When God told the Hebrew patriarch Abraham that his wife Sarah was going to have her first child, Abraham was so surprised that he asked, “Shall a child be born unto him that is an hundred years old?” (Genesis 17:17).
Sarah, too, was astounded when she heard the news. The Bible tells us that she at first laughed at it, as Abraham had (see Genesis 18:9–15).
In researching the Hebrew word used for laugh, I found out that its meaning includes “to laugh outright (in merriment or scorn)” (Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible). It seems likely that the couple were utterly surprised and delighted, and Sarah expected “all that hear will laugh with me” (Genesis 21:6).
