“She said: Who would have announced to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I bore a son for his old age” (Genesis 21:7). “She said: Who would have announced [milel] to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children” – Rabbi Pinḥas in the name of Rabbi Ḥilkiya: “Who would have said [amar]” or “who would have spoken [diber]” is not written here, but rather, “who would have announced [milel].” This is an allusion to the fact that he begot at the age of one hundred years, which is the numerical value of milel.26Milel is spelled mem – 40 + lamed – 30 + lamed – 30 = 100 Rabbi Pinḥas said: The wheat stalk of Abraham our patriarch had been all dried up, but [now] it became full of moist kernels [melilot].27A metaphor for the fact that Abraham had been incapable of fathering children, but now became productive.
“Sarah would nurse children” – “nurse a child” is not written here. Our matriarch Sarah was extremely modest. Our patriarch Abraham said to her: ‘This is not the time for modesty. Instead, expose your breasts, so that everyone will know that the Holy One blessed be He has begun to perform miracles.’
She exposed her breasts and they were flowing with milk like two wellsprings. Noblewomen were coming and having their children nurse from her. They were saying: ‘We are not worthy of having our children nurse from this righteous woman.’ The Rabbis and Rabbi Aḥa, the Rabbis say: Anyone who came [to Sarah] for the sake of Heaven28With sincere motives. became God-fearing.
Rabbi Aḥa said: Even one who did not come for the sake of Heaven, dominion in this world was granted to him. But once they [the nations of the world] distanced themselves [from God] at Sinai by not accepting the Torah, that dominion was taken from them.