Synonyms in the Hebrew Language
In Part 1 of this essay we explored the two more common names for Abraham's wife, Sarai and Sarah, and the interplay between them. In this installment, we examine a third name associated with her — Iscah — and will explore how that particular name of hers fits into the story.
When the Torah introduces us to the Abraham and his family, it discusses Abraham and his brother Nahor getting married. The full verse reads: "And Abram and Nahor married wives, the name of Abram's wife is Sarai, and the name of Nahor's wife is Milcah, daughter of Haran, who was the father of Milcah and Iscah [Yiscah in Hebrew]" (Gen. 11:29). This difficult-to-read passage introduces us to a character named Iscah, who is never again mentioned in the Bible. An ancient tradition preserved in rabbinic sources (Seder Olam Rabbah ch. 2, Megillah 14a, Sanhedrin 69b, and Targum pseudo-Jonathan to Gen. 11:29) and by Josephus (Antiquities of the Jews, Book I, Ch. 6) maintains that Iscah is none other than Sarai/Sarah!
Rabbeinu Nissim offers proof to the assertion that Iscah is the same person as Sarai/Sarah from the fact that the Torah provides the paternity of Nahor’s wife Milcah, yet does not mention the paternity of Abraham’s wife Sarai. Given that the Torah delineates the father of one brother’s wife (Nahor’s), we would have expected it to mention the father of the other brother’s wife as well (Abram’s). This difficulty can be resolved if we assume that Sarai is indeed Iscah, since the Torah states that Haran was the father of Iscah, which gives us Iscah/Sarai’s parentage.
On a more esoteric level, Baal HaTurim, Peirush HaRokeach, and Rabbeinu Efrayim bar Shimshon (to Gen. 11:29) explain that the identification of Sarah as Iscah is alluded to in the very name Sarah: under the At-Bash cipher, the name Sarah becomes Bagatz, and the gematria of Bagatz equals that of Iscah (=95).
Nonetheless, it should be noted that Ibn Ezra and Shadal (to Gen. 11:29) express skepticism regarding the identification of Iscah with Sarai.
The Talmud (Megillah 14a, Sanhedrin 69b) offers two ways of explaining why Sarai/Sarah was called Iscah: the first is that she had the ability to “gaze” (sachta) with the prophetic Holy Spirit, and the second is that all people “gazed” (sachin) upon her beauty. Both of these explanations are seemingly based on connecting Iscah to the root SAMECH-KAF-(HEY), which refers to “seeing/looking/staring/gazing” in Rabbinic Hebrew. Examples of words derived from that root appear in HaBachur’s Meturgaman, as he lists declensions of this root being used by the Targumim as translations for various Hebrew terms related to “seeing” like habatah, hashkafah, tzofeh, shur, and hover.
Indeed, Dr. Alexander Kohut (in HeAruch HaShaleim) connects this root SAMECH-KAF-(HEY) to the Talmud’s exegesis on the name Iscah. He also theorizes that perhaps this root is of an Indo-European etymology, related to the German schauen (“look”) and the Sanskrit sku (and the English see).
Rabbi Avraham Abba Herczl (in Sifsei Chachamim to Megillah 14a) also seems to follow this explanation of the Talmud, although he understood that the Talmud connects the name Iscah to the root SAMECH-KAF-LAMMED (from whence the histakel, “looking/staring” derives). But then, Rabbi Herczl suggests that perhaps the Talmud meant to connect Iscah with sukkah (“hut/covering/canopy”) to stress Sarai/Sarah's extreme modesty in hiding ("covering") her prophetic levels without showing off. He also explains that perhaps the Talmud's second explanation of Iscah means that everybody "talked about" (sichah, with a CHET) Sarai/Sarah's superlative beauty, rather than they “gazed” upon it.
*To access the full version of this essay and other essays by Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein in this series, please visit us online at: https://ohr.edu/this_week/whats_in_a_word/
