CRITICAL NOTES.—
Genesis 18:9. In the tent.] In the women’s apartments.
Genesis 18:10. I will certainly return unto thee.] Heb. Returning I will return. An emphatic form of affirmation. According to the time of life.] Heb. According to the living time. “A singularly ambiguous phrase, upon which a great variety of interpretations has been grafted. The most probable of these is that of the Persic version,—“According to the time of that which is born, or the birth, i.e., according to the time necessary for the production of the living child, or at the end of nine months. This is, perhaps, confirmed by ch. Genesis 21:2.” (Bush.) Generally understood to mean, when the year, now passing away, again revives, i.e., during the next year. Sarah heard it in the tent-door, which was behind him.] Heb. In the entrance of the tent, and it was behind him. “The notice is apparently inserted to signify that the opening of the tent was behind the speaker, and consequently unseen by him.” (Alford.)
Genesis 18:12. My lord.] A title of honour applied to her husband. Referred to in N.T. as an example to married women (1 Peter 3:6).
Genesis 18:13. The Lord.] One of the three is Jehovah, who had appeared to Abraham.
Genesis 18:14. Is anything too hard for the Lord?] Heb. Is any word too wonderful for Jehovah? The very words used by the LXX. here are quoted by St. Luke in the speech of the angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary (Luke 1:37).
Genesis 18:15. She was afraid.] With amazement St. Peter indirectly reflects upon her conduct (1 Peter 3:6). To bring them on the way.] The two-fold idea is involved of dismissing and accompanying.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Genesis 18:9-15
THE CONFLICT BETWEEN FEAR AND FAITH
God had, hitherto, dealt with Abraham alone; now he deals with Sarah, as one of the parties to the Covenant. Abraham’s faith was marked by some infirmity; and so is Sarah’s in the present instance, but arising from a different cause. Her faith betrayed that weakness which comes of fear. The conflict between faith and fear, and the reasons of it are illustrated here.
I. The things promised to faith are difficult of belief. The Lord promised that Sarah herself should have a son. She received that announcement with mirthful incredulity. The thing was not to be thought of. How could the impossibilities of nature be overcome? (Genesis 18:11-12). That she should become a mother, was like calling the dead back to life. She was not really indisposed to believe what God had promised, still her thought was entirely directed to natural means. She was not ready to resign herself to a miracle. The world was old enough, and her experience was long enough to produce in her a fixed belief in the constancy of the course of nature. Faith in a course of things above and beyond nature, she had not yet fully realised. The things promised seemed too good to be true, and even impossible of accomplishment.
1. It is necessary that faith should be thus tried by difficulty. If all is clear, and obvious, and easy, and present, it is quite impossible to exercise faith. In our present condition, we cannot walk by sight, for our knowledge is imperfect. If, therefore, we are to have an aim or a purpose beyond this present life, we must trust where we cannot see, and believe where we cannot demonstrate. The things God promises to faith are contrary to our present experience. We have no proof of them which commends itself to our ordinary reason. Faith stands to us instead of verification, and is its own proof.
2. We must be cast entirely upon the word of God. Nature may seem to be against us—and the possibilities of things, and human hopes—but our faith must surmount all.
II. Faith may, for awhile, be quite paralysed by fear. In a sincere mind, this very difficulty of belief may produce a fear which may perplex and trouble us. This was Sarah’s case. Sudden fear tempted her to dissemble. She lost her presence of mind, and her guileless simplicity, and integrity (Genesis 18:15). St. Peter, who holds her up as an example to godly matrons, hints at her infirmity, and suggests that she was “afraid with amazement” (1 Peter 3:6).
1. In sincere souls this condition is only momentary. For a brief space faith endures a kind of suspended animation, but it has strength enough to recover. Fear is salutary when it is the instrument of caution, the guide of circumspection; but when it produces paleness and dread, it may serve for the time to overwhelm every other feeling. But if there is a real and loving desire towards God, the soul returns to sobriety, and faith lays hold on God.
2. To accept God at His word would save us from all foolish wonder. That which God promises may be amazing in itself, but if we accept His word simply, we are saved from that kind of wonder in which the mind loses itself, and by which effort is rendered impossible. True faith readily fastens upon the ultimate mystery, and therefore is amazed at nothing else. In this regard, “All things are possible to him that believeth.”
III. God graciously grants power to overcome the fear. There is much forgiven to faith, if it is only real, at bottom, and in any way lays hold upon God. He will pardon its infirmities and repair its weaknesses. This he did in Sarah’s case.
1. By mild reproof. “And the Lord said unto Abraham, Wherefore did Sarah laugh, saying, Shall I of a surety bear a child, which am old?” (Genesis 18:13). This reproof is mixed with that tenderness which, while it chides, at the same time has a loving purpose, and raises up them that fall. God’s reproofs to His children are but loving corrections.
2. By recognising the good which is mixed up with our infirmity. Sarah is commended for “doing well,” and is held up as a model of matronly simplicity and subjection. She found favour in the sight of Him who is not easily provoked, and “who knoweth our frame, and remembereth that we are dust.”
