Matthew Henry on Genesis 21:1-8
Long-looked-for comes at last. The vision concerning the promised seed is for an appointed time, and now, at the end, it speaks, and does not lie; few under the Old Testament were brought into the world with such expectation as Isaac was, not for the sake of any great person eminence at which he was to arrive, but because he was to be, in this very thin, a type of Christ, that seed which the holy God had so long promised and holy men so long expected. In this account of the first days of Isaac we may observe,
I. The fulfilling of God's promise in the conception and birth of Isaac, Gen 21:1, Gen 21:2. Note, God's providences look best and brightest when they are compared with his word, and wh…
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Abraham called the name of his son . . . Isaac . . . and circumcised--God was acknowledged in the name which, by divine command, was given for a memorial (compare Gen 17:19), and also in the dedication of the child by administering the seal of the covenant (compare Gen 17:10-12).
Adam Clarke on Genesis 21:4
And Abraham circumcised his son - See note on Gen 17:10, etc.
John Gill on Genesis 21:5
And Abraham was an hundred years old when son Isaac was born unto him. So that this was years after his departure from Haran, and coming into the land of Canaan, for then he was seventy five years of age, Genesis 12:4; and this exactly agrees with the account of Demetrius, as related by Polyhistor, an Heathen writer (o), who makes Isaac to be born just twenty five years from Abraham's coming into the land of Canaan, and who must be now an hundred years old, being ninety nine at the time the Lord appeared unto him, and promised him a son at the set time the next year, Genesis 17:1. This is observed, both to show the wonderful favour to Abraham, and the faithfulness of God in the exact perform…
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