, which means princess or perhaps senate:
שרר
Root שרר (sharar) has to do with rigidity resulting from the absorption and retention of liquids (called turgor in plants), liquidity in economy, or data in IT and so on — and the ultimate effects thereof. The promise of Jesus', that streams of living water would emerge from within (John 7:38), tells of a curing of social lymphedema, when pools of stagnant wealth (whether fat, cash or data) are re-released into society to benefit all (for more on this, see our article on the noun δουλος, doulos).
Noun שר (sar) means chief or ruler (someone in whom a society's wealth is concentrated). Its feminine form, שרה (sara), denotes a princess, noble lady or perhaps a ruling class collectively. The denominative verb שרר (sarar) means to be a chief.
Noun שרירות (sherirut) describes firmness in a negative sense: stubbornness. Noun שר (shor) refers to the umbilical cord and noun שרה (shera) to a bracelet of some sort. Noun שריר (sharir) apparently denotes a sinew or muscle.
Mystery verb שרה (sara) is used only to describe what Jacob did with the Angel (Genesis 32:29 and Hosea 12:4). It's traditionally been translated as "to wrestle," but it obviously metaphorizes Israel's formation into a political unity based on the retention of knowledge and skills. Derived noun משרה (misra) literally means "place or agent of שרה (sara)." It occurs only in the famous prediction that "the misra will be upon his shoulders" (Isaiah 9:6).
Verb שרה (shara) means to fill and release. Noun משרה (mishra) denotes the juice of grapes. Noun שריה (shirya) denotes a kind of weapon and noun שריון (shiryon) or שרין (shiryan) describes body armor — the link between physical, political and intellectual rigidity is obvious (see Ephesians 6:14).
The final letter י (yod) of the name Sarai gives the noun a possessive form, and would mean My Princess. The Bible is very obviously also an excursion into various governmental structures — culminating in the Christ, upon whose shoulders will rest the government (Isaiah 9:6), after he has abolished all rule and all authority and power (1 Corinthians 15:24), and hence has created the perfect Republic (a.k.a. the Hebrew Republic, and read the excellent study by Eric Nelson for more on that: The Hebrew Republic, 2010, Harvard Press).
During the scene in which Abram and Sarai end up in Egypt, Abram insists that Sarai is his sister (that's a blood relation) rather than his wife (back then, that would be a property-right relation), which is clearly also something that the Song of Solomon is concerned with (Song of Solomon 4:9-5:1), and much later Jesus too (John 15:15 and see Galatians 3:7). Ultimately, it describes the proper relationship between government (that's the male side) and society (that's the female side), which is not to be like some overbearing man managing his own rightful property, but rather "bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh" and so very united that the two are "one flesh" (Genesis 2:23-24, and compare Deuteronomy 6:4 with 2 Peter 1:4, Ephesians 4:1-6 and John 17:21-23). The Pharaoh sees in Sarai something that he wants, which is precisely also what happened when Paris of Troy saw Helen of Sparta, and although modern Romance has explained all these goings on according to the implied physical hotness of both Sarai and Helen, back then, a woman's physical beauty wouldn't launch a single ship since there were much more important things to pursue (such as wealth, security, health, power, national and international peace).
Egypt at the time was organized like European states up to the formation of modern republics (from the 16th century onward), namely with the Pharaoh as divine and totalitarian head of state, but supported by a network of local "barons", who all ran their local farms and markets semi-independently and at due time forked over to the Pharaoh their dues and honors. The Hebrew term for this Egyptian barony is שרי פרעה (sare pharaoh), which occurs in Genesis 12:15. The first part of this term, namely שרי (sare) is a construct form of the regular plural שרים (sarim). This construct form is spelled identical to the name Sarai. So yes, the barony saw in Abram's Republic a much more attractive deal. What Pharaoh had to discover was that such a Republic cannot simply be heisted but must naturally form and mature side-by-side like two children in an even greater Father's household. Said otherwise, Jesus cannot be your Christ if he wasn't your brother first.
🔼Sarai meaning
For a meaning of the name Sarai, NOBSE Study Bible Name List groups it without further comment with Sarah and seems to translate both names with Princess. Jones' Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names discusses the name Sarai under the article on Sarah, but translates Sarai with My Princess. BDB Theological Dictionary doesn't translate but does connect Sarai and Sarah to the noun שׂרה meaning princess.