Did God taunt Sarah?


 Those sentences which are colored in orange are from Maharishi Dayananda Saraswati book Satyarth Prakash (The Light of Truth) and those which are colored in black are Jerry Thomas’s response.


"And the Lord said unto Abraham, wherefore did Sarah laugh, saying, Shall I of a surety bear a child, which am old? Is anything too hard for the Lord?" (18:13, 14.)

C. Now look at this God of the Christians! How like women and children He is (so easily) vexed and how He taunt Sarah.


Answer:  Let us read the entire context to know the meaning of the verse. A text out of its context is a pretext. And that is what Maharishi often does.

Genesis 18: 9- 15 Then they said to him, "Where [is] Sarah your wife?" So he said, "Here, in the tent."  And He said, "I will certainly return to you according to the time of life, and behold, Sarah your wife shall have a son." (Sarah was listening in the tent door which [was] behind him. Now Abraham and Sarah were old, well advanced in age; [and] Sarah had passed the age of childbearing. Therefore Sarah laughed within herself, saying, "After I have grown old, shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?"  And the LORD said to Abraham, "Why did Sarah laugh, saying, 'Shall I surely bear [a child], since I am old?'  Is anything too hard for the LORD? At the appointed time I will return to you, according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son."  But Sarah denied [it], saying, "I did not laugh," for she was afraid. And He said, "No, but you did laugh!" 

Here is what we can understand from this passage.

God promised Abraham to bless him with a son through his wife Sarah though Abraham and Sarah had become old.

This was surely a proof of God’s omnipotence.  

However, Sarah could not believe it but did not state it openly.

However, God knowing the heart of Sarah asked her about it and gently and lovingly corrected her pointing that with God nothing is impossible.

Three things that we learn from the context are:

1) Nothing is impossible for God.
2) God knows the heart of human beings.
3) God lovingly and gently corrects His children in their unbelief.

Only one with the mind of a savage would find fault with this.