Legends of the Patriarchs and Prophets: And Other Old Testament Characters from Various SourcesBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Religion
Legends of the Patriarchs and Prophets: And Other Old Testament Characters from Various Sources
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Bible. Old Testament -- Legends
Next morning early, while it was yet dark, Abimelech sent for Abraham
and Sarah, and gave Sarah back to her husband, and paid him a thousand
ounces of silver, and to Sarah he gave a costly robe, which might
conceal her from her eyes to her feet, that none might henceforth be
bewitched by her beauty. “But,” said Abimelech to Abraham, “because
thou didst deceive me and blind my eyes with a lie, therefore thou
shalt bear a son, whose eyes shall be dim so that he shall be
deceived.” And Abraham prayed to the Lord, and all the woman that were
with child in Gerar were delivered of men-children, without the pangs
of maternity, and those who were barren felt themselves with child.
The angel hosts besought the Lord to look upon Sarah, and to remember
His covenant. “O Lord of the whole world! Thou didst hear the cry of
Abraham, and grant his petitions when he prayed for the barren women
of Gerar; and his own wife, from whom Thou didst promise him a son,
is unfruitful and despised. Does it beseem a Lord, when he prepares a
fleet, to free his subjects from pirates, but to leave the vessel of
his best friend in bondage?”
Now it was the first day of the seventh month, Tischri, the day on
which, at the close of the world’s history, the Lord will come to judge
the quick and the dead, that the Lord God remembered Sarah, and the
promise He had made, and looked upon her, and she conceived a son in
her old age, one year and four months after her sojourn in Gerar; and
nine months after, say some, but, say others, six months and two days
after; at mid-day say some, others say in the evening of the fifteenth
of Nisan; or, as others affirm, on the first of Nisan she was delivered
of a son, without suffering any pains in the bringing forth. And the
same time that Sarah’s womb was blessed, God looked upon many other
barren women and blessed them also; and on the day that the child was
born they were delivered likewise; and the blind saw, the dumb spake,
the deaf heard, and the lame walked, and the crazed recovered their
senses. Also, the sun shone forty-eight times brighter than he shines
at Midsummer, even with the splendor that he had on the day of his
creation.
And when eight days were accomplished, Abraham circumcised his son, and
called him Isaac.
But many thought it was an incredible thing that Abraham and Sarah
should have a son in their old age, and they said, “This is a
foundling, or it is the child of one of the slaves, which they pass off
as their own.” Now Abraham held a great feast on the day that Isaac
was weaned, and he invited thereto all the princes and great men of
the country. And there came Abimelech, king of Gerar, and Og, king of
Basan, and all the princes of Canaan, sixty-two princes in all. Such an
assembly was not seen before, yet all these princes fell in after-years
by the hands of Joshua.[317]
Of this feast it is related that Og’s companions said to him, “Do you
believe that that old mule, Abraham, can be the father of this child?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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