And Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said in his heart, Shall [a child] be born to him that is a hundred years old? and shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear?
Abraham is ninety-nine, Sarah is ninety, and God has just promised them a son. His response is to fall on his face and laugh — and readers have argued ever since over what kind of laugh it was.
The promise of a son comes only after every natural possibility has closed.
Chapter 16 is a kind of parenthesis. Abram has a promise, and now he tries to make it good independently of God. But then Abram is set aside, his body now dead at ninety-nine years old. God reveals Himself and says, I am going to give you many descendants, and you must circumcise them, and so on. That is, now that you are viewed as dead, I can do something with you.
This is not his first time face down before God. Since then his name has changed from Abram to Abraham — and so has what he does on the ground.
Again he falls on his face — now as Abraham… Abram once had fallen on his face and listened; but now Abraham fell on his face and laughed.
Commentators differ here. Some read the laugh as wonder. They point to how the New Testament describes Abraham at this age.
At first sight we might take both the laughter and the words as a sign of doubt. But in the light of Romans 4:18-20 we must see them instead as an expression of joyful wonder.
Others take the questions at face value. Abraham measures God's word against his own body and finds it hard to accept.
Abraham's faith was too weak to accept what God had positively spoken. He laughed inwardly, just as Sarah did later (Gen. 18:12). Could he, at 100 years, become a father? And Sarah, at 90 years, give birth to a son? Of course, in natural terms this is impossible. But God is not limited by impossibilities.
The laugh was inward, in his heart. Sarah laughs too, one chapter later, and Scripture treats the two laughs as different. God read what was behind each one.
God seems to accept the faith of Abraham, and Abraham's laughter in his heart gives a name to his son — Isaac, laughter. It was simplicity of heart at unexpected good news. Sarah's — for God can discern — was a disbelieving, mocking satisfaction.
The two ages Abraham names are the real obstacle. Faith here rests on who God is, not on what the body can still do.
God told Abraham that he would have a son by Sarah. Nature told him it was impossible. Yet he did not waver at it through unbelief. He believed in hope — the hope of a son through Sarah, when nature said there was no hope of it. He was strong in faith. The deadness of his own body and of Sarah's womb was no difficulty to him. To him the God who had promised was the God of resurrection. As such, He was able to give life to the dead.
Abraham's question mentions Sarah, and God has already moved to answer it. Her new name is part of the same act of power that raises life out of two worn-out bodies.
The power of His resurrection must be known. That power alone can work in a dead man, to lift him out of death and into this new sphere… This power now comes in: "As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name." She too must be made partaker, as it were, of the divine nature. Like him, she must have the breathing of God's name put to hers, so that in figure she may be of the new creation also.
The laughter did not stop with that moment. God tied it to the child's name.
Isaac, "laughter," recalls the laughter of both his parents in view of his birth, and suggests the joy which the coming of the true Son brings.
That joy did not stay private. The laughter changed character and spread to everyone within reach.
I have no doubt that the day in Abraham's heart is the day the Lord Jesus meant when He said, "Abraham rejoiced that he would see My day. He saw it and was glad." Abraham's home was then filled not with the laughter of irony or unbelief that had marked it before, but with the laughter of holy mirth. That laugh is contagious. When it has a place in our own hearts, it will spread to others, as Sarah said, "everyone who hears will laugh with me."
- Dead first. God waits until Abraham's body is as good as dead at ninety-nine. Human ability must be out of the picture before God acts.
- The laugh questioned. Commentators differ. Some read Abraham's laugh as joyful wonder, in line with Romans 4. Others read it as faith too weak to take God at His word.
- The laugh discerned. God judges Abraham's laugh and Sarah's differently. He reads the heart behind the sound, not just the sound.
- The laugh answered. The two impossible ages become the ground of faith: the God who promised is the God who gives life to the dead.
- The laugh named. God turns the laugh into a name — Isaac. That joy grows until it fills a home and reaches everyone who hears.
And Abraham said to God, Oh that Ishmael might live before thee!
