When the prayer of Abraham for Abimelech was heard, and the king of the
Philistines recovered, the angels raised a loud cry, and spoke to God
thus: "O Lord of the world! All these years hath Sarah been barren, as
the wife of Abimelech was. Now Abraham prayed to Thee, and the wife of
Abimelech hath been granted a child. It is just and fair that Sarah
should be remembered and granted a child." These words of the angels,
spoken on the New Year's Day, when the fortunes of men are determined
in heaven for the whole year, bore a result. Barely seven months later,
on the first day of the Passover, Isaac was born.
The birth of Isaac was a happy event, and not in the house of Abraham
alone. The whole world rejoiced, for God remembered all barren women at
the same time with Sarah. They all bore children. And all the blind
were made to see, all the lame were made whole, the dumb were made to
speak, and the mad were restored to reason. And a still greater miracle
happened: on the day of Isaac's birth the sun shone with such splendor
as had not been seen since the fall of man, and as he will shine again
only in the future world.[203]
To silence those who asked significantly, "Can one a hundred years old
beget a son?" God commanded the angel who has charge over the embryos,
to give them form and shape, that he fashion Isaac precisely according
to the model of Abraham, so that all seeing Isaac might exclaim,
"Abraham begot Isaac."[204]
That Abraham and Sarah were blessed with offspring only after they had
attained so great an age, had an important reason. It was necessary
that Abraham should bear the sign of the covenant upon his body before
he begot the son who was appointed to be the father of Israel.[205] And
as Isaac was the first child born to Abraham after he was marked with
the sign, he did not fail to celebrate his circumcision with much pomp
and ceremony on the eighth day.[206] Shem, Eber, Abimelech king of the
Philistines, and his whole retinue, Phicol the captain of his host in
it—they all were present, and also Terah and his son Nahor, in a word,
all the great ones round about.[207] On this occasion Abraham could at
last put a stop to the talk of the people, who said, "Look at this old
couple! They picked up a foundling on the highway, and they pretend he
is their own son, and to make their statement seem credible, they
arrange a feast in his honor." Abraham had invited not only men to the
celebration, but also the wives of the magnates with their infants, and
God permitted a miracle to be done. Sarah had enough milk in her
breasts to suckle all the babes there,[208] and they who drew from her
breasts had much to thank her for. Those whose mothers had harbored
only pious thoughts in their minds when they let them drink the milk
that flowed from the breasts of the pious Sarah, they became proselytes
when they grew up; and those whose mothers let Sarah nurse them only in
order to test her, they grew up to be powerful rulers, losing their
dominion only at the revelation on Mount Sinai, because they would not
accept the Torah. All proselytes and pious heathen are the descendants
of these infants.[209]
Among the guests of Abraham were the thirty-one kings and thirty-one
viceroys of Palestine who were vanquished by Joshua at the conquest of
the Holy Land. Even Og king of Bashan was present, and he had to suffer
the teasing of the other guests, who rallied him upon having called
Abraham a sterile mule, who would never have offspring. Og, on his
part, pointed at the little boy with contempt, and said, "Were I to lay
my finger upon him, he would be crushed." Whereupon God said to him:
"Thou makest mock of the gift given to Abraham! As thou livest, thou
shalt look upon millions and myriads of his descendants, and in the end
thou shalt fall into their hands."[210]