Genesis 11:29-30

11:29 And Abram and Nahor took wives for themselves. The name of Abram’s wife was Sarai, ¹  and the name of Nahor’s wife was Milcah; ²  she was the daughter of Haran, the father of both Milcah and Iscah. 11:30 But Sarai was barren; she had no children.

Genesis 17:15-19

17:15 Then God said to Abraham, “As for your wife, you must no longer call her Sarai; ³  Sarah ⁴  will be her name. 17:16 I will bless her and will give you a son through her. I will bless her and she will become a mother of nations. ⁵  Kings of countries ⁶  will come from her!”

17:17 Then Abraham bowed down with his face to the ground and laughed ⁷  as he said to himself, ⁸  “Can ⁹  a son be born to a man who is a hundred years old? ¹⁰  Can Sarah ¹¹  bear a child at the age of ninety?” ¹²  17:18 Abraham said to God, “O that ¹³  Ishmael might live before you!” ¹⁴ 

17:19 God said, “No, Sarah your wife is going to bear you a son, and you will name him Isaac. ¹⁵  I will confirm my covenant with him as a perpetual ¹⁶  covenant for his descendants after him.

Genesis 18:10-14

18:10 One of them ¹⁷  said, “I will surely return ¹⁸  to you when the season comes round again, ¹⁹  and your wife Sarah will have a son!” ²⁰  (Now Sarah was listening at the entrance to the tent, not far behind him. ²¹  18:11 Abraham and Sarah were old and advancing in years; ²²  Sarah had long since passed menopause.) ²³  18:12 So Sarah laughed to herself, thinking, ²⁴  “After I am worn out will I have pleasure, ²⁵  especially when my husband is old too?” ²⁶ 

18:13 The Lord said to Abraham, “Why ²⁷  did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Will I really ²⁸  have a child when I am old?’ 18:14 Is anything impossible ²⁹  for the Lord? I will return to you when the season comes round again and Sarah will have a son.” ³⁰ 

Genesis 21:1-7

The Birth of Isaac

21:1 The Lord visited ³¹  Sarah just as he had said he would and did ³²  for Sarah what he had promised. ³³  21:2 So Sarah became pregnant ³⁴  and bore Abraham a son in his old age at the appointed time that God had told him. 21:3 Abraham named his son – whom Sarah bore to him – Isaac. ³⁵  21:4 When his son Isaac was eight days old, ³⁶  Abraham circumcised him just as God had commanded him to do. ³⁷  21:5 (Now Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.) ³⁸ 

21:6 Sarah said, “God has made me laugh. ³⁹  Everyone who hears about this ⁴⁰  will laugh ⁴¹  with me.” 21:7 She went on to say, ⁴²  “Who would ⁴³  have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have given birth to a son for him in his old age!”

Romans 4:19

4:19 Without being weak in faith, he considered ⁴⁴  his own body as dead ⁴⁵  (because he was about one hundred years old) and the deadness of Sarah’s womb.

[11:29]  ¹ sn The name Sarai (a variant spelling of “Sarah”) means “princess” (or “lady”). Sharratu was the name of the wife of the moon god Sin. The original name may reflect the culture out of which the patriarch was called, for the family did worship other gods in Mesopotamia.

[11:29]  ² sn The name Milcah means “Queen.” But more to the point here is the fact that Malkatu was a title for Ishtar, the daughter of the moon god. If the women were named after such titles (and there is no evidence that this was the motivation for naming the girls “Princess” or “Queen”), that would not necessarily imply anything about the faith of the two women themselves.

[17:15]  ³ tn Heb “[As for] Sarai your wife, you must not call her name Sarai, for Sarah [will be] her name.”

[17:15]  ⁴ sn Sarah. The name change seems to be a dialectical variation, both spellings meaning “princess” or “queen.” Like the name Abram, the name Sarai symbolized the past. The new name Sarah, like the name Abraham, would be a reminder of what God intended to do for Sarah in the future.

[17:16]  ⁵ tn Heb “she will become nations.”

[17:16]  ⁶ tn Heb “peoples.”

[17:17]  ⁷ sn Laughed. The Hebrew verb used here provides the basis for the naming of Isaac: “And he laughed” is וַיִּצְחָק (vayyitskhaq); the name “Isaac” is יִצְחָק (yitskhaq), “he laughs.” Abraham’s (and Sarah’s, see 18:12) laughter signals disbelief, but when the boy is born, the laughter signals surprise and joy.

[17:17]  ⁸ tn Heb “And he fell on his face and laughed and said in his heart.”

[17:17]  ⁹ tn The imperfect verbal form here carries a potential nuance, as it expresses the disbelief of Abraham.

[17:17]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “to the son of a hundred years.”

[17:17]  ¹¹ sn It is important to note that even though Abraham staggers at the announcement of the birth of a son, finding it almost too incredible, he nonetheless calls his wife Sarah, the new name given to remind him of the promise of God (v. 15).

[17:17]  ¹² tn Heb “the daughter of ninety years.”

[17:18]  ¹³ tn The wish is introduced with the Hebrew particle לוּ (lu), “O that.”

[17:18]  ¹⁴ tn Or “live with your blessing.”

[17:19]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “will call his name Isaac.” The name means “he laughs,” or perhaps “may he laugh” (see the note on the word “laughed” in v. 17).

[17:19]  ¹⁶ tn Or “as an eternal.”