3. By repeating His promises. The promise made in Genesis 18:10 is repeated in Genesis 18:14. It was doubted, and therefore is now renewed with additional force. After faith has triumphed, over doubt, it is as if the word of God was again spoken to us. His promises have, as it were, the freshness of a new creation.
4. By casting us upon His own omnipotence. “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” (Genesis 18:14). This is the great refuge of faith when perplexed by apparent impossibilities. The thought of God’s infinite power should put all our doubt to flight. Unbelief loses sight of the Divine omnipotence. True faith is supported by a power which cannot be baffled, or turned aside from its gracious purpose.
“The voice that rolls the stars along,
Speaks all the promises.”
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Genesis 18:9. It is now the question, not of the chief personage, but of the group of guests—a question which, in the East, from a stranger, would be regarded as impertinent, if not insulting, in our time; but in that day there was altogether more of dignified freedom and ease among the women, and such an inquiry would not be so regarded. Abraham must have been greatly surprised at this mention of his wife’s name, with an inquiry after her, if he had not already recognised the Angel of the Covenant as one of strangers. Sarah was inside the tent, but near the entrance or doorway, where she could hear.—(Jacobus.)
When God inquires of us, the intent is to summon our attention and not to inform Himself. We cannot instruct Omniscience.
Behold, in the tent. David compares a good woman to the vines upon the walls of the house, because she cleaveth to her house. Others to a snail, that carrieth her house on her back. St Paul reckons it for a virtue in a woman to “keep at home” (Titus 2:5); and Solomon, for a sign of a lewd housewife, that “her feet abide not in her house” (Proverbs 7:11). Among the Grecians, the bride was carried through the streets in a chariot, the axletree was burnt, to signify that she must keep home.—(Trapp.)
Genesis 18:10. In the former verses the speaker did not make Himself known, but now there can be no doubt as to who He really is. The very nature of the communication now made implies self-determination and supreme authority. They are surely not the words of an ambassador, but of a sovereign. The personal God stands revealed in His word; and if we are faithful we shall at length know Himself by its means.
God’s communications to man are marked—
1. By positiveness and self-assertion. He speaks as the fountain of authority—as one who is able to accomplish His will against all difficulties. “I will certainly return unto thee.”
2. By that Sovereignty which commands all time and events. God is not bound by the conditions of time as we are, but stands above and beyond it. He speaks of things that are not as though they were. In the eye of faith His word is equal to the event—the thing promised.
Sarah heard it in the tent door, which was behind him. He probably sat in such a manner relatively to the door of Sarah’s tent that His back was turned towards it, so that if He had been a mere man He could not have noticed the fact of her laughing. That He was aware of it showed His Omniscience.
“The form of Abraham’s tent, as thus described, seems to have been exactly like the one in which we sat; for in both there was a shaded open front, in which he could sit in the heat of the day, and yet be seen from afar off; and the apartment of the females, where Sarah was when he stated her to be within the tent, was immediately behind this, wherein she prepared the meal for the guests, and from whence she listened to their prophetic declaration.”—(Buckingham—Bush.)
That discovery of ourselves—of what is in our inmost souls, which we find in the word of God, is one of the indications of its heavenly origin. The claim of Jesus to Divinity is in no small degree attested by the fact that He knew what was in man” (John 2:25).
Genesis 18:11. This statement is made to call attention to the miraculous nature of the promise. There is a Living Will above and beyond this present and visible course of things. Without faith in this, the outward universe is but a mere machine.
It should not be thought a thing incredible for God to bring new life to those who were as good as dead. Such a miracle is witnessed now when souls are born again. It is when we are literally “without strength” that God’s grace is omnipotent to help and save (Romans 5:6).
There must be a complete wreck of all human hopes before we are willing to cast ourselves entirely upon God. We must be taught that God is all in all. In the Divine education of humanity men have been made to feel the necessity for God’s interference. Before Christ came some of the great nations of antiquity had perished, and even Rome itself was fast hastening to decay, The world had outlived all its hopes. Then the Saviour appeared, and his fulness answered to man’s emptiness.
Genesis 18:12. God’s promises seem absurd and ridiculous, many of them, to human reason, which therefore must be silenced and shut out, as Hagar was; for it will argue carnally as that unbelieving lord (2 Kings 7:2) storms at God’s offers; as Naaman at the message (2 Kings 5:11) looks upon God’s Jordan with Syrian eyes, as he, and after all, cries out with Nicodemus, “How can these things be (John 3:4)? measuring God by its own model, and casting Him into its own mould.—(Trapp.)
Sarah’s laughter was that of incredulity. She had human reason on her side. It was the laughter of rationalism, declaring that impossible which it is unwilling to believe.
Sarah’s laughter was yet but a momentary feeling, not indicative of a habit of life. Hence it fell short of the impious and profane. She laid too much stress upon the necessity of natural means, and failed to give God His true glory.
Abraham and Sarah did not more agree in their desire than differ in their affection. Abraham laughed becaused he believed it would be so, Sarah because she believed it could not be so.—(Bishop Hall.)
