sterile (as if extirpated in the generative organs) · adjective, feminine singular absolute
child
וָלָֽדva.Lad
H2056
a boy · noun, common masculine singular absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Genesis 15:2-3 And Abram said, Lord GOD, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus?
Genesis 16:1-2 Now Sarai Abram’s wife bare him no children: and she had an handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar.
Genesis 18:11-12 Now Abraham and Sarah were old and well stricken in age; and it ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women.
Genesis 21:1-2 And the LORD visited Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did unto Sarah as he had spoken.
Genesis 25:21 And Isaac intreated the LORD for his wife, because she was barren: and the LORD was intreated of him, and Rebekah his wife conceived.
Genesis 29:31 And when the LORD saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb: but Rachel was barren.
Genesis 30:1-2 And when Rachel saw that she bare Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister; and said unto Jacob, Give me children, or else I die.
Judges 13:2 And there was a certain man of Zorah, of the family of the Danites, whose name was Manoah; and his wife was barren, and bare not.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Genesis 11:27–end
Here begins the story of Abram, whose name is famous, henceforward, in both Testaments. We have here,
I. His country: Ur of the Chaldees. This was the land of his nativity, an idolatrous country, where even the children of Eber themselves had degenerated. Note, Those who are, through grace, heirs of the land of promise, ought to remember what was the land of their nativity, what was their corrupt and sinful state by nature, the rock out of which they were hewn.
II. His relations, mentioned for his sake, and because of their interest in the following story. 1. His father was Terah, of whom it is said (Jos 24:2) that he served other gods, on the other side of the flood, so early did idolatry g…
Ur--now Orfa; that is, "light," or "fire." Its name probably derived from its being devoted to the rites of fire-worship. Terah and his family were equally infected with that idolatry as the rest of the inhabitants (Jos 24:15).
Adam Clarke on Genesis 11:29
Milcah, the daughter of Haran - Many suppose Sarai and Iscah are the same person under two different names; but this is improbable, as Iscah is expressly said to be the daughter of Haran, and Sarai was the daughter of Terah, and half sister of Abram.
John Gill on Genesis 11:30
But Sarai was barren; she had no child. Aben Ezra observes, there are some that say that Abraham was impotent, and not Sarai barren; the very reverse of the Scriptures; but as he rightly adds, his son Ishmael and his sons by Keturah show the contrary, see Genesis 15:2.
John Calvin on Genesis 11:30
But Sarai was barren. Not only does he say that Abram was without children, but he states the reasons namely, the sterility of his wife; in order to show that it was by nothing short of an extraordinary miracle that she afterwards bare Isaac, as we shall declare more fully in its proper place. Thus was God pleased to humble his servant; and we cannot doubt that Abram would suffer severe pain through this privation. He sees the wicked springing up everywhere, in great numbers, to cover the earth; he alone is deprived of children. And although hitherto he was ignorant of his own future vocation; yet God designed in his person, as in a mirror, to make it evident, whence and in what manner his C…
The Church Fathers
But Sarai was barren and had no children. By the counsel of Divine Providence, it happened that she was barren in her youth, so that in her old age, by bearing the son of promise, she might symbolize the holy Church, to whom it is said, "Rejoice, O barren woman who does not bear" (Galatians IV, 27), and so on. For it was fitting that she, who in the figure of unique faith and our hope was to bear one son of promise, should give birth to him not in Chaldea, nor in Mesopotamia, but in the land of promise.
WHEN WAS ABRAHAM ESTABLISHED IN THE LAND OF CANAAN? — How is it that the Scripture says that Terah, the father of Abram, fathered Abram at the age of seventy and then remained with all his people in Harran and lived two hundred and five years in Harran and died, and that the Lord commanded Abram to come out of Harran, (Cf. Gen. 12:1-4) and he went out, Abraham being seventy-five years old? The answer would be that the Scripture says as a recapitulation that the Lord spoke while Terah was still alive, Abram left Harran, according to the command of the Lord, at the age of seventy-five years, when his father was one hundred and forty-five, if the years of his father's life were two hundred and five, so it is written that the years of Terah's life were two hundred and five in Harran, because he lived all his years there. The question, therefore, is solved by way of recapitulation; for it would remain unresolved if we consider that after the death of Terah the Lord commanded Abram to leave Harran because he could not be only seventy-five years old when his father died, who begat him at seventy, so Abram would be a hundred and thirty years old, after the death of his father, if all that he lived were two hundred and five. In summary, if one takes into account this type of recapitulation that Scripture uses, many problems that otherwise appear mysterious are solved, as we have said above with respect to other questions that we have also solved by appealing to it (recapitulation). However, there are others who solve the problem differently, saying that Abram's years of life are calculated from the moment he was released from the fire of the Chaldeans, in which he was cast out for not worshiping it (the fire) according to their superstition. And although the Scripture does not say that he was freed from that fire, we recall it from Jewish tradition. The problem may be solved as follows: The text that says: When Terah was seventy-five years old he begot Abram, Nahor, and Haran, (Gen. 11:26) it does not mean, of course, that he begat all three at the age of seventy; the Scripture recalls the year from which he began to have children. But it may be that Abram was later begotten, and because of his excellency, which is frequently advanced in Scripture, he was mentioned earlier, just as the prophet first mentioned the younger one: I loved Jacob and hated Esau (Mal.…
Dictionary and topics
Barren — For a woman to be barren was accounted a severe punishment among the Jews (Gen. 16:2; 30:1-23; 1 Sam. 1:6, 27; Isa. 47:9; 49:21; Luke 1:25). Instances of barrenness are noticed (Gen. 11:30; 25:21;…
Child — This word has considerable latitude of meaning in Scripture. Thus Joseph is called a child at the time when he was probably about sixteen years of age (Gen. 37:3); and Benjamin is so called when he…
Grove — (1.) Heb. ‘asherah, properly a wooden image, or a pillar representing Ashtoreth, a sensual Canaanitish goddess, probably usually set up in a grove (2 Kings 21:7; 23:4). In the Revised Version the…
Mesopotamia — The country between the two rivers (Heb. Aram-naharaim; i.e., “Syria of the two rivers”), the name given by the Greeks and Romans to the region between the Euphrates and the Tigris (Gen. 24:10; Deut.…
Nahor — Snorting. (1.) The father of Terah, who was the father of Abraham (Gen. 11:22-25; Luke 3:34). (2.) A son of Terah, and elder brother of Abraham (Gen. 11:26, 27; Josh. 24:2, R.V.). He married Milcah,…
Plains — This one term does duty in the Authorized Version for no less than seven distinct Hebrew words.
