Bible Strands
Genesis 21:7
She added, “Who would have told Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.”
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Sarah speaks after her declaration in verse 6, occurring before the weaning feast detailed in verse 8. The text does not specify her audience, only that she adds a statement regarding her miraculous childbirth.
The words — The Hebrew מִי (mi) translates literally as "who?" and הֵינִיקָה (hei.Ni.kah) means "she has suckled." These terms frame Sarah's rhetorical question about nursing children in old age.
The thread — The theme of unexpected birth in advanced age appears in Genesis 18:11, which notes Sarah had passed the age of childbearing, and Isaiah 66:8, which asks how a nation can be born in a single day.
Why it lands — The verse demands recognition that the promised offspring arrived despite biological impossibility, requiring the reader to account for divine intervention in human history.
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 she said, Who would have said unto Abraham, that Sarah should have given children suck? for I have born him a son in his old age.
Cross-references
- Genesis 18:11 And Abraham and Sarah were already old and well along in years; Sarah had passed the age of childbearing.
- Isaiah 66:8 Who has heard of such as this? Who has seen such things? Can a country be born in a day or a nation be delivered in an instant? Yet as soon as Zion was in labor, she gave birth to her children.
- Numbers 23:23 For there is no spell against Jacob and no divination against Israel. It will now be said of Jacob and Israel, ‘What great things God has done!’
- Deuteronomy 4:32 Indeed, ask now from one end of the heavens to the other about the days that long preceded you, from the day that God created man on earth: Has anything as great as this ever happened or been reported?
- Ephesians 3:10 His purpose was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms,
- 2 Thessalonians 1:10 on the day He comes to be glorified in His saints and regarded with wonder by all who have believed, including you who have believed our testimony.
- Psalms 86:8 O Lord, there is none like You among the gods, nor any works like Yours.
- Psalms 86:10 For You are great and perform wonders; You alone are God.
- Isaiah 49:21 Then you will say in your heart, ‘Who has begotten these for me? I was bereaved and barren; I was exiled and rejected. So who has reared them? Look, I was left all alone, so where did they come from?’”