English: “Within herself.” There was an incident with King Ptolemy who gathered seventy-two elders and placed them in seventy-two houses and said to each one, “Write for me the Torah of Moshe your teacher.” The Holy One, blessed be He, put counsel into the heart of each one, and they wrote for him “And Sarah laughed among her relatives.”
On the daf / in context: In the story of the Septuagint, the elders altered the wording from “within herself” to “among her relatives” so that Ptolemy would not mock Sarah for laughing at the promise.
Type of Learning
Derash on the verse (Bavli sugya) — not a formal named middah of the 13. The change made for the Greek translation preserves the dignity of the matriarch.
What Is Learned
When translating for Ptolemy the Sages wrote “among her relatives” instead of “within herself,” protecting Sarah from the appearance of private mockery.