Genesis 21:7

Summary

Sarah poses a rhetorical question about who would have imagined telling Abraham that she would nurse children, then affirms that she has indeed borne a son in his old age. The verse combines an interrogative exclamation with a declarative statement using the particle ki ("for", H3588A) to link the improbable announcement to the fact just accomplished.

Key words

• mi ("who?", H4310) — interrogative pronoun opening the rhetorical question, expressing astonishment rather than seeking information.
• millel ("has spoken/said", H4448A) — piel perfect, an intensive form of speaking, distinct from the more common dabar or amar, used here for the hypothetical announcement to Abraham.
• heiniqah ("she has suckled", H3243H) — hiphil perfect, causative: literally "she has caused to nurse," describing Sarah's act of nursing.
• banim ("children", H1121A) — masculine plural, even though only one child has been born; the plural form generalizes the act of nursing rather than counting offspring.
• zequnav ("his old age", H2208 + pronominal suffix) — construct plural noun with a third-person masculine suffix ("his"), referring grammatically to Abraham's old age, not Sarah's.

What the text says

The verse opens with the narrative va- ("and", H9001) attached to tomer ("she said", H0559), continuing the flow of direct speech from Sarah. The question "mi millel le-Avraham" uses the piel perfect millel to frame a completed hypothetical past: the sense is "who [could have] said/announced to Abraham" — an expression of disbelief about a prior, unspoken possibility, followed by the hiphil perfect heiniqah banim Sarah, "Sarah has nursed children." The plural banim is notable: only one son has been born, yet the noun form generalizes the action of nursing as a category rather than a count, a usage the singular translations ("a son") cannot fully render.

The second clause is joined by ki, which here functions less as strict causation ("because") and more as an asseverative or explanatory link ("indeed", "for"): "ki yaladti ven li-zequnav" — "for I have borne a son for his old age." The perfect yaladti ("I have borne", H3205) marks the completed act from Sarah's own voice (first person), while the noun zequnav, plural construct with a masculine suffix, ties the phrase "old age" specifically to Abraham (third person, "his"), not to Sarah's own age.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders millel ("has said", perfect) with the future ἀναγγελεῖ ("will announce"), shifting the verb's temporal orientation from a completed hypothetical past to a future possibility. It also renders heiniqah ("has nursed", perfect) with the present θηλάζει ("nurses"), altering the aspect from completed to ongoing. The Vulgate expands the question into "quis auditurus crederet" ("who hearing would believe"), introducing the notion of belief that is not present in the Hebrew interrogative mi millel, which speaks only of someone having said or announced, not of belief or credibility.