Genesis 16:2
She said to her husband: Behold, the Lord hath restrained me from bearing: go in unto my handmaid, it may be I may have children of her at least. And when he agreed to her request,
Open Genesis 16:2 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- dixit marito suo : Ecce, conclusit me Dominus, ne parerem. Ingredere ad ancillam meam, si forte saltem ex illa suscipiam filios. Cumque ille acquiesceret deprecanti,
- Septuagint (Swete)
- εἶπεν δὲ Σάρα πρὸς Ἀβράμ Ἰδοὺ συνέκλεισέν με Κύριος τοῦ μὴ τίκτειν· εἴσελθε οὖν πρὸς τὴν παιδίσκην μου, ἵνα τεκνοποιήσεις ἐξ αὐτῆς. ὑπήκουσεν δὲ Ἀβρὰμ τῆς φωνῆς αὐτῆς.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וַתֹּ֨אמֶר שָׂרַ֜י אֶל אַבְרָ֗ם הִנֵּה נָ֞א עֲצָרַ֤נִי יְהוָה֙ מִלֶּ֔דֶת בֹּא נָא֙ אֶל שִׁפְחָתִ֔י אוּלַ֥י אִבָּנֶ֖ה מִמֶּ֑נָּה וַיִּשְׁמַ֥ע אַבְרָ֖ם לְק֥וֹל שָׂרָֽי
Haydock's commentary
May have. Hebrew, "may be built up," a metaphorical expression: so God is said to have built up houses for the Egyptian midwives, Exodus i. 21. (Menochius)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Irenaeus Against Heresies: Book I, Chapter XVIII. Passages from Moses,
3. Further, they declare that the arrangement made with respect to the ark in the Deluge, by means of which eight persons were saved, most clearly indicates the Ogdoad which brings salvation. David also shows forth the same, as holding the eighth place in point of age among his brethren. Moreover, that circumcision which took place on the eighth day, represented the circumcision of the Ogdoad above. In a word, whatever they find in the Scriptures capable of being referred to the number eight , they declare to fulfil the mystery of the Ogdoad. With respect, again, to the Decad, they maintain that it is indicated by those ten nations which God promised to Abraham for a possession. The arrangement also made by Sarah when, after ten years, she gave her handmaid Hagar to him, that by her he might have a son, showed the same thing. …
St Augustine Reply to Faustus the Manichæan, Faustus states his objections to the morality of the law and the prophets, and Augustin seeks by the application of the type and the allegory to explain away the moral difficulties of the Old Testament
5. Again, we are not responsible for what is said of Abraham, that in his irrational craving to have children, and not believing God, who promised that his wife Sara should have a son, he defiled himself with a mistress, with the knowledge of his wife, which only made it worse; or that, in sacrilegious profanation of his marriage, he on different occasions, from avarice and greed, sold his wife Sara for the gratification of the kings Abimelech and Pharas, telling them that she was his sister, because she was very fair. …
St Augustine Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament, Of the agreement of the evangelists Matthew and Luke in the generations of the Lord
28. And let not the law of adoption seem to you to be foreign to our Scriptures, and that, as if it were recognised only in the practice of human laws, it cannot fall in with the authority of the divine books. For it is a thing established of old time, and frequently heard of in the Ecclesiastical books, that not only the natural way of birth, but the free choice of the will also, should give birth to a child. For women, if they had no children of their own, used to adopt children born of their husbands by their hand-maids, and even oblige their husbands to give them children in this way; as Sarah, Rachel, and Leah. …