And they said to him, Where is Sarah thy wife? And he said, Behold, in the tent.
Abraham has just served a meal to three passing strangers. Now they speak first, and they ask about his wife. The question sounds like ordinary politeness. In fact it opens the promise of a son, and it shows Abraham who his guest really is.
Nothing so far has looked unusual. This question is the turning point: Abraham stops serving a stranger and knows whom he is serving.
Outwardly it was simple preparation for passing strangers. Some people have welcomed strangers and, without knowing it, have entertained angels. It was Abraham's honour to entertain Jehovah. In due time he hears the question put to him, which I think is the point where he enters into the spirit of the divine action: "Where is Sarah your wife?" … Could Abraham be ignorant any longer whose voice this was? Even so, Abraham does not speak before the right time. If Jehovah was pleased to appear there with two of His servants, and to put them in the ordinary form of men, it was certainly not for the faithful to break the silence Jehovah kept.
The question is not for information. It sets up the promise that follows, and that promise belongs to her as much as to Abraham. The writer quotes that promise from an older translation, which says, "I will certainly return."
The Lord uses this moment of holy closeness to confirm Abraham's faith. He assures him that his son will be born. This concerns Sarah, so the LORD asks, "Where is Sarah your wife?" Then the LORD says, "I will certainly return to you at this time of the year; and look, Sarah your wife shall have a son." Only a Divine Person could have spoken like that. From anyone else it would have been mere presumption. We cannot count on a single day. God can say, "I will certainly return."
Sarah is out of sight, but she is within hearing. One writer reads the question as a deliberate way of making her listen.
But the Lord had a message for Sarah too. He asks Abraham where she was. He surely meant this to catch Sarah's attention, especially when He named her (v. 9). So she understood well what the Lord then said to Abraham.
Abraham's short answer places her indoors, out of sight. Yet she is the one the visitors ask for.
But we return to Sarah, for she, not Abraham, is just now the sweet and attractive object of our attention. She stayed modestly and quietly inside the tent. That did not rob her of the attention and honour given by her heavenly master and His two companions.
Others draw a practical lesson from where Sarah is found, and set it against how the same choice is judged today.
Many women say, "This does not satisfy me. Why should I stay at home? My career is out there." … Genesis, the book of beginnings, gives us an example in chapter 18 where we read of Abraham's three visitors. We find him outside the tent when they visit, but Sarah is inside, because that was her place.
The promise reaches Sarah, and she is no longer simply in the tent. She listens behind the door. Kelly finds that place out of keeping with Abraham's openness before God.
But the one most closely concerned did not have Abraham's sense of God's presence. Her heart was not as ready for it. … We hear of her during this conversation behind the door. I dare say she ought not to have been there, but there she was. She was where she should not have been. Need we wonder that she gave way to feelings that little suited her? She laughed in doubt of the word. Could any of us imagine Abraham behind a door? Was there not a simple dignity in him that could never hide and listen behind a door?
Von Poseck's stress falls elsewhere — on how the New Testament remembers her.
Sarah then betrays her weakness of faith in Him for whom nothing is too hard, and receives a gentle rebuke from the Lord for her unbelief. But I find something wonderfully beautiful here. Scripture never mentions Sarah's failure. It is not in that most instructive eleventh chapter of Hebrews, where Sarah has obtained a good report. It is not in that beautiful passage in Peter's first letter either. And why? … because Sarah's obedience was that "of a meek and quiet spirit"; it was an obedience of the heart.
- Recognised. The guest asks for Sarah by name. From that question on, Abraham could not be ignorant whose voice he was hearing.
- Included. The promise concerns Sarah, so the Lord names Sarah. The question brings her into the announcement of the son.
- Overheard. The Lord asked Abraham, but He meant Sarah to hear. The word about the son reached the one who had to believe it.
- Honoured. Her quiet place inside the tent did not hide her from her visitors. They asked for her, and they honoured her.
- Remembered. She laughed in unbelief, and the Lord gently rebuked her. Yet Hebrews and Peter's first letter record her good report and her meek and quiet spirit, not her failure.
