Sarah conceived, and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God had spoken to him.
World English Bible
Genesis 21:2
This verse is examined in more than one Scripture Analysis section. Each lens is shown on its own terms, in the section's own words; GEBible reaches no verdict of its own.
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WEB World English Bible Public Domain ✓ - Modern English
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- F35 Family 35 New Testament Wilbur Pickering's Byzantine-priority New Testament, with text-critical commentary notes · CC BY-SA 4.0
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Examined in Scripture Analysis
Contradictions (2)
Questions where the Bible appears to say two different things, with the passages on each side set together.
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How many generations from Abraham to Moses?
Genesis 15:16 promises Abraham's descendants will return to Canaan "in the fourth generation." But when you actually trace the genealogy Genesis and Exodus give — Abraham → Isaac → Jacob → Levi → Kohath → Amram → Moses — you get six or seven generations depending on how you count, not four.
Critical scholarship: Leans toward a genuine contradiction.
Numbers
More on this question
The proposed answers and sources for each reading are on the question page.
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Did Abraham's children require interposition of Providence?
Romans 4:19 and Hebrews 11:12 both emphasize that Abraham's body was "as good as dead" and Sarah's womb was barren, so the birth of Isaac required miraculous divine intervention. Genesis 25:1-2 then reports that after Sarah's death, Abraham took Keturah as a wife and fathered six more sons — Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, Shuah — apparently without any supernatural assistance, despite being at least 137 years old (since Sarah died at 127 per Genesis 23:1, when Abraham was 137 per Genesis 17:17 / 25:7-10 reckoning).
Critical scholarship: Genuinely disputed among scholars.
Theology
More on this question
The proposed answers and sources for each reading are on the question page.
Each section sets the viewpoints side by side; you weigh the evidence. Here, "critical scholarship" means academic study, not a value judgment. How this is built →
Other verses examined for the same kind of question or claim
Within each section, grouped by shared field or question type — not a cross-section comparison.
Cite this page
This citation refers to this GEBible page — the verse and the analysis gathered here. To cite the underlying scholarship, cite those sources directly.
"Genesis 21:2 — Scripture Analysis" GEBible, https://gebible.app/analysis/verse/genesis/21/2?version=WEB (retrieved 27 August 2026).