And she said, Who would have said to Abraham, Sarah will suckle children? For I have borne [him] a son in his old age.
Sarah asks a question nobody could have answered: who would ever have said that she would nurse a child? She answers it herself, by pointing to the son born to Abraham in his old age.
Nobody Would Have Said It
Her question has only one possible answer, and it is not a human one.
Her faith sees and owns that the birth of the son is wholly of God. It lies completely outside the thoughts of man. So she asks, "Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children?" This was impossible to nature, so no man would have said it. Only God would have said it; and only One who is Almighty could carry out what He said.
Life Out Of Deadness
Sarah's phrase "in his old age" is the point of the whole sentence. Both parents were past the age of having children. So the birth came by a power that works where nature has stopped.
What was impossible for man happened, and Isaac was born. We may say it came on the principle of resurrection: a living child from parents who, as far as having children went, were dead. Now Sarah could laugh indeed, and feel that all others would laugh with her. This time her laughter held no unbelief. It was a note of triumph in what the power of God had done.
The Faith God Saw In Her
The Genesis story never tells us that Sarah believed. Hebrews 11:11 does, and it rests on one settled conviction.
Here, centuries after Moses wrote, the Spirit of God put on record what He saw in her. It was faith about something that in nature would have seemed impossible: "She judged Him faithful who had promised" (Hebrews 11:11). That is a fine reason for faith. With her it was not, Can it be? but, He had said it, so it shall be. She rested in this on the word of her God alone. For who before her had become a mother at ninety?
Sarah's own strength was not the resource. What she had given up hoping for, God supplied.
When God has spoken, do we not judge Him faithful, and expect Him to fully carry out what He has promised? Will He not also give the necessary strength for whatever purpose He may see fit to use us? … Mere natural hope was dead, so that long before this she had given up any such expectation. So God teaches that He alone is the true Resource of His saints.
From Laughing In Doubt To Laughing In Joy
Abraham gave the boy his name. Sarah is the one who unfolds what God meant by it.
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. And so, if Abraham gives the name to his son, Sarah needs no prophet, but explains the mind of God in it for herself, and forever.
Grace leaves her not just glad, but wise.
From now on Sarah, old as she was, has become a child of wisdom; and wisdom is proved right by all her children.
Faith's Long Wait
Abraham was a hundred before the promise arrived. One commentator sees in that long wait a picture of a much longer one.
Faith — Abraham's faith — had waited long, until he was 100 years old. Yet grace, seen in Sarah, bore the fruit that God had promised at last. This pictures how believers all through the Old Testament waited for centuries. Then the grace of God came to its full and beautiful fruit in the birth of the Lord Jesus. What an answer to their patient waiting in faith!
Summary
- Impossible. No man would have said Sarah would nurse a child. Only God said it, and only the Almighty could carry it out.
- Dead. Both parents were past having children. Isaac came on the principle of resurrection: life where nature had nothing left to give.
- Faithful. Sarah's faith was not "Can it be?" but "He said it, so it shall be." She judged God faithful, and He gave the strength she no longer had.
- Laughter. The woman who once laughed in unbelief now explains God's mind in her son's name. That is what grace does with old weakness and shame.
- Waited. Faith waited until Abraham was a hundred, and grace then bore the promised fruit — long waiting answered at last in the birth of the Lord Jesus.