And he said, I will certainly return to thee at [this] time of the year, and behold, Sarah thy wife shall have a son. And Sarah was listening at the tent-door, which was behind him.
Three visitors have eaten at Abraham's tent, and now one of them makes a promise with a date on it: a son for a couple far too old to have children. Two questions follow. Who is this speaker? And can Sarah's worn-out body stop what He says?
The Lord opens by asking where Sarah is. One writer sees this question as the moment Abraham entered into what God was doing.
On the surface it was simple, ordinary hospitality for passing strangers. Some people, you know, welcoming strangers, have welcomed angels without knowing it. It was Abraham's honour to welcome the LORD. In time he hears the question put to him. That, I think, is the point where he enters into the spirit of what God is doing: "Where is Sarah your wife?" And He said, "I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife shall have a son." Could Abraham still not know whose voice this was?
God aimed the question past Abraham at the listener inside the tent. Naming her was how He caught her ear.
He asks Abraham where she is, surely meaning to catch Sarah's attention, especially by naming her (v. 9). So she understood well what the Lord said to Abraham.
The promise of a son is remarkable, but the opening clause is the giveaway. No traveller can guarantee his own return.
The Lord uses this moment of holy closeness to strengthen Abraham's faith. He assures him that his son will be born... For anyone but a Divine Person to speak that way would have been sheer presumption. We cannot count on a single day. God can say, "I will surely return." So the LORD's own words settle Abraham's faith. And the Lord still delights to steady our trembling hearts with the sure word of the One who can say, "I will." "I will come again and will take you to myself." "I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you" (John 14:3, 18).
Older translations read "according to the time of life" where the ESV has "about this time next year." Long years of waiting now shrink to a fixed date.
"I will surely return to you." Was this lost on Abraham? Certainly not — all the more now that his long-held hope is about to enjoy a promise that is specific and, I might say, dated. If it seemed vague before, from then on it was clear and defined.
Abraham and Sarah hear identical words. What separates them is not information but their sense of who is speaking.
Abraham hears this great promise fully aware of the glory of the One who speaks. So he shows no surprise, raises no objections, and voices no doubt. Sarah stands in sharp contrast. Her faith and discernment do not match her husband's. She hears the words, but she has little sense of the glory of the Speaker. She doubts them because of what she finds in herself.
Sarah's doubt is not crushed. The Lord answers it with a question, and in the end she comes to the faith she lacked.
Sarah was now to be tested. The promise of a son came where she could hear it. She laughed too, but she thought her laugh was hidden from others. It clearly held unbelief in it, so she tried to deny it. The Lord knew, however. Her unbelieving question only drew from Him the great question, "Is anything too hard for the LORD?" Nothing was too hard, for He had lately revealed Himself to her husband as "God Almighty," though she had not yet grasped it... and later Sarah did grasp it, or we would not have the words: "By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive" (Heb. 11:11).
This sentence is picked up centuries later to settle an argument about who really counts as Abraham's family.
With Isaac we see the blessing secured on the principle of God's own sovereign choice and grace, for the word is, "Through Isaac shall your offspring be named." Ishmael was the child of the flesh, but Isaac was the child of promise. The words "About this time next year I will return, and Sarah shall have a son" make it perfectly plain that this promise came by sovereign grace.
Later Scripture revisits this same tent scene — and leaves something out.
Sarah shows here how weak her faith is in Him, for Whom nothing is too hard, and the Lord gently rebukes her unbelief. But I find something very beautiful in a simple fact. The eleventh chapter of the letter to the Hebrews says nothing at all about Sarah's failure, and neither does that lovely passage in the first letter of the apostle Peter.
- Promise: The Lord puts a date on a hope that had long been vague — "specific and, I might say, dated."
- Person: Only God can promise His own return. The same "I will" comes back in "I will come again and will take you to myself."
- Problem: Sarah measures the promise by what she finds in herself, and laughs. Abraham measures it by who is speaking, and stays quiet.