My lord being old also. This passage, taken in connection with another which contains an allusion to it, affords a striking proof how ready God is to mark whatever is good in our actions, while He casts a veil over the evil with which it is accompanied. At the very time that Sarah yielded to unbelief she exercised a reverential regard for her husband, and this fact is recorded to her honour by the Apostle Peter, and proposed as an example to all married women, while the infirmity that she betrayed on the same occasion is passed over in silence (1 Peter 3:5-6). The Scriptures afford numerous instances in which God has manifested the same condescension to His frail and sinful creatures. The existence of “some good thing towards the Lord” even avails, as in the case of young Abijah (1 Kings 14:13), to turn away the eye of Jehovah from manifold imperfections in other respects. This is a great encouragement to us amidst all the weakness that we feel; and we may be assured that if, on the one hand, the evils of our hearts will be disclosed, so, on the other, there is not a good purpose or inclination that shall not be made manifest and abundantly rewarded in the great day.—(Bush.)
Genesis 18:13. The speaker is here disclosed as “Jehovah—the Lord” who had appeared unto Abraham (Genesis 18:1).
It would serve to bring home the reproof to Sarah’s mind to find that her husband was called to account for her fault.
The wife’s sin reflects upon the husband. But Solomon shows that some wives are so intemperate and wilful that a man may as well hide the wind in his fist or oil in his hand as restrain them from ill-doing (Proverbs 27:15-16).—(Trapp.)
We have to bear the burdens and infirmities of those who are partakers with us of the same promises.
Genesis 18:14. Sarah laughed within herself, within the tent and behind the speaker; yet to her surprise her internal feelings are known to Him. She finds there is One present who rises above the sphere of nature.—(Murphy.)
The thought of God’s power ought to silence every objection arising from apparent impossibilities. We have sufficient examples of His power to encourage us to hope in His Word. He formed the universe out of nothing by a simple act of His will. He still preserves the whole course of nature. He supplies the wants of every living creature upon earth. Did we but reflect upon the miracle of creation alone, we could never indulge in that unbelief which calls the power of God in question.
When all human hope is lost, and nature seems to bind us fast as with an iron destiny, we may well comfort ourselves with the thought: “Is anything too hard for the Lord?”
At the time appointed I will return. It is humiliating to think what a necessity our unbelief imposes upon God to impart and renew His promises to us; and the earnestness with which the promise so often given is here repeated, shows the just displeasure which Sarah’s incredulity had excited in the bosom of God. We cannot, indeed, but be filled with amazement that He did not rather say, “Since you treat My promises with secret derision, you shall never be made partaker of them.” But God well knows the weakness of the human heart, and therefore deals tenderly with offenders. Were He to suffer our unbelief to make void His truth, no one of His promises would ever be fulfilled. But He has assured us that this shall not be the case; and if anything will put to shame our unbelief, surely this will. Such condescension and compassion cannot but prevail upon us more forcibly than a thousand menaces.—(Bush.)
The repeated lessons of instruction and words of promise which are found in Scripture bear witness to human infirmity—to our slowness of heart to believe and receive what God has spoken.
Genesis 18:15. In her confusion and terror she denies that she laughed. But He who sees what is within insists that she did laugh, at least in the thought of her heart. There is a beautiful simplicity in the whole scene. Sarah now doubtless received faith and strength to conceive.—(Murphy).
Fear perverts the moral perceptions, and tempts us to shelter ourselves under unworthy subterfuges.
Sarah had not laughed outwardly, with visible contempt and derision, but she could not cover up her sin from God. He can detect what is evil in us, however it may be disguised by outward propriety.
This brief and sharp reproof was yet like the wound of a friend, which is faithful. It was in mercy, not in anger, that her secret sin was detected and reproved. We hear no more of her unbelief after this reproof. Her faith was hereby confirmed and established, and became the very instrument for the accomplishing of that promise which she once disbelieved (Hebrews 11:11).
We ought to be grateful for the fidelity of those friends who reprove us, and for the rebukes of our own conscience. We should accept these, as if the Lord had spoken.
If we only consider what is that perfect knowledge which God has of us, all unworthy fear would be driven from our hearts. We should then have only one object of amazement and wonder. Nothing else could make us afraid.
Let us be careful that God never sees in our countenance the smile of distrust, the sneer of derision at His promises, His precepts, His people. The profane joke, the contemptuous epithet, the supercilious sneer, the open ridicule, the downright mockery of the saints, are all registered. “Nay, but thou didst laugh,” will continue to awaken new pains of remorse in the soul of the scorner when he and laughter shall have long been strangers, and when tears, and sighing, and mourning shall have become his portion; for of laughter such as this the word of God has pronounced: “The end of that mirth is heaviness;” “Woe unto you that laugh now, for ye shall mourn and weep.”—(Bush.)
She was afraid. And well she might; for as every body hath its shadow, so hath every sin its fear. She laughed, but within herself, but as good she might have laughed out aloud; for God searcheth the heart. “I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying when I was in my country?”
(Jonah 4:2). No, Jonah, it was not thy saying, it was only thy thinking; but that is all one before Him who “understandeth thy thoughts afar off” (Psalms 139:2).—(Trapp.)