Terah — The wanderer; loiterer, for some unknown reason emigrated with his family from his native mountains in the north to the plains of Mesopotamia. He had three sons, Haran, Nahor, and Abraham, and one…
Genealogy · To Abraham — To Abraham
Haran · 1. Father of Lot and brother of Abraham — 1. Father of Lot and brother of Abraham
Sarah · .Wife of Abraham — .Wife of Abraham
Terah · The father of Abraham — The father of Abraham
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
The genealogical data in Gen 11:27-32 prepare the way for the history of the patriarchs. The heading, "These are the generations of Terah," belongs not merely to Gen 11:27-32, but to the whole of the following account of Abram, since it corresponds to "the generations" of Ishmael and of Isaac in Gen 25:12 and Gen 25:19. Of the three sons of Terah, who are mentioned again in Gen 11:27 to complete the plan of the different Toledoth, such genealogical notices are given as are of importance to the history of Abram and his family. According to the regular plan of Genesis, the fact that Haran the youngest son of Terah begat Lot, is mentioned first of all, because the latter went with Abram to Cana…
Sarai, Rebekah (25:21), and Rachel (29:31) all suffered infertility. Sarai’s situation in particular highlights the paradox between the apparent reality and God’s promise to give many descendants (12:2). The Israelite nation’s origin from barren women fixes its identity in the sovereignty of God, who miraculously gives children to barren women (see also 1 Sam 1:2; 2:5; Ps 113:9; Isa 54:1).
Rashi on Genesis 11:29
יסכה JISCAH — This was Sarah; she was also named Jiscah (from a root meaning “”to see”, “to look”) because she could see the future by holy inspiration, and because everybody looked (gazed) at her beauty (Megillah 14a). The name Jiscah also has reference to princely dignity (נסיכות) just as the name Sarah (שרה) has an allusion to “ruling’’(שררה).
ON ABRAHAM. — The faith of this patriarch was so perfect and so admirable that all the righteous by a wise judgment of God proclaim him the father of their faith, and that no one is worthy of God and of his affection if he bears the name of Abraham's sons. What makes his greatest glory in the eyes of God is that he did not hesitate to believe in things that seemed incredible, which deserves him among other rewards to see the Savior, in the hope of God, as our Lord Himself declared to the Jews: Abraham your father rejoiced in the hope of seeing my day; he saw it and rejoiced in it (Jn. 8:56). It was right that he who became a father by the merit of his faith should live the hope of his children in the distant past, a hope which God in his providential goodness should transmit as the Father, inheritance from a deeply religious father to his imitating sons of his obedience. Let us now see what was the object of this faith, that God might have judged it worthy of so great an honor, and of such a glorious reward. We praised Abraham's faith, but we have not yet told the object of his faith: God brought him out of his tent, and showing him the stars of heaven said to him: "Count these stars, so shall your offspring be. Abraham believed God, and this was imputed to him as righteousness (Gen. 15:5; Rom. 4:3). He would have no great merit in believing in God, had he not believed an incredible and insane thing in the judgment of the world, because one could not naturally hope for what God promised him. Therefore, Abraham was the only one in the world having believed this promise, was separated from the world and justified. The incredulity of human wisdom serves to raise the greatness of this faith, and that heroic hope which believed against hope. The hopelessness of the worldly is the merit of the hope of the Christians. The defiance of the wicked here makes the reward of the faith of the good, for faith is stronger and more complete when its object is naturally incredible. This almost desolate man believed that his wife, of a very advanced age, would give him a posterity so numerous that it could not be counted, because he considered the act itself promised to him less than he who promised it, and that he knew he could not lie. So his faith was imputed to him for righteousness. There would be stupidity in believing an absurd thing, the impossibility of which is…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
