What Does Genesis 18:13 Mean in the King James?

And the LORD said unto Abraham, Wherefore did Sarah laugh, saying, Shall I of a surety bear a child, which am old?

Genesis 18:13 · KJV

The analysis reads the King James wording.

King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.

THE KEY

The word Sarah speaks as disbelief already carries the sound that will name her son.

THE MEANING

This verse brings the reader’s private laugh at what seems impossible into the open. Sarah’s laughter and the name Isaac share one Hebrew root: what sounds absurd now carries the seed of later laughter.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

What seems physically impossible is not thereby beyond God’s power.

THE ROOT

צָחֲקָה

tsachaqah

GROWS FROM

צחק

To laugh; in some forms, to play or make sport.

The consonants ⁨צ־ח־ק⁩ in Sarah’s verb return in Yitzchak, the child’s name. English makes “laughed” and “Isaac” look unrelated, though the verse holds her incredulous laughter and the sound of the promised child in the same seed.

ALSO GROWS

Yitzchak: “He laughs,” a name formed from the root ⁨צחק⁩.

יִצְחָק

The root in Sarah’s laughter becomes the sound of her son’s name, binding her reaction to the promise.

tsechoq: Laughter.

צְחֹק

The noun shares the root of Sarah’s verb and appears in her later words: “God hath made me to laugh.”

THE PATTERN

What seems beyond fruitfulness can become the ground of shared laughter when God’s promise takes form.

And Sarah said, God hath made me to laugh, so that all that hear will laugh with me.

Genesis 21:6 · KJVThe laughter first voiced in disbelief becomes laughter Sarah shares with others.

Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing: then said they among the heathen, The LORD hath done great things for them.

Psalm 126:2 · KJVA reversal of sorrow fills mouths with laughter and makes the change visible to others.

And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sara’s womb:

Romans 4:19 · KJVThe verse names the bodily limits that make the promise seem impossible without treating them as its final measure.

THE THREAD

And Sarah said, God hath made me to laugh, so that all that hear will laugh with me.

Genesis 21:6 · KJV

Sarah’s “laugh” and “laughter” here share the root ⁨צחק⁩ with Yitzchak, Isaac’s name. The same root holds her disbelief and her joy, so the laughter changes without changing its seed.

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