Bible Strands
Genesis 21:5
Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The narrator places this chronological marker immediately after Abraham circumcises Isaac at eight days old and before Sarah’s spoken reaction. It fixes the birth in the patriarchal timeline without dialogue or direct address.
The words — מְאַת (me.'At) means "one hundred," paired with שָׁנָ֑ה (sha.Nah) meaning "year[s]." Together they state the exact age at the moment of Isaac’s birth.
The thread — The age of one hundred surfaces again in Genesis 17:17 when Abraham laughs at the prospect of fathering a child at that age, and in Romans 4:19 where Paul notes Abraham’s body was about a hundred years old. Genesis 17:1 records Abram as ninety-nine when God first appears, showing the timeline’s progression toward the stated number.
Why it lands — The verse requires the reader to track the fulfillment of a specific chronological promise against human biological limits. It marks the birth as a completed event tied to a fixed age, not a future possibility.
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 Abraham was an hundred years old, when his son Isaac was born unto him.
Cross-references
- Genesis 17:17 Abraham fell facedown. Then he laughed and said to himself, “Can a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Can Sarah give birth at the age of ninety?”
- Genesis 17:1 When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to him and said, “I am God Almighty. Walk before Me and be blameless.
- Romans 4:19 Without weakening in his faith, he acknowledged the decrepitness of his body (since he was about a hundred years old) and the lifelessness of Sarah’s womb.