Kejadian 18:14

18:14 Is anything impossible ¹  for the Lord? I will return to you when the season comes round again and Sarah will have a son.” ² 

Kejadian 18:2

18:2 Abraham ³  looked up ⁴  and saw ⁵  three men standing across ⁶  from him. When he saw them ⁷  he ran from the entrance of the tent to meet them and bowed low ⁸  to the ground. ⁹ 

1 Raja-raja 3:18

3:18 Then three days after I had my baby, this woman also had a baby. We were alone; there was no one else in the house except the two of us. ¹⁰ 

[18:14]  ¹ tn The Hebrew verb פָּלָא (pala’) means “to be wonderful, to be extraordinary, to be surpassing, to be amazing.”

[18:14]  ² sn Sarah will have a son. The passage brings God’s promise into clear focus. As long as it was a promise for the future, it really could be believed without much involvement. But now, when it seemed so impossible from the human standpoint, when the Lord fixed an exact date for the birth of the child, the promise became rather overwhelming to Abraham and Sarah. But then this was the Lord of creation, the one they had come to trust. The point of these narratives is that the creation of Abraham’s offspring, which eventually became Israel, is no less a miraculous work of creation than the creation of the world itself.

[18:2]  ³ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Abraham) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[18:2]  ⁴ tn Heb “lifted up his eyes.”

[18:2]  ⁵ tn Heb “and saw, and look.” The particle הִנֵּה (hinneh) draws attention to what he saw. The drawn-out description focuses the reader’s attention on Abraham’s deliberate, fixed gaze and indicates that what he is seeing is significant.

[18:2]  ⁶ tn The Hebrew preposition עַל (’al) indicates the three men were nearby, but not close by, for Abraham had to run to meet them.

[18:2]  ⁷ tn The pronoun “them” has been supplied in the translation for clarification. In the Hebrew text the verb has no stated object.

[18:2]  ⁸ tn The form וַיִּשְׁתַּחוּ (vayyishtakhu, “and bowed low”) is from the verb הִשְׁתַּחֲוָה (hishtakhavah, “to worship, bow low to the ground”). It is probably from a root חָוָה (khavah), though some derive it from שָׁחָה (shakhah).

[18:2]  ⁹ sn The reader knows this is a theophany. The three visitors are probably the Lord and two angels (see Gen 19:1). It is not certain how soon Abraham recognized the true identity of the visitors. His actions suggest he suspected this was something out of the ordinary, though it is possible that his lavish treatment of the visitors was done quite unwittingly. Bowing down to the ground would be reserved for obeisance of kings or worship of the Lord. Whether he was aware of it or not, Abraham’s action was most appropriate.

[3:18]  ¹⁰ sn There was no one else in the house except the two of us. In other words, there were no other witnesses to the births who could identify which child belonged to which mother.