Genesis 18:10

The chapter opens with Abraham welcoming three strangers and serving them a meal with great generosity (Genesis 18:1–8). One of them is the LORD himself, and the other two are angels. When the meal is over, the conversation turns to the reason for the visit.

The promise of a son was old news in Abraham’s house by now. God promised to make a great nation of Abraham when he first called him (Genesis 12), and he confirmed his covenant with him again (Genesis 17). When Abraham heard there that Sarah would bear the son, he too laughed at the thought of a man of a hundred and a woman of ninety having a child (Genesis 17:17). In the years of waiting, Abraham and Sarah had tried to gain an heir another way, through Hagar, who bore Ishmael (Genesis 16).

“And they said unto him, Where is Sarah thy wife?” The verb ʼâmar is the everyday word for saying, and it stands behind both “they said” and “he said” in this verse. The question word ʼayêh is the plain “where?” Abraham answers just as simply: “Behold, in the tent.” Sarah had stayed in the tent while the men ate, as the women of a household commonly did when there were male guests. The word for tent, ʼôhel, is the ordinary word for the dwelling Abraham lived in as he moved from place to place. Strong’s traces it to a root meaning to be clear or to shine, a tent being something you can see from far off.

Verse 10 is the heart of the passage. The LORD names a time, a mother and a child, and each part of the promise is definite.

“I will certainly return unto thee.” The verb shûwb means to turn back or return. The Hebrew doubles it, and the KJV gives that force as “certainly return”. The LORD is promising a visit that will come at the same time as the son, and the certainty lies in the one who says it. God is no man, that he should lie (Numbers 23:19).

“According to the time of life” translates the Hebrew kā’ēt ḥayyāh, literally “at the time of life” or “at this living time”. It means “at this time next year”, when this season comes round again. The word chay is the ordinary word for alive or living, and it can also mean raw or fresh. When the LORD repeats the phrase in verse 14, it stands beside “at the time appointed”, and there it points to the ordinary months of carrying a child: the son would be born by the natural course of pregnancy, from a conception that only God could give, at the moment God had chosen. The word for time there is ʻêth.

“And, lo, Sarah thy wife shall have a son.” The word “lo” draws attention to what follows. The word for son, bên, is the plain Hebrew word for a son, and the promise is exactly that: Sarah herself, Abraham’s wife, will bear Abraham a son, and through that son the covenant line will go on.

“And Sarah heard it in the tent door, which was behind him.” Sarah is standing just inside the entrance of the tent, behind the one speaking and out of his sight. That small detail matters a great deal in verse 13, because the LORD knows what passes in her heart without turning to look at her.

Verse 11 pauses the conversation to tell us plainly what Abraham and Sarah were up against. “Now Abraham and Sarah were old and well stricken in age.” Abraham was ninety-nine at this time and Sarah ten years younger, so by the time of the promised birth they would be a hundred and ninety, the very ages Abraham had named when he laughed. The word for old, zâqên, is used of people, of the aged and the elders. “Well stricken in age” is a common biblical way of saying very old indeed.

“And it ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women.” This is a delicate way of saying that Sarah’s monthly course had stopped. The verb châdal means to cease or leave off (Strong’s traces it to a root meaning to be flabby), and ʼishshâh is the common word for woman. Sarah had been barren all her married life, and now she was past the age of childbearing as well. In the households of the patriarchs that was a deep sorrow. A barren woman often carried shame, and sons carried on the family name, received the inheritance and cared for their parents in old age.

Scripture states these facts so plainly so that the birth of Isaac will be seen for what it is, the work of God alone. Paul tells how Abraham, facing the deadness of his own body and of Sarah’s womb, held on to God’s promise and was fully persuaded that God was able to do what he had promised (Romans 4:18–21). And Hebrews says that Sarah herself received strength to conceive, “because she judged him faithful who had promised” (Hebrews 11:11).

“Therefore Sarah laughed within herself.” The verb tsâchaq means to laugh outright, whether in merriment or in scorn, and by extension to play. Here it is the laugh of someone who finds a promise too much to believe. “Within herself” translates qereb, the inward part or the midst of a person, so the laugh was silent, kept inside where she supposed only she knew of it.

Her thought is given in her own words: “After I am waxed old shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?” “Waxed old” is bâlâh, to wear out or decay, and she uses it of her own body. “Old” in “my lord being old also” is zâqên, to be old or aged. So she weighs two things, her own worn-out body and Abraham’s great age. The word for pleasure, ʻêden, comes from a root meaning soft, luxurious or delightful, and it means delight. Here it is the delight of youth and vigour, of married love and of bearing a child, all of which she believed had long passed her by.

Sarah’s laugh is a very human one. She was eighty-nine, and her body had told her for years that children were behind her. Abraham had laughed in the same way at the same promise (Genesis 17:17), and God dealt patiently with both of them.

“And the LORD said unto Abraham, Wherefore did Sarah laugh?” Here the speaker is named. He is the LORD, Yᵉhôvâh, the covenant name of God, which Strong’s explains as “the self-Existent or Eternal”. The God of the covenant, who has all power to keep his promises, is sitting at Abraham’s meal.