Abraham has just heard that Sarah, at ninety, will bear the son of promise. His first words back to God name a different son. The plea is short, warm, and natural, and it raises a hard question. What does a believer do when God's plan overturns the plan he has already built?
The plea asks for more than survival. One writer notes that when God speaks of life, He means more than breath:
"Life" and "living" in Scripture, when God uses it, is not always the thought of mere life; as, "Oh, that Ishmael might live before You." It is divine favour also.
He wants God's favour to rest on Ishmael.
God has just renamed Sarai as Sarah, mother of nations and kings. If God can do that with two people as good as dead, Abraham's reasoning almost writes itself:
But he had received such favour, and his heart went out to the child of the slave woman. He said to God, "Oh, that Ishmael might live before You!" Sarai was now to be Sarah. She was to become nations, with kings coming from her, though he and she were no better than dead. So why should Ishmael not share the covenant? But no: the child of promise and of the free woman is the one with whom God establishes His covenant. For Abraham's sake Ishmael does not go without His blessing; he fathers twelve princes and becomes a great nation. So the reasonings of a saint fall, and God's will alone stands, even in blessing outside the covenant of promise.
Ishmael was Abraham's son by the slave woman, born after the flesh. To ask God to bless him is more than sentiment. Many people share the same instinct:
Abraham's thoughts return to his son born after the flesh, and he pleads with God, "Oh that Ishmael might live before You" (v. 18). This is the same lingering hope that occupies the thoughts of many people — that the flesh might be brought to please God. But Scripture declares the opposite: "those who are in the flesh cannot please God" (Romans 8:8).
Ishmael did receive circumcision, the sign of the covenant. It settled nothing about him:
Abraham's heart yearned over Ishmael. More than that, Ishmael received circumcision, so he carried the mark of the covenant outwardly (Gen. 17:18, 25). It was all useless, however. This word had gone out about him: "He will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him." A wild, unmanageable and quarrelsome fellow he remained. His time of testing ended when he proved himself not only wild, but a despiser and a mocker of Isaac, the promised son, who is a picture of Christ. Then came the word, "Cast out this slave woman with her son, for the son of this slave woman shall not be heir with my son Isaac" (Gen. 21:10).
God does reply, "As for Ishmael, I have heard you" (v. 20). One writer sees in that answer what happens when a believer pleads to keep something God has set aside:
What a moment for the soul! Have there not been such awakenings in God's saints at times? Moments when everything that had delighted the eye was fading away, and the heart cried out: "Oh that Ishmael might live before You!" Must it all go, then? Is there no remnant of former days to spare?... God may pity the soul in this — though it is not His purpose. He may say, as it were, "And as for Ishmael, I have heard you." He may spare the link and bless it in an earthly way. But it never enters the divine path: "But I will establish my covenant with Isaac."
Not every writer reads the verse as a failure. One sees in it a soul that has come back to God and speaks to Him freely:
This is a fine, earnest path for the spirit of a saint. There is a deep reality here. Departure from God proves itself to be bitterness. But God proves Himself to the soul to be restoration and peace. Under His gracious hand faith grows bold again. Abraham presses his plea, with the vigour he had in chapter 15, and asks God that Ishmael might live before Him.
So commentators differ. Some stress how God overturns the reasoning of nature. Others stress the freedom of a restored heart pouring itself out to God.
- Asks — "Live before You" is a plea for God's favour to rest on Ishmael, not just for him to survive.
- Reasons — Abraham's logic makes sense. But God fixes the covenant on the son of promise, and a saint's reasonings fall before God's will.
- Flesh — Behind the plea lies a lingering hope: that the flesh can please God. Scripture says it cannot.
- Marks — Ishmael carried the outward sign of the covenant and stayed exactly what he was. An outward mark changes no nature, and in the end he was cast out.
- Heard — God pities the plea and blesses Ishmael on earth. Yet the link never enters the divine path. God establishes His covenant with Isaac.
