Genesis 21:1-7

Isaac is Born, Fulfilling the Promises of God
Or
How to Really Begin a Never-Ending Story


With these 8 verses, the past 10 chapters of Genesis come to a culmination that Abraham and Sarah often thought would never come to pass. God has finally blessed them with the arrival of their first child, a son named Isaac. This was a birth backed by decades of prophecy declaring the event, but no actual child had yet been born to fulfill those prophecies. Sarah and Abraham had battled their individual and collective doubting during this whole process, calling God’s knowledge and their own physical ability into question.

However, the writer of Hebrews counts these two as faithful believers in God, 100 and 90 years of age respectively. Their experiences throughout the past 30 years of their lives reads like a best-selling novel or some well-written narrative history. Few of us would ever hope to be called to such a life, but maybe we would be the better for such a journey, across physical terrain as well as the physical and spiritual terrain of faith. And that, to me, is what sets Abraham and Sarah apart, why they are counted as righteous – they kept walking and following God, even though they didn’t often really believe. As I’ve said before, belief often implies reliance upon a set of understood and accepted facts, while faith needs none of that, often doubting the conventional wisdom.

Annotated Chronology:
1) Abram and Sarai leave their homeland with their family (Genesis 11:27-32);
2) Abram hears promises from God that he and Sarai will be the parents of a great nation (Genesis 12:1-4);
3) They leave their family to embark on a map-less and direction-less trek across the desert (Genesis 12:5-9);
4) Lot, Abram’s nephew and their only family, leaves them (Genesis 13:1-18);
5) More promises are made by God about that son who will supposedly start off this great nation (Genesis 15:1-21);
6) Ishmael is born to Abram and Sarai by a surrogate mother named Hagar, Sarai’s handmaiden, causing great trouble in the household (Genesis 16:1-16);
7) God initiates the covenant with Abraham, including definite promises and the details of circumcision, the means by which God has decided that the Jews will be physically set aside as God’s children (Genesis 17:1-14);
8) God changes both of their names – Abram becomes Abraham and Sarai becomes Sarah (Genesis 17:5, 15);
9) God reiterates the promise of the birth of a son, to be named Isaac, causing Abraham to laugh in disbelief, due to both of their advanced ages (Genesis 17:15-21);
10) God again delivers these promises in person, coming in human form as a theophany and accompanied by two angelic companions, causing Sarah to laugh in disbelief at such a pronouncement (Genesis 18:1-15);
11) Abraham is told about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, whereby Abraham decides to barters with God for the salvation of the city based upon the righteous in those 2 cities, as his nephew Lot and his family is living in Sodom (Genesis 18:16-33);
12) Sodom and Gomorrah are destroyed, though God honors Abraham by making sure that Lot and his family are saved, though they seemed quite reluctant to be rescued (Genesis 19:1-38).

“The Lord visited Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did to Sarah as he had promised. And Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age at the time of which God had spoken to him. Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him, whom Sarah bore him, Isaac. And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight years old, as God had commanded him. Abraham was one hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. And Sarah said, ‘God has made laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh over me.’ And she said, ‘Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.’” (Genesis 21:1-8, ESV)

“The Birth of Isaac. The report of Isaac’s birth concludes the story begun with Sarah’s barrenness (11:27-32). The covenantal arrangement is underscored: God kept his promise to give Abraham a son through Sarah (vv. 1-2; 17:1-6, 15-16; 18:1-15), and Abraham obeyed the Lord by naming him Isaac (v. 3; 17:16) and by circumcising him (v. 4-5; 17:9-14), while Sarah responded with praise (v. 6-7). This episode illustrates God’s faithfulness to his promise to make Abraham’s descendents numerous.” (Spirit of the Reformation Study Bible: NIV, p45)

“How mystical is the process of birthing children! God opens Sarah’s womb. Sarah conceives and gives birth to a child. Abraham provides his seed and names him. All three acts – opening the channel of life, nurturing and sending the child forth, giving the child an identity – are equally essential to the child’s development; and they are only the beginning. It has been said that it takes a whole village to raise a child. Actually, it takes the whole world.” (Frankel, p27-28)


What we should realize throughout this “review” of the past several chapters is that the promises of God will always be fulfilled and come to pass, no matter how long it might take. Abraham and Sarah heard God declared many things to them, in dreams, visions, and in person for nearly 30 years, with things never coming to pass in the ways that they though would be best or expedient. All through the Old and New Testament, God never follows humanity’s timetable, quite often doing whatever it takes to break down humanity’s reliance upon its own abilities and turn their attention to God. But no matter what happens, whenever God makes a promise (or, in Biblical terminology, creates a covenant), the terms of that promise always come to pass.