And Abraham was an hundred years old, when his son Isaac was born unto him.
Ver. 5. And Abraham was a hundred years old.] After twenty years' praying, and waiting the fulfilling of the promise; besides thirteen of those years' silence, for aught we read, after the promise of a child. This was a sore trial; but God knew him to be armour of proof, and therefore tried him thus with musket-shot. Well might the apostle say, "Ye have need of patience, that after ye have done the will of God," and suffered it too, "ye might receive the promise". Heb 10:36 The "spoiling of their goods" required patience: but this waiting much more. Good men find it easier to bear evil, than to wait till the promised good be enjoyed. This waiting is nothing but hope and trust lengthened; which they that cannot do, like children, they pull apples afore they are ripe, a and have worms bred of them; as those hasty Ephraimites, that set upon the Philistines, and were slain in Gath. They had indeed a promise of the land, but the time was not yet come. They were weary of the Egyptian bondage, and would have thus got out; but they were too hasty. Fugientes ergo fumum, incidebant in ignem. 1Ch 7:21-22 Psa 78:9
a Importuno tempore poma decerpunt. - Cyprian. See my Love-tokens, p. 94.