section_path: The Abraham cycle in the Bible/Sarah
section_name: Sarah
paragraph_text: Sarah
  
  Thirteen years later, when Abram was 99 years of age, God declared Abram's new name: "Abraham" – "a father of many nations". Abraham then received the instructions for the covenant of the pieces, of which circumcision was to be the sign.
  
  God declared Sarai's new name: " Sarah ", blessed her, and told Abraham, "I will give thee a son also of her". Abraham laughed, and "said in his heart, 'Shall a child be born unto him that is a hundred years old? and shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear ?'" Immediately after Abraham's encounter with God, he had his entire household of men, including himself (age 99) and Ishmael (age 13), circumcised.