On the “periods” in Genesis 18:11

וְאַבְרָהָ֤ם וְשָׂרָה֙ זְקֵנִ֔ים בָּאִ֖ים בַּיָּמִ֑ים חָדַל֙ לִהְי֣וֹת לְשָׂרָ֔ה אֹ֖רַח כַּנָּשִֽׁים׃

Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in years; Sarah had stopped having her periods.

(The above rendering—and footnote—come from the RJPS translation, an adaptation of the NJPS translation. Before accounting for the alternative rendering in the footnote, I will analyze the plain sense of the Hebrew text.)


Prof. Carol Meyers (pers. comm.), like the 12th-century commentator Kimhi/Radak, considers the Hebrew expression to be euphemistic, literally “the way of women.”


As for rendering into English, the NJPS ‘the periods of women’ is unduly awkward and redundant. As Meyers ask rhetorically (pers. comm.), “Who else would have periods?”

In English, the expression [having] her period is a polite and idiomatic way of mentioning menstruation, corresponding to the euphemistic Hebrew. Moreover, the possessive pronoun her better conveys another aspect of the Hebrew phrasing, namely, that the periods “belonged to” Sarah: לִהְיוֹת לְשָׂרָה.