I thought I'd deliver another fun fact I came across in my Bible studies, and this one is kind of fun.
Christians who are familiar with the Bible know of various beauties talked about in the texts. Bathsheba is probably the one most noted for her beauty, as it caused Israel's most popular King to act like a fool. Rebekah and Rachel are described as being lookers as well.
But the most beautiful woman in the Bible is one that's always depicted as being a wrinkly old grandma figure, when in fact, she was so beautiful that her husband literally feared for his life.
That woman is Sarai, the wife of Abram... or Sarah as God renamed her.
Abram (who would later become Abraham) and Sarai were definitely an elderly couple by today's standards, but given the life spans of people both before and just after the flood, it's likely their status as people in their 60s and 70s would've been something akin to their 20s and 30s today. As you read about the adventures of Abram and Sarai, you get the impression that this isn't two elderly people walking the land.
That said, Sarai's womb was "dead," according to the Bible, further giving Bible illustrators (especially Sunday School children's illustrators) the image of a grandmother. However, we know that a woman is born with a set number of eggs, and no matter how long she lives, she cannot make more. So Sarai was definitely well past her fertile years despite likely still looking rather youthful.
To understand how beautiful she is, we have to go to Genesis 12:10-16 (ESV). A famine had hit the land, so Abram and Sarai made the journey to Egypt. Before they entered, Abram and Sarai had a little chat:
When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sarai his wife, “I know that you are a woman beautiful in appearance, and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me, but they will let you live. Say you are my sister, that it may go well with me because of you, and that my life may be spared for your sake.”
Sure enough, when they got into Egypt, word quickly spread that this absolute ten just walked into town, and soon, she even got Pharaoh's attention:
When Abram entered Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful. And when the princes of Pharaoh saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh. And the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house.
The Pharaoh of Egypt took Sarai and, for what seems like a bride price, loaded Abram up with so many gifts that he went from a man suffering from a famine to one living like a lord.
Of course, God didn't let that fly. Abram and Sarai were too important to the plot. So, God struck Pharaoh and his house with plagues. When Pharaoh figured out Sarai was actually Abram's wife, he called him in, railed at him for lying about who she was to him, then cast him out of Egypt with everything he had to appease God and make the plagues stop.
Now, Abram and Sarai had cattle, riches, servants, and a lot more, and it's all thanks to the fact that Pharaoh's lust for Sarai caused him to act without thinking.
But it doesn't stop there.
Genesis 20 sees the story repeat itself, this time in the kingdom of Gerar. The duo, now going by Abraham and Sarah, arrive in the kingdom of Gerar, where, once again, word gets around that a woman of unparalleled beauty showed up, and once again, the two identify themselves as brother and sister, not husband and wife for Abraham's safety. Gerar's king, Abimelech, sent for Sarah and made her his wife.
And once again, God didn't take that lightly.
As Genesis 20:3-7 notes, God comes to Abimelech in a dream and puts the literal fear of God into him:
But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night and said to him, “Behold, you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is a man's wife.” Now Abimelech had not approached her. So he said, “Lord, will you kill an innocent people? Did he not himself say to me, ‘She is my sister’? And she herself said, ‘He is my brother.’ In the integrity of my heart and the innocence of my hands I have done this.” Then God said to him in the dream, “Yes, I know that you have done this in the integrity of your heart, and it was I who kept you from sinning against me. Therefore I did not let you touch her. Now then, return the man's wife, for he is a prophet, so that he will pray for you, and you shall live. But if you do not return her, know that you shall surely die, you and all who are yours.”
The fact that God had to add that threat at the end leads me to believe that Sarah was so beautiful that God actually had to reiterate He WILL kill everyone just so Abimelech isn't tempted to disobey thanks to her beauty.
Just as before, Abimelech confronts Abraham, but instead of handing him everything and kicking him out, Abimelech gives Sarah back, gives him gifts, but then offers him to stay wherever he wished within his kingdom. Upon being asked why he lied, Abraham makes it clear that he actually didn't. They actually are brother and sister, but by half, having the same father but different mothers.
To make it clear Sarah was still pure, Abimelech gave Abraham 1,000 pieces of silver to represent her status as innocent. Then Abraham prayed to God on Abimilech's behalf, and the kingdom began having a baby boom.
So, as you can see, Sarai/Sarah was so incredibly beautiful that it almost destroyed two different kingdoms, put her husband's life in danger, and, funnily, made them very wealthy.
All the depictions of her as a grandmother with wrinkles and white hair were wrong.
