Now Sarah had bloomed again as fair as in her youth, as the angel Michael had foretold; and Abraham persuaded her to pretend again to be his sister, though Sarah, remembering the ill-success of this deceit before, hesitated to comply.
Abimelech, king of Gerar, hearing of Sarah’s beauty, sent for her to his palace. He asked Abraham, “Who is this woman?” and he answered, “She is my sister.” Then Abimelech inquired of the camels and of the asses, and they answered the same, “She is his sister.” But that same evening, as it grew towards dusk, as he sat on his throne, he fell asleep; and in dream saw an angel of God approach him with a drawn sword in his hand to slay him. The king in his dream cried out to know why he was doomed to death; and the angel answered, “Because thou hast received into thy house the wife of another man, the mistress of a house.”
Abimelech excused himself, saying that Abraham had concealed the truth from him, and had said Sarah was his sister.
“The All-Holy knows that thou hast sinned in ignorance,” said the angel; “but is it seemly, when strangers enter thy land, to be questioning closely into their connexions? Know that Abraham is a prophet, and foreseeing that thy people would entreat his wife ill, he resolved to call her his sister, and he knew, being a prophet, that thou couldst not harm her.”[[316]]
That night—it was the Paschal eve,—the angel with the drawn sword traversed all the streets of the city, and closed the wombs of those about to bear.
Next morning early, while it was yet dark, Abimelech sent for Abraham and Sarah, and gave Sarah back to her husband, and paid him a thousand ounces of silver, and to Sarah he gave a costly robe, which might conceal her from her eyes to her feet, that none might henceforth be bewitched by her beauty. “But,” said Abimelech to Abraham, “because thou didst deceive me, and blind my eyes with a lie, therefore thou shalt bear a son, whose eyes shall be dim so that he shall be deceived.” And Abraham prayed to the Lord, and all the women that were with child in Gerar were delivered of men-children, without the pangs of maternity, and those who were barren felt themselves with child. The angel hosts besought the Lord to look upon Sarah, and to remember His covenant. “O Lord of the whole world! Thou didst hear the cry of Abraham, and grant his petitions when he prayed for the barren women of Gerar; and his own wife, from whom Thou didst promise him a son, is unfruitful and despised. Does it beseem a Lord, when he prepares a fleet, to free his subjects from pirates, but to leave the vessel of his best friend in bondage?”
Now it was the first day of the seventh month, Tischri, the day on which, at the close of the world’s history, the Lord will come to judge the quick and the dead, that the Lord God remembered Sarah, and the promise He had made, and looked upon her, and she conceived a son in her old age, one year and four months after her sojourn in Gerar; and nine months after, say some, but, say others, six months and two days after; at mid-day say some, others say in the evening of the fifteenth of Nisan; or, as others affirm, on the first of Nisan she was delivered of a son, without suffering any pains in the bringing forth. And the same time that Sarah’s womb was blessed, God looked upon many other barren women and blessed them also; and on the day that the child was born they were delivered likewise; and the blind saw, the dumb spake, the deaf heard, and the lame walked, and the crazed recovered their senses. Also, the sun shone forty-eight times brighter than he shines at Midsummer, even with the splendour that he had on the day of his creation.
And when eight days were accomplished, Abraham circumcised his son, and called him Isaac.
But many thought it was an incredible thing that Abraham and Sarah should have a son in their old age, and they said, “This is a foundling, or it is the child of one of the slaves, which they pass off as their own.” Now Abraham held a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned, and he invited thereto all the princes and great men of the country. And there came Abimelech, king of Gerar, and Og, king of Basan, and all the princes of Canaan, sixty-two princes in all. Such an assembly was not seen before, yet all these princes fell in after-years by the hands of Joshua.[[317]]
Of this feast it is related that Og’s companions said to him, “Do you believe that that old mule, Abraham, can be the father of this child?”