Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Hebrews 11:11

"By faith even Sarah herself received power to conceive seed when she was past age, since she counted him faithful who had promised:" — Hebrews 11:11 (ASV)

This verse presents us with a difficult problem. On the face of it, the verse in Greek ascribes to Sarah an activity possible only to males, that she deposited seed for children. Two of the best suggested interpretations are: (1) To see the words “Sarah herself” as dative and not nominative. The meaning would then be “By faith he, together with Sarah herself, received power....” Abraham then had faith in connection with the birth of Isaac, and Sarah is linked with him. (2) To take the words about Sarah as a parenthesis, as NIV does. This translation also inserts “Abraham” into the text and makes the rest of the verse refer unambiguously to a male.

There is a further problem in that in Genesis Sarah was anything but an example of faith, for she laughed incredulously at the suggestion that she should bear a son in her old age (Genesis 18:9ff.). The author appears to mean that, despite her initial skepticism, Sarah came to share Abraham’s faith (otherwise she would not have cooperated with her husband to secure the birth of the boy). The aged couple lacked the physical ability to cause birth, but faith introduced them to the power that brought about the birth of Isaac. “Past age” draws attention to the area in which faith had to operate. On the human level, there was no hope, but for Abraham there was hope. He knew that God had made a promise and that he is “faithful” (GK 4412) to his promises (cf. 10:23). Faithfulness to his word is a characteristic of God.