[18:10]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “he”; the referent (one of the three men introduced in v. 2) has been specified in the translation for clarity. Some English translations have specified the referent as the Lord (cf. RSV, NIV) based on vv. 1, 13, but the Hebrew text merely has “he said” at this point, referring to one of the three visitors. Aside from the introductory statement in v. 1, the incident is narrated from Abraham’s point of view, and the suspense is built up for the reader as Abraham’s elaborate banquet preparations in the preceding verses suggest he suspects these are important guests. But not until the promise of a son later in this verse does it become clear who is speaking. In v. 13 the Hebrew text explicitly mentions the Lord.

[18:10]  ¹⁸ tn The Hebrew construction is emphatic, using the infinitive absolute with the imperfect tense.

[18:10]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “as/when the time lives” or “revives,” possibly referring to the springtime.

[18:10]  ²⁰ tn Heb “and there will be (הִנֵּה, hinneh) a son for Sarah.”

[18:10]  ²¹ tn This is the first of two disjunctive parenthetical clauses preparing the reader for Sarah’s response (see v. 12).

[18:11]  ²² tn Heb “days.”

[18:11]  ²³ tn Heb “it had ceased to be for Sarah [after] a way like women.”

[18:12]  ²⁴ tn Heb “saying.”

[18:12]  ²⁵ tn It has been suggested that this word should be translated “conception,” not “pleasure.” See A. A. McIntosh, “A Third Root ‘adah in Biblical Hebrew,” VT 24 (1974): 454-73.

[18:12]  ²⁶ tn The word “too” has been added in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[18:13]  ²⁷ tn Heb “Why, this?” The demonstrative pronoun following the interrogative pronoun is enclitic, emphasizing the Lord’s amazement: “Why on earth did Sarah laugh?”

[18:13]  ²⁸ tn The Hebrew construction uses both הַאַף (ha’af) and אֻמְנָם (’umnam): “Indeed, truly, will I have a child?”

[18:14]  ²⁹ tn The Hebrew verb פָּלָא (pala’) means “to be wonderful, to be extraordinary, to be surpassing, to be amazing.”

[18:14]  ³⁰ sn Sarah will have a son. The passage brings God’s promise into clear focus. As long as it was a promise for the future, it really could be believed without much involvement. But now, when it seemed so impossible from the human standpoint, when the Lord fixed an exact date for the birth of the child, the promise became rather overwhelming to Abraham and Sarah. But then this was the Lord of creation, the one they had come to trust. The point of these narratives is that the creation of Abraham’s offspring, which eventually became Israel, is no less a miraculous work of creation than the creation of the world itself.

[21:1]  ³¹ sn The Hebrew verb translated “visit” (פָּקַד, paqad ) often describes divine intervention for blessing or cursing; it indicates God’s special attention to an individual or a matter, always with respect to his people’s destiny. He may visit (that is, destroy) the Amalekites; he may visit (that is, deliver) his people in Egypt. Here he visits Sarah, to allow her to have the promised child. One’s destiny is changed when the Lord “visits.” For a more detailed study of the term, see G. André, Determining the Destiny (ConBOT).

[21:1]  ³² tn Heb “and the Lord did.” The divine name has not been repeated here in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[21:1]  ³³ tn Heb “spoken.”

[21:2]  ³⁴ tn Or “she conceived.”

[21:3]  ³⁵ tn Heb “the one born to him, whom Sarah bore to him, Isaac.” The two modifying clauses, the first introduced with an article and the second with the relative pronoun, are placed in the middle of the sentence, before the name Isaac is stated. They are meant to underscore that this was indeed an actual birth to Abraham and Sarah in fulfillment of the promise.

[21:4]  ³⁶ tn Heb “Isaac his son, the son of eight days.” The name “Isaac” is repeated in the translation for clarity.

[21:4]  ³⁷ sn Just as God had commanded him to do. With the birth of the promised child, Abraham obeyed the Lord by both naming (Gen 17:19) and circumcising Isaac (17:12).

[21:5]  ³⁸ tn The parenthetical disjunctive clause underscores how miraculous this birth was. Abraham was 100 years old. The fact that the genealogies give the ages of the fathers when their first son is born shows that this was considered a major milestone in one’s life (G. J. Wenham, Genesis [WBC], 2:80).

[21:6]  ³⁹ tn Heb “Laughter God has made for me.”

[21:6]  ⁴⁰ tn The words “about this” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[21:6]  ⁴¹ sn Sarah’s words play on the name “Isaac” in a final triumphant manner. God prepared “laughter” (צְחֹק, ysÿkhoq ) for her, and everyone who hears about this “will laugh” (יִצְחַק, yitskhaq ) with her. The laughter now signals great joy and fulfillment, not unbelief (cf. Gen 18:12-15).

[21:7]  ⁴² tn Heb “said.”

[21:7]  ⁴³ tn The perfect form of the verb is used here to describe a hypothetical situation.

[4:19]  ⁴⁴ tc Most mss (D F G Ψ 33 1881 Ï it) read “he did not consider” by including the negative particle (οὐ, ou), but others (א A B C 6 81 365 1506 1739 pc co) lack οὐ. The reading which includes the negative particle probably represents a scribal attempt to exalt the faith of Abraham by making it appear that his faith was so strong that he did not even consider the physical facts. But “here Paul does not wish to imply that faith means closing one’s eyes to reality, but that Abraham was so strong in faith as to be undaunted by every consideration” (TCGNT 451). Both on external and internal grounds, the reading without the negative particle is preferred.

[4:19]  ⁴⁵ tc ‡ Most witnesses (א A C D Ψ 33 Ï bo) have ἤδη (hdh, “already”) at this point in v. 19. But B F G 630 1739 1881 pc lat sa lack it. Since it appears to heighten the style of the narrative and since there is no easy accounting for an accidental omission, it is best to regard the shorter text as original. NA²⁷ includes the word in brackets, indicating doubt as to its authenticity.