- Power: Her doubt draws out the question that answers it — "Is anything too hard for the LORD?" — and she is later listed among those who believed.
- Principle: This promise, not natural descent, marks out Abraham's true family. Isaac was the child of promise.
Now Abraham and Sarah were old [and] advanced in age it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women.
Genesis 18:11 drops a medical fact into the middle of a promise: nature had shut the door on children for Abraham and Sarah. Everything that follows — Sarah's laugh, the Lord's question in verse 14, the birth of Isaac — turns on it.
"The way of women" means the monthly cycle. For Sarah it had stopped, and with it every natural hope of a child. Commentators see that closed door as the ground God chose to work on. The son would be His gift, not a human achievement.
God's purpose, or secret, or covenant, rested on resurrection. It rested on setting aside the flesh in its strength and resources. It rested on doing something beyond and above nature. That is the same thing as resurrection — life given to Sarah's dead and powerless body. And so Isaac is born out of the dead bodies of Abraham and Sarah.
Sarah listened from behind the tent door and drew her own conclusion. Her mistake was the direction she looked.
She hears what is said, but has little sense of the glory of the Speaker. She doubts what is said because of what she finds in herself. She is old and her body is worn out. So she argues that what the Lord has said cannot come true. In her heart she laughs in unbelief at the very idea of having a son.
Another writer names what she was looking at, and what her unbelief drew from God:
Sarah's laughter when the son is promised to her is the laughter of unbelief. She looked to her womb, which was a grave. Her laughter became the occasion of that wonderful word the Lord spoke: "Is anything too hard for the LORD?"
The Lord answered Sarah with a question of His own. One writer treats it as the standing answer to every difficulty.
He was on the other side of the door. He soon showed that no door could keep Him from knowing what passed in Sarah's heart, or where she was. How surprising it must have been to her, and how sharp the rebuke, though it was given without a harsh word! "Is anything too hard for the LORD?" How good it is to train ourselves in this one answer to every difficulty! This is why we are called to walk by faith, not by sight. God never intended a Christian, or His church, to be exempt from difficulties.
The question had a history behind it and a result ahead of it.
Nothing was too hard. He had just revealed Himself to her husband as "God Almighty," though she had not yet grasped it. Jeremiah grasped it in his day (Jer. 32:17), and in time Sarah did too, or we would not have the statement: "By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive" (Heb. 11:11).
Abraham faced the same facts as Sarah. He did not build on them.
The promise of God was beyond hope, and contrary to it, if he reasoned from himself and Sarah. Yet he believed in hope, because God had declared that he would have offspring as many as the stars and the sand. Faith reasons from God and His word, not from self or circumstances.
Genesis does not leave Sarah where verse 11 finds her. When the child came she laughed again — the same act, a different source.
So Isaac's birth was the occasion of joy, as his very name implies. Sarah laughed no more in unbelief, as she once had (Gen. 18:12-15), but with gladness of heart, sharing it with all who hear of the goodness of the Lord. It is a lovely witness to the power of grace when faith gives the victory in what had been one's weakness, and sin, and shame.
One writer weighs what came of her trust:
Here is fruit beyond calculation, and certainly beyond the limits of Sarah's own hopes. Natural hope was dead, so that long before this she had given up any such expectation. In this way God teaches that He alone is the true Resource of His saints. The fruit of faith's submission is far greater than it appears at the time, or perhaps for years afterwards.
- Dead first. The verse records the end of natural possibility on purpose. God's covenant rested on setting the flesh aside and doing what only He can do.
- Looking inward. Sarah's laugh came from measuring the promise by herself instead of by the glory of the One speaking.
- One answer. "Is anything too hard for the LORD?" is the settled reply to every difficulty. We are called to walk by faith, not by sight.
- Reasoning from God. Abraham faced the same facts and still believed. Faith reasons from God's word, never from self or circumstances.
- Fruit beyond hope. The unbelieving laugh became a laugh of joy. Sarah's trust bore fruit beyond counting.
