1583 matching verse commentaries
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And Sarah said, God hath made me to laugh,.... This she said on occasion of the name of her son Isaac, which name her husband had given him by divine direction, and to which she assented. This doubtless brought to her mind her former laughing, when she first heard that she should have a son, which was in a way of diffidence and distrust; but now...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And she said, who would have said unto Abraham,.... No one a year ago could ever have thought of such a thing, much less have come and told Abraham that he should have a child or children by Sarah; the thing was incredible, and next to impossible; none but God himself, or an angel from him, could have declared this, as none but he could bring it...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And the child grew, and was weaned,.... He throve under the nursing of its mother, and through the blessing of God upon him; and being healthy and robust, and capable of digesting stronger food, and living upon it, he was weaned from the breast: at what age Isaac was when weaned is not certain, there being no fixed time for such an affair, but it...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian,.... That is, Ishmael, who is not expressed by name, but described by being a son of Hagar, a servant of Sarah's, and an Egyptian woman; all which seems to be observed by way of slight, both to Hagar and her son; which she had born unto Abraham; not unto Sarah, as she proposed to herself, when she gave...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Wherefore she said unto Abraham, cast out this bondwoman and her son,.... Hagar, Sarah's handmaid and bondservant, and her son Ishmael; by this it appears that Hagar was concerned in this affair, and set her son on to mock Isaac, at least she encouraged him in it, buoying: him up with his being the firstborn, and having a right to the inheritance;...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And the thing was very grievous in Abraham's sight,.... The motion that Sarah made to turn out of his house Hagar and Ishmael was not agreeable to him, but the reverse; it seemed an ill thing to him; it was greatly displeasing to him, and he was unwilling to come into it: because of his son; his son Ishmael; not grieved and uneasy for what he had...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And God said unto Abraham,.... Either by an articulate voice, or by an impulse on his mind, suggesting to him what he should do, being no doubt in great perplexity how to conduct between his wife and his son, but God determines the case for him, and makes him easy: let it not be grievous in thy sight because of the lad, and because of the...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And also of the son of the bondwoman will I make a nation,.... A great nation, as is promised, Genesis 17:20; and such the Ishmaelites and Saracens have been, and the Turks now are, the descendants of Ishmael. The Targum of Jonathan paraphrases it, a people of thieves, or a thieving people; as were the Saracens, and who are thought to have that...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And Abraham rose up early in the morning,.... It was in the night the Lord spoke to him, and bid him hearken to the voice of Sarah; and, as soon as it was morning, he arose, and was not disobedient to the heavenly vision; for, though the thing he was directed to was disagreeable to flesh and blood, and contrary to his natural affection, yet, it...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And the water was spent in the bottle,.... It was all drank up by them, being thirsty, having wandered about some time in a wilderness, where they could not replenish their bottle: the Jewish writers say (e) that when Hagar came into the wilderness, she began to wander after the idols of the house of Pharaoh her father, and immediately the water...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And she went and sat her down over against [him], a good way off,.... Not being able to bear the sight of her child in his agonies, and, as she apprehended, ready to expire, she went from the place where she had laid him, and sat down under one of the shrubs or trees to shade herself, right over against that where her child was, though at some...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And God heard the voice of the lad,.... By which it appears that he cried also; but whether it was in prayer to God, or through the distress and misery he was in, is not certain; and, be it which it will, his cries came up into the ears of the Lord, and he had compassion on him, and supplied his wants, and delivered him out of his miserable...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Arise, lift up the lad,.... She had set herself down at some distance, and now she is bid to rise up and go to the place where she had left her son, and raise aim up from the ground, on which he lay along: and hold him in thine hand: or take hold on him with thine hand, and hold him up with it, he being so weak that he could not sit up without...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water,.... Which she saw not before; not that she was really blind and had her eyes opened, or her sight restored, but they might be holden or restrained by the providence of God, that she should not see it before; or, through inattention and distraction of mind, might not observe it; or her eyes...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And God was with the lad,.... To confirm his health, to provide for him the necessaries of life, to protect him from danger in the wilderness where he was, and to prosper and succeed him in temporal things; all which is owing to the providential goodness of God: and he grew; increased in bodily stature, and arrived to manhood; or, "he became...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And he dwelt in the wilderness of Paran,.... So called from Paran, a city in Arabia Petraea; it reached from the wilderness of Shur to Mount Sinai: the account Adrichomius (q) gives of it is this; Paran or "Pharan is a wilderness, very large, desolate, impassable, and without water, containing, from Mount Sinai to Kadeshbarnea, a journey of eleven...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And it came to pass at that time,.... Not when Ishmael was grown up and married, but when Isaac was weaned and Ishmael was expelled: that Abimelech, and Phichol, the chief captain of his host, spake unto Abraham; Abimelech was king of Gerar, the same that is spoken of in the preceding chapter, and Phichol was the general of his army; these two...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Now therefore swear unto me here by God,.... By the true and living God, by whom only an oath is to be taken, who was Abraham's God, and whom Abimelech seems to have known and to have been a worshipper of; and therefore moves for an oath to be taken by him, which he knew would be sacred and binding to Abraham, could he prevail upon him to swear:...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And Abraham said, I will swear. Sensible of the many favours he had received from Abimelech in times past, and was still indulged with, he very readily agreed to his proposal; and the rather, as he knew by the vision between the pieces, that it would be four hundred years before his posterity should be put into the possession of the land of...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And Abraham reproved Abimelech because of a well of water,.... Before he swore and entered into covenant with him, he thought it advisable to inform him of an affair that had happened concerning a well of water, which in those hot and dry countries, as the southern parts of the land of Canaan were, was an affair of great importance; and to make...