Bible Strands
Genesis 21:1
Now the LORD attended to Sarah as He had said, and the LORD did for Sarah what He had promised.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — No speaker; the narrator states that Yahweh acted on Sarah in direct fulfillment of His prior promise (Gen 18:10, 14). This is the hinge between promise and birth, immediately followed by Sarah conceiving (Gen 21:2).
The words — פָּקַד (pa.Kad), "he visited," carries the sense of a sovereign, purposeful intervention—not a passive occurrence but a deliberate act of God toward a specific person. The particle כָּאֲשֶׁר (ka.'a.Sher), "just as," marks the exactness of the fulfillment to the word spoken.
The thread — The promise this verse fulfills appears in Genesis 18:10 and 18:14, where Yahweh fixes a timeframe and names Sarah. The reliability of God's words as the standard is echoed in Psalms 12:6.
Why it lands — The verse forces a reader to confront whether they treat God's spoken word as merely informative or as causally effective. It asks whether one will wait for the "just as" to hold, or assume the promise has lapsed.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
And the Lord visited Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did unto Sarah as he had spoken.
Cross-references
- Psalms 12:6 The words of the LORD are flawless, like silver refined in a furnace, like gold purified sevenfold.
- Genesis 18:10 Then the LORD said, “I will surely return to you at this time next year, and your wife Sarah will have a son!” Now Sarah was behind him, listening at the entrance to the tent.
- Genesis 18:14 Is anything too difficult for the LORD? At the appointed time I will return to you—in about a year—and Sarah will have a son.”
- Genesis 17:19 But God replied, “Your wife Sarah will indeed bear you a son, and you are to name him Isaac. I will establish My covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him.
- Galatians 4:23 His son by the slave woman was born according to the flesh, but his son by the free woman was born through the promise.
- 1 Samuel 2:21 So the LORD attended to Hannah, and she conceived and gave birth to three sons and two daughters. Meanwhile, the boy Samuel grew up in the presence of the LORD.
- Matthew 24:35 Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will never pass away.
- Titus 1:2 in the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began.
- Ruth 1:6 When Naomi heard in Moab that the LORD had attended to His people by providing them with food, she and her daughters-in-law prepared to leave the land of Moab.
- Romans 4:17 As it is written: “I have made you a father of many nations.” He is our father in the presence of God, in whom he believed, the God who gives life to the dead and calls into being what does not yet exist.