Page:Legends of Old Testament Characters.djvu/187

XXIV.] 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 Ganaan, 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.

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?"

Og replied with scorn, "I could crack this imp with the nail of my little finger."

Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, "Thou despisest this little child, but know thou that tens of thousands shall spring from his loins, and that before them thy pride shall be humbled." Also, Abraham's ancestors, Shem and Eber, and his father, Terah—though some say he was dead—and Nahor, Abraham's brother, attended the feast, and the Shekinah, the glory of the Lord, appeared to grace it.