He knows that Sarah laughed, though the laugh was inside her, and she stood behind his back. Psalm 139 opens by praising the LORD who searches and knows his servant, and says, “For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O LORD, thou knowest it altogether” (Psalm 139:1–4). Hebrews says the same of every creature: “Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do” (Hebrews 4:13). The LORD uses that knowledge here to bring Sarah’s doubt into the light, where it can be answered.

“Saying, Shall I of a surety bear a child, which am old?” The word “saying” is ʼâmar again, which can also mean to think, and here it introduces words Sarah only thought. “Of a surety” is ʼumnâm, “in very deed”. “Bear a child” is yâlad, to bear or give birth, and “old” is zâqên once more. The LORD gives her thought in words that go straight to its centre: would she really bear a child at her age?

Verse 14 is one of the great sentences of Scripture. The LORD answers Sarah’s doubt with a question that has only one answer.

“Is any thing too hard for the LORD?” The word for thing, dâbâr, means a word or speech, and also, as a separate sense, a matter or affair. “Any thing” therefore takes in every matter or circumstance a person could name. “Too hard” is pâlâʼ, which Strong’s explains as perhaps to separate or distinguish, and by implication to be great, difficult or wonderful. The question asks whether anything is too wonderful, too far beyond reach, for Yᵉhôvâh. Sarah’s age, her barren years and Abraham’s worn body all fall within that “any thing”. Jeremiah confesses the same truth in prayer before the LORD (Jeremiah 32:17), and the LORD answers him with a question about his own power much like this one (Jeremiah 32:27). The angel Gabriel says it to Mary: “For with God nothing shall be impossible” (Luke 1:37).

“At the time appointed I will return unto thee, according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son.” After the question the LORD repeats his promise in nearly the words of verse 10, and adds “at the time appointed”. The word môwʻêd properly means an appointment, and it can be used of people as well as of God. Elsewhere it is used for a meeting or an assembly, for the Tent of Meeting, and for Israel’s appointed times and feasts. The birth of Isaac is fixed on God’s calendar, and the LORD will keep the appointment himself.

The LORD answers Sarah’s laughter by saying his promise again, with its time named more firmly than before. That is how he treats a promise he has made.

“Then Sarah denied, saying, I laughed not; for she was afraid.” The verb kâchash means to be untrue, in word or in deed, and so to lie, deceive or deny. Sarah tries to disown what she did. The reason is given: she was afraid. The word yârêʼ means to fear, and in a moral sense to revere. She has just learned that a thought she kept inside herself is known to the one sitting outside her tent, and her fear holds dread and awe together. Her denial is the quick reflex of someone caught out, and it is the kind of thing all of us have done.

“And he said, Nay; but thou didst laugh.” The word “Nay” is lôʼ, the ordinary Hebrew “no” or “not”. The LORD’s answer is short and leaves the truth standing. He speaks to Sarah directly now, and he says only what is true. The laugh she tried to hide is named once more, and the promise he has just repeated still stands. Psalm 139:4 says it well: “there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O LORD, thou knowest it altogether.”

The laughter of these verses runs on into the birth of the promised son. His name, Isaac, means “he laughs”, from the same root as tsâchaq. God did what he said, and Sarah bore Abraham a son at the set time (Genesis 21:1–3). Then Sarah speaks of laughter again, this time for joy (Genesis 21:6). The laugh she denied in the tent door became the name of her son, and every time she called him she was reminded of God’s faithfulness.

Isaac’s birth to an old and barren couple is one of the miraculous births of Scripture by which God moved his saving purpose forward, and it points ahead to the greatest of them. Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit in the virgin Mary (Matthew 1:18–25, Luke 1:34–35), and the angel’s word to her echoes the LORD’s question to Sarah (Luke 1:37). Christ is the true seed of Abraham to whom the promises were made (Galatians 3:16), and all the promises of God are yea and amen in him (2 Corinthians 1:20). Just as Isaac came “at the time appointed”, God sent his Son “when the fulness of the time was come” (Galatians 4:4–5).

The LORD came in person to Abraham’s tent, and in Christ the Word was made flesh and dwelt, or tabernacled, among us (John 1:14). The power that brought life from a body as good as dead raised Jesus from the dead, so that death has no more dominion over him (Romans 6:9–11), and the Spirit who raised him gives life to those who belong to him (Romans 8:11). That same power makes alive those who were dead in sins (Ephesians 2:1–5) and makes them children of God, born of God through faith in Christ’s name (John 1:12–13). So Abraham becomes the father of many nations through faith, believing the God who gives life to the dead (Romans 4:16–17). And God is able to do “exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20).

In these few verses God comes close. He sits at a man’s table, asks after his wife by name, and speaks his promise where she can hear it. He knows the laugh she kept to herself and the fear that made her deny it, and he answers both with the truth and with his promise said a second time. His word does not bend to our doubts, and his patience with doubters is just as real.

The question he asked Sarah is asked of every believer who has looked at the facts and found God’s promise too large: “Is any thing too hard for the LORD?” Sarah learned the answer when she held Isaac, and Hebrews remembers her for judging him faithful who had promised. The God who kept his appointment with her keeps every promise he has made us in Christ, at the time he has appointed.