And Sarah laughed within herself, saying, After I am become old, shall I have pleasure, and my lord old?
Visitors are at Abraham's tent, and the Lord promises him a son. Sarah, listening inside, answers with a laugh nobody else could hear — and with words spoken only in her heart. Two questions follow: what was wrong with that laugh, and what was right in the words that went with it?
Abraham and Sarah heard the same promise. One writer sets their two responses side by side:
Abraham hears this great promise, and he fully realises the glory of the One who is speaking. So he expresses no astonishment, raises no difficulties, and expresses no doubt. In sharp contrast, Sarah's faith and discernment are not equal to her husband's. She hears the words, but has little sense of the glory of the Speaker. She doubts them because of what she finds in herself. She is old and her body is worn out. So she argues that what the Lord has said cannot come true. In her heart she laughs in unbelief at the very suggestion of having a son.
She laughed "to herself." That was the whole point of it — and it failed:
Sarah was now to be tested, and the announcement of the birth of a son came where she could hear it. Her response was also a laugh, but one she thought nobody else knew about. It clearly did have an element of unbelief in it, since she tried to deny it. It was known to the Lord, however. Sarah's unbelieving question only drew from Him the great question, "Is anything too hard for the LORD?" Nothing was too hard. He had recently revealed Himself to her husband as "God Almighty," though she had not yet grasped it. Sarah did grasp it in time, or we would not have the statement: "By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive" (Hebrews 11:11).
Sarah calls Abraham "my lord." This verse is where that Hebrew word first appears in the Bible:
Adon (lord) first occurs in Genesis 18:12, where Sarah speaks of Abraham as "her lord." And 1 Peter 3:6 says, "as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord." This sense is acknowledged deference to the one addressed. The superiority may belong to a position within a relationship, as of a husband addressed by a wife, or of a servant to a master, or of a subject to a king. That is the common use.
The setting proves the sincerity. Nobody was meant to hear this:
It is clear from these words that Sarah's words as well as her laughter were within herself, that is, not spoken aloud. So Sarah's words "my lord," used of her husband, were not said out loud at the time. She only said them inside herself. What a proof, then! With her those words were not a meaningless confession of the lips. They came from the thoroughly submissive and obedient heart of a truly godly wife.
Read Genesis alone and Sarah looks like a failure here. Yet Hebrews lists her among people of faith. One writer faces the gap directly:
It is only in Hebrews 11 that we find mention of Sarah's faith. You look in vain in the Old Testament narrative for any evidence of faith on her part. How good it is to remember that God's eye can detect what we cannot! ... She laughed; and when the Lord spoke to her, she denied it. So the two things that marked her at that time were unbelief and untruthfulness. This seems most unpromising soil for any plant of faith to grow in; and yet God could see there the elements of a faith which in His sight was of great price.
Sarah's story does not end at the tent door. When the child arrives, the same word comes back with the opposite meaning. The older translation this writer used ends the verse "will laugh with me," and that is the sense he draws from it:
"And Sarah said, God has made laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh over me." She had laughed at first when Jehovah announced the set time for her to become a mother. She added the shame of untruth when charged with it (Genesis 18). But here grace changes everything. God, she owns, made her laugh now. It was no longer within herself, but from Him; and others who heard would share her joy.
- Inward. Sarah's laugh was silent and meant to stay silent. She weighed the promise by her own worn-out body, not by the glory of the One speaking.
- Inward, but heard. The Lord knew the laugh she thought was hidden, and her denial afterwards exposed the unbelief in it.
- Inward, and honest. She said "my lord" only in her heart. So it proves real submission, not a polite phrase for other people's ears.
- Inward, and sifted. Unbelief and untruthfulness marked her. Yet God's eye saw faith of great price there, and He recorded it.
- Inward turned outward. The private laugh of doubt became public joy at Isaac's birth. God made her laugh, and those who heard shared her joy.
And Jehovah said to Abraham, Why is this, that Sarah laughs, saying, Shall I indeed bear, when I am become old?