And God said, Sarah thy wife shall indeed bear thee a son; and thou shalt call his name Isaac; and I will establish my covenant with him, for an everlasting covenant for his seed after him.
Abraham had just asked for less. He wanted Ishmael, the son already born, to be the son of the covenant. Instead God fixes the covenant on a child who does not yet exist, names him before birth, and sets a date for his arrival.
Abraham had a son already, and his heart went out to him. One writer sees a common instinct in that prayer: the hope that what we produce ourselves can please God.
Abraham's thoughts go back to his son born after the flesh, and he pleads with God, "Oh that Ishmael might live before You!" (v. 18). Many people still hold that same lingering hope — that the flesh can be brought to please God. But scripture declares the opposite, "those who are in the flesh cannot please God" (Romans 8:8).
This refusal does not reject Ishmael. He receives real blessing — just not the covenant. What God sets aside is Abraham's reasoning about how the blessing should run.
Sarai was now to be Sarah. She would become nations, and kings would come from her, even though she and Abraham were as good as dead. So why should Ishmael not share the covenant? But no: the child of promise, the son of the free woman, is the one with whom God establishes His covenant. For Abraham's sake Ishmael does not go without God's blessing — he fathers twelve princes and becomes a great nation... So the reasoning of a believer falls, and God's will alone stands, even in blessing outside the covenant of promise.
Abraham is ninety-nine. Sarah is ninety. The timing is no accident. God speaks after all natural strength is gone.
But when Abraham was ninety-nine years old, there was no hope of a child by natural means. His body was now dead. Then God reveals Himself to him by His name: "I am God Almighty."
One writer draws out the principle behind this. God ties the covenant to the son only His power could give, not to the son nature could produce.
All of this was called "God's covenant" with him. That again tells us plainly that God's purpose, or secret, or covenant, rested on resurrection. It rested on setting aside the flesh with all its strength and resources, and on doing something beyond and above nature... And so Isaac is born out of the dead bodies of Abraham and Sarah. God's covenant is with Isaac. Ishmael may be blessed — and he is — but the covenant is with Isaac, and with Isaac alone.
God names the child before his mother conceives him. The name means "laughter." It picks up how both parents reacted, and it also points ahead.
Isaac, "laughter," recalls the laughter of both his parents in view of his birth, and suggests that joy which the coming of the true Son brings.
One writer reads Abraham's own laugh as faith, not doubt. He heard an impossible promise and laughed.
See how Abraham acted. God made a covenant of blessing with him, and told him He would bless him with this child of promise... As he heard God's promises, he laughed to himself and said in his heart, "Shall a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?"... His laugh was the LAUGH OF FAITH.
The word "everlasting" carries weight here. This covenant does not depend on how the people who receive it behave.
It is the covenant God made with Abraham. It was unconditional, not in the least conditional on the obedience of Israel. He affirmed the same covenant again to Isaac (Gen. 26:4), and confirmed it to Jacob (Gen. 28:13-14), despite Jacob's wandering away. It was an everlasting covenant, and so it depends only on the faithfulness of God.
One writer looks past the family line here. Isaac pictures Christ, and the way he came pictures how Christ is given to us.
But God's covenant He would establish with Isaac (v. 21), a clear type of the Lord Jesus. Sarah, a picture of God's grace, would bring him to Abraham, just as the grace of God brings Christ to the believing sinner today. Isaac would be born one year from the time God spoke to Abraham. Abraham had to wait that much longer, with time to think about God's promise. That promise was completely sure, but no one could rush it ahead of God's time.
- Refused — Abraham asked God to work with the son he already had. God said no: "those who are in the flesh cannot please God."
- Given — the son of the covenant had to be one nature could not produce, born "out of the dead bodies of Abraham and Sarah."
- Named — God named him "laughter" before he was even conceived. The name hints at "that joy which the coming of the true Son brings."
- Guaranteed — the covenant is everlasting. It carries no conditions and rests only on "the faithfulness of God."
- Pointing — Ishmael is truly blessed, but the covenant runs through Isaac alone, "a clear type of the Lord Jesus."