But Sarai was barren; she had no child, and no reason is given for her barrenness. The statement stands within the genealogy of Genesis 11:10-32, which gives the succession of holy and probably inspired men spanning the whole time from Adam to Abraham. That unbroken succession caused the facts respecting creation naturally and necessarily to become diffused among the godly of mankind, so that they retained the reckoning of time by weeks and could not forget the Sabbath.
As part of the account of Shem's generations, the verse identifies Shem as the divinely ordained channel for the Promised Seed. It is part of the account of Abraham's family in Ur of the Chaldees, whose existence is confirmed by archaeological evidence. It is part of the record of the generations whose lifespans show the successive shortening of human life after the Flood, with Genesis 11 as the historical record of that decline.
Together with Genesis 5, 9, and 21, Genesis 11 gives ages and timelines showing that Shem lived to converse with Abraham for 150 years and with Isaac for 50 years. Instruction by Shem therefore gave Abraham all the knowledge of divine truth possessed by Noah and Enoch, and Abraham and Isaac were well instructed concerning the prophecy of Enoch and concerning his translation. The verse is true history in the first fourteen chapters of Genesis, inspired by the Creator of the universe and not copied from Babylonian sources. It belongs to primeval traditions common to all civilized nations of antiquity whose common elements point to a time when the human race occupied a common home and held a common faith, with the Genesis record giving the purest form, least colored by extravagances and nearest to the original, and ancient testimony confirms its historical accuracy and shows that this portion of Genesis is not impossible of truth or pure imagination.
The verse stands in the account of how after the Flood God commanded man to multiply and replenish the earth and scatter abroad as an agricultural people for the strongest, clearest, purest life. Man refused and built a city and a tower to make a name, stay together, and reach heaven by his own effort, calling it Bab-il, the Gate of God, which God named Babel, from which comes Babylon, the human way of salvation opposed to the Gospel of Christ that will be judged and shown a failure at the second coming of Christ. In Genesis 11:29-32 the verse is connected with Abram leaving his native country in obedience to God's command to get out of his country and from his kindred and from his father's house to a land God would show him. That leaving marks the making of God's covenant with Abram, which included God's promise to make of him a great nation and to bless him and make his name great so he would be a blessing, and in which God preached the gospel to him that in him all families of the earth would be blessed.
The record of Sarai's barrenness is the setting for the promises that shaped the history of Abraham and his descendants. Her barrenness made God's promise that Abraham's own flesh-and-blood seed would become numerous and that all the earth would be blessed in his seed seem impossible to Abraham. Because of it Abraham first concluded the heir must be his faithful servant Eliezer and then took Hagar the Egyptian bondmaid to devise a human way for God to fulfill His promise. That was a costly mistake bringing years of trouble and bickering and jealousy and heartache, yet God patiently bore with Abraham and corrected him until he learned to believe the promise, after which his barren wife brought forth Isaac, the child of promise, Abraham's only son, whom he then offered in the final rehearsal of the lesson of faith.
But Sarai was barren; she had no child, and no reason is given for her barrenness. The statement stands within the genealogy of Genesis 11:10-32, which gives the succession of holy and probably inspired men spanning the whole time from Adam to Abraham. That unbroken succession caused the facts respecting creation naturally and necessarily to become diffused among the godly of mankind, so that they retained the reckoning of time by weeks and could not forget the Sabbath.
As part of the account of Shem's generations, the verse identifies Shem as the divinely ordained channel for the Promised Seed. It is part of the account of Abraham's family in Ur of the Chaldees, whose existence is confirmed by archaeological evidence. It is part of the record of the generations whose lifespans show the successive shortening of human life after the Flood, with Genesis 11 as the historical record of that decline.
Together with Genesis 5, 9, and 21, Genesis 11 gives ages and timelines showing that Shem lived to converse with Abraham for 150 years and with Isaac for 50 years. Instruction by Shem therefore gave Abraham all the knowledge of divine truth possessed by Noah and Enoch, and Abraham and Isaac were well instructed concerning the prophecy of Enoch and concerning his translation. The verse is true history in the first fourteen chapters of Genesis, inspired by the Creator of the universe and not copied from Babylonian sources. It belongs to primeval traditions common to all civilized nations of antiquity whose common elements point to a time when the human race occupied a common home and held a common faith, with the Genesis record giving the purest form, least colored by extravagances and nearest to the original, and ancient testimony confirms its historical accuracy and shows that this portion of Genesis is not impossible of truth or pure imagination.
The verse stands in the account of how after the Flood God commanded man to multiply and replenish the earth and scatter abroad as an agricultural people for the strongest, clearest, purest life. Man refused and built a city and a tower to make a name, stay together, and reach heaven by his own effort, calling it Bab-il, the Gate of God, which God named Babel, from which comes Babylon, the human way of salvation opposed to the Gospel of Christ that will be judged and shown a failure at the second coming of Christ. In Genesis 11:29-32 the verse is connected with Abram leaving his native country in obedience to God's command to get out of his country and from his kindred and from his father's house to a land God would show him. That leaving marks the making of God's covenant with Abram, which included God's promise to make of him a great nation and to bless him and make his name great so he would be a blessing, and in which God preached the gospel to him that in him all families of the earth would be blessed.
The record of Sarai's barrenness is the setting for the promises that shaped the history of Abraham and his descendants. Her barrenness made God's promise that Abraham's own flesh-and-blood seed would become numerous and that all the earth would be blessed in his seed seem impossible to Abraham. Because of it Abraham first concluded the heir must be his faithful servant Eliezer and then took Hagar the Egyptian bondmaid to devise a human way for God to fulfill His promise. That was a costly mistake bringing years of trouble and bickering and jealousy and heartache, yet God patiently bore with Abraham and corrected him until he learned to believe the promise, after which his barren wife brought forth Isaac, the child of promise, Abraham's only son, whom he then offered in the final rehearsal of the lesson of faith.