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
Is [any] matter too wonderful for Jehovah? At the time appointed I will return to thee, at [this] time of the year, and Sarah shall have a son.
A visitor at Abraham's tent has promised a son to a couple far too old for children. Sarah, listening behind the door, laughed. The reply she gets is not an argument but a question, and everything turns on who is asking it.
No one tells Abraham who his guest is. He hears it in the wording of the promise — words no ordinary man could use.
Perhaps it was then that the first word, showing the divine power of Him who chose to be there, fell on Abraham's attentive ear. "I will surely return to you." It does not suit man to talk of surely returning. Was this lost on Abraham? Of course not. His long-cherished hope was now to enjoy a promise with a stated and, I may say, dated fulfilment: "I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife shall have a son." If it seemed vague before, it was now clear and fixed.
Husband and wife hear the same sentence and react in opposite ways. The difference is not information but the weight each of them gives to the One speaking.
Abraham hears this great promise with a full sense of the glory of the One who speaks. So he shows no astonishment, raises no objections, and expresses no doubt. In sharp contrast, Sarah's faith and discernment are not equal to her husband's. She hears the words, but has little sense of the glory of the Speaker. She doubts them because of what she finds in herself... She is rebuked for her unbelief, and Abraham is reminded that nothing is too hard for the Lord, however impossible the promise looks on natural ground.
The question was not new truth. God had already given Abraham a name for Himself that answered it, and Sarah caught up later.
Sarah's unbelieving question only drew from Him the great question, "Is anything too hard for the LORD?" Nothing was too hard. He had just revealed Himself to her husband as "the Almighty God," though she had not grasped it yet. Jeremiah grasped it in his day (Jer. 32:17), and Sarah soon did too. Otherwise we would not read: "By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive" (Heb. 11:11).
The same challenge comes to Jeremiah, who buys a field in land the enemy already holds. He and Sarah stumble at the same point.
"Is anything too hard for the Lord?" is the Lord's challenge to Jeremiah on that occasion, as it is to Sarah in Genesis 18. Sarah did not know how she could have a child, for her body was then dead. She did not know the resurrection-strength of God. Jeremiah was spending his money on a piece of ground then held by the enemy. He did not know how he could ever get its value back, for, like Sarah, he did not know the resurrection-strength of God.
Power is only half the promise. The Lord also fixes the date, and the birth record shows He kept it.
Everything on man's side having broken down, we learn that the "set time of which God had spoken" has come and the promised heir is born. He is called Isaac, meaning "laughter"... Everything takes place in God's set time, and according to God's Word.
Sarah's laugh was silent, and she thought no one heard it. What follows exposes a second failure and names its cause.
But Sarah laughed in her disbelief. Then, once found out, she denied it: "I did not laugh." She denied it for the same reason that some of us may have had to blame ourselves for something no better. "She was afraid!" How often these sad departures from the truth come from nothing but a lack of moral courage! One thing would train the soul in unflinching and most careful truthfulness. It is what Abraham cultivated and Sarah failed in: being at home in the presence of God day by day.
Scripture's later verdict on Sarah mentions none of this. That silence is deliberate, and it turns the Lord's question into an invitation.
But all this makes the grace of God so marked and cheering. We find her early failures entirely forgotten, and only the later triumph recorded here. What undeniable proof that He loves to speak well of His own! "Is anything too hard for the LORD?" He overturned all the thoughts and reasonings of her mind. Her doubts and her evasions deepened her self-judgment. His own word carried its own convincing light. From then on she "considered Him faithful who had promised." May we not ask, Is anything too good for the Lord?
- Nothing hidden — Sarah laughed to herself, and He answered that laugh. Then fear pushed her into denial, a failure that came from not living in God's presence.
- Nothing too hard — the answer to the question is a name. He had already shown Himself to Abraham as the Almighty, and His strength is resurrection strength.
- Nothing vague — "I will surely return" is language no man can use. The promise moved from open-ended to dated.
- Nothing early — Isaac arrives at "the set time of which God had spoken," so power and timing are both His.
