Genesis 18:12
And she laughed secretly, saying: After I am grown old and my lord is an old man, shall I give myself to pleasure?
Open Genesis 18:12 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →In the palace
The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Quæ risit occulte dicens : Postquam consenui, et dominus meus vetulus est, voluptati operam dabo ?
- Septuagint (Swete)
- ἐγέλασεν δὲ Σάρρα ἐν ἑαυτῇ λέγουσα Οὔπω μέν μοι γέγονεν ἕως τοῦ νῦν· ὁ δὲ κύριός μου πρεσβύτερος.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וַתִּצְחַ֥ק שָׂרָ֖ה בְּקִרְבָּ֣הּ לֵאמֹ֑ר אַחֲרֵ֤י בְלֹתִי֙ הָֽיְתָה לִּ֣י עֶדְנָ֔ה וַֽאדֹנִ֖י זָקֵֽן
Haydock's commentary
Laughed, as if the promise were incredible.
My lord, or husband, which title of respect, 1 Peter iii. 6, commends. (Du Hamel)
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
Clement of Alexandria The Stromata, or Miscellanies, Chapter XII. Human Nature Possesses an Adaptation for Perfection; The Gnostic Alone Attains It
Let us then receive knowledge, not desiring its results, but embracing itself for the sake of knowing. For the first advantage is the habit of knowledge ( γνωστική ), which furnishes harmless pleasures and exultation both for the present and the future. And exultation is said to be gladness, being a reflection of the virtue which is according to truth, through a kind of exhilaration and relaxation of soul. And the acts which partake of knowledge are good and fair actions. For abundance in the actions that are according to virtue, is the true riches, and destitution in decorous desires is poverty. For the use and enjoyment of necessaries are not injurious in quality, but in quantity, when in excess. Wherefore the Gnostic circumscribes his desires in reference both to possession and to enjoyment, not exceeding the limit of necessity. …
St John Chrysostom The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom, Matthew II. 1, 2
If thou also weep thus, thou art become a follower of thy Lord. Yea, for He also wept, both over Lazarus, and over the city; and touching Judas He was greatly troubled. And this indeed one may often see Him do, but nowhere laugh, nay, nor smile but a little; no one at least of the evangelists hath mentioned this. Therefore also with regard to Paul, that he wept, that he did so three years night and day,both he hath said of himself, and others say this of him; but that he laughed, neither hath he said himself anywhere, neither hath so much as one other of the saints, either concerning him, or any other like him; but this is said of Sarah only,when she is blamed, and of the son of Noe, when for a freeman he became a slave.
St John Chrysostom The Commentary and Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on Galatians and Ephesians, Ephesians 5:22-24
Consider Abraham, and Sarah, and Isaac, and the three hundred and eighteen born in his house. ( Gen. xiv. 14 .) How the whole house was harmoniously knit together, how the whole was full of piety and fulfilled the Apostolic injunction. She also “reverenced her husband”; for hear her own words, “It hath not yet happened unto me even until now, and my lord is old also.” ( Gen. xviii. 12 .) And he again so loved her, that in all things he obeyed her commands. And the young child was virtuous, and the servants born in the house, they too were so excellent that they refused not even to hazard their lives with their master; they delayed not, nor asked the reason. Nay, one of them, the chief, was so admirable, that he was even entrusted with the marriage of the only-begotten child, and with a journey into a foreign country. ( Gen. xxiv. …
St Jerome Against the Pelagians, Book I
xvii. 17, xviii. 12 . Abraham and Sarah laughing at the promise.