Jeremiah 1:5

1:5 “Before I formed you in your mother’s womb ¹  I chose you. ² 

Before you were born I set you apart.

I appointed you to be a prophet to the nations.”

Genesis 21:5-6

21:5 (Now Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.) ³ 

21:6 Sarah said, “God has made me laugh. ⁴  Everyone who hears about this ⁵  will laugh ⁶  with me.”

Luke 1:14

1:14 Joy and gladness will come ⁷  to you, and many will rejoice at ⁸  his birth, ⁹ 

[1:5]  ¹ tn Heb “the womb.” The words “your mother’s” are implicit and are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[1:5]  ² tn Heb “I knew you.” The parallelism here with “set you apart” and “appointed you” make clear that Jeremiah is speaking of his foreordination to be a prophet. For this same nuance of the Hebrew verb see Gen 18:19; Amos 3:2.

[21:5]  ³ 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]  ⁴ tn Heb “Laughter God has made for me.”

[21:6]  ⁵ tn The words “about this” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[21:6]  ⁶ 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).

[1:14]  ⁷ tn Grk “This will be joy and gladness.”

[1:14]  ⁸ tn Or “because of.”

[1:14]  ⁹ tn “At his birth” is more precise as the grammatical subject (1:58), though “at his coming” is a possible force, since it is his mission, as the following verses note, that will really bring joy.