- Nothing too good — the record drops Sarah's doubts and keeps only her faith. So the question can be turned round and asked of His grace.
And Sarah denied, saying, I did not laugh; for she was afraid. And he said, No; but thou didst laugh.
Sarah laughed to herself behind the tent door. Then the Lord named that laughter out loud, and she denied it. Why would a woman standing this close to God's promise lie about what she felt?
The verse gives the reason for her lie: she was afraid. That failure is not hers alone.
But Sarah laughed in her disbelief. Then, convicted, she denied it, saying, "I did not laugh." She denied it for the same reason that some of us may have had to blame ourselves for doing the same. "She was afraid!" How often these sad departures from the truth come from nothing but the lack of moral courage! One thing trains the soul to be truthful without flinching: being at home in the presence of God, day after day. That is what Abraham cultivated, and what Sarah failed in.
Her laughter and her lie grow from one root.
There is also the laughter of unbelief. It fills our mouths when God's promises are too great for our narrow hearts to take in. Or when the visible means look too small, in our judgement, to carry out His grand designs... "But Sarah denied it, saying, 'I did not laugh,' for she was afraid." Unbelief makes us cowards and liars; faith makes us bold and truthful.
Her denial had a grain of truth in it. She had laughed in her heart, not out loud. That defence is what fails.
Charged with her unbelief, Sarah is ashamed to own the truth. As so often, fear of consequences leads to lying and deceit. She "denied, saying, I did not laugh." It may have been true that she did not laugh aloud. But she laughed in her heart. She has to learn that she is in the presence of One who can read the heart and see behind tent doors.
The God who reads the hidden heart does more than expose it.
As soon as Sarah knew that God could see her heart, she was afraid and said that she did not laugh. Such a lie is no use before God. So He said, "No, but you did laugh." Oh, friends! please remember that God can see your inner hearts. Yet He loves you. He wants to take away your sins and to give you everlasting life.
He contradicts her to her face. One writer weighs what that cost her afterwards.
In this particular case there was a lesson to be taught, and so God does not pass it by. He does not allow Sarah to simply say, "I did not laugh." So He says, "No, but you did laugh." His unmistakable voice brings the sin home. Oh, what a thought for Sarah afterwards, and how humbling! Not only did she lie — she dared to lie to God Himself. And her one meeting with Him left her this to reflect on! It was the last word that passed between her and God Himself.
Yet God corrects her with patience, and the lesson holds.
What a God we have to do with! What patience, long-suffering, goodness! and this with (not merely a human being, but) a child of His! And His way is to let a word from Him act on her conscience. Never do we hear of any repetition of the evil on Sarah's part. It was a lesson not to be forgotten, yet how gracious!
Here Sarah's record is unbelief and lying. God saw something else in her.
The heavenly visitors came to the door of Abraham's tent. Sarah was listening behind the door to the astounding promise the Lord was giving to Abraham... She laughed; and when the Lord spoke to her, she denied it. So the two things that marked her at that time were unbelief and untruthfulness. This seems most unpromising soil for any plant of faith to grow in. Yet God could see there the makings of a faith that in His sight was of great price.
What God later recorded of her shows how He treats the failures of His own.
All this makes the grace of God stand out and cheer us. He completely forgets these early failures, and records only the later triumph here. How undeniable the proof that He loves to speak well of His own!... Her doubts, her evasions, deepened her self-judgment. His own word carried its own convincing light. From then on she counted the One who had promised to be faithful.
- Fear. The verse names the motive itself: she lied because she was afraid. Departures from truth often come from nothing worse than a lack of moral courage.
- Cover. She had not laughed aloud, so her denial had cover. It still failed before One who reads the heart and sees behind tent doors.
- Confrontation. God will not let the half-truth stand. He answers her outright, and His own unmistakable voice brings the sin home.
- Grace. The rebuke carries no harsh word, and the evil is never repeated. His way is to let one word from Him act on the conscience.
- Record. Unbelief and lying looked like unpromising soil. Yet God kept only the later triumph on record — He loves to speak well of His own.