Hebrews 11:12

"By faith, Sarah herself also." It is a challenge that even Sarah herself, as if to say: If a woman has believed, it is a shame if we are found to be of less faith than a woman. But how did she believe? And yet …

Let him therefore wait for that time which is necessarily made co-extensive with the development of humanity. For even Abraham and the patriarchs, while they had the desire to see the promised good things, and ceased not to seek the heavenly country, as the apostle says, are yet even now in the condition of hoping for that grace, "God having provided some better thing for us," according to the words of Paul, "that they without us should not be made perfect." If they, then, bear the delay who by faith only and by hope saw the good things "afar off" and "embraced them," as the apostle bears witness, placing their certainty of the enjoyment of the things for which they hoped in the fact that they "judged Him faithful Who has promised," what ought most of us to do, who have not, it may be, a hold upon the better hope from the character of our lives? Even the prophet's soul fainted with desire, and in his psalm he confesses this passionate love, saying that his "soul hath a desire and longing to be in the courts of the Lord," even if he must needs be rejected to a place amongst the lowest, as it is a greater and more desirable thing to be last there than to be first among the ungodly tents of this life; nevertheless he was patient of the delay, deeming, indeed, the life there blessed, and accounting a brief participation in it more desirable than "thousands" of time—for he says, "one day in Thy courts is better than thousands"—yet he did not repine at the necessary dispensation concerning existing things, and thought it sufficient bliss for man to have those good things even by way of hope; wherefore he says at the end of the Psalm, "O Lord of hosts, blessed is the man that hopeth in Thee."

592. – Then when he says, for which cause there sprung even from one man, he shows what she obtained in her children by God's power, namely, a multiplying of seed in the merit of faith, from one, namely, Abraham, they were sprung: 'I called …

That is, Abraham: the Arabic version has here a strange interpolation; "this faith Isaac and Rebecca conceived in mind, and so there were born of one, Esau and Jacob.'' And him as good as dead; being an hundred years of age; See Gill on Rom 4:

)-- a great, powerful, and renowned nation, above all the rest in the world; and a nation of saints, the peculiar church and people of God; and, which was the highest honour and reward of all, of these, according to the flesh, the Messiah came, who is over all, God blessed for evermore.

quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — leading-punctuation+unbalanced-parens

The advantages that we have in the gospel for the exercise of this grace above what those had who lived in the times of the Old Testament,

Him as good as dead - According to nature, long past the time of the procreation of children. The birth of Isaac, the circumstances of the father and mother considered, was entirely supernatural; and the people who proceeded from this birth were a supernatural people; and were and are most strikingly singular through every period of their history to the present day.

Therefore sprang there even of one - From a single individual. What is observed here by the apostle as worthy of remark, is, that the whole Jewish people sprang from one man, and that, as the reward of his strong faith he was made the father and founder of a nation. And him as good as dead - So far as the subject under discussion is concerned, To human appearance there was no more probability, that he would have a son at that period of life, than that the dead would have. So many as the stars in the sky ... - An innumerable multitude. This was agreeable to the promise; Gen 15:5; Gen 22:17. The phrases used here are often employed to denote a vast multitude, as nothing appears more numerous than the stars of heaven, or than the sands that lie on the shores of the ocean. The strength of faith in this case was, that there was simple confidence in God in the fulfillment of a promise where all human probabilities were against it. This is, therefore, an illustration of the nature of faith. It does not depend on human reasoning; on analogy; on philosophical probabilities; on the foreseen operation of natural laws; but on the mere assurance of God - no matter what may be the difficulties to human view, or the improbabilities against it.