Then Abraham fell on his face, and laughed, and said in his heart, “Will a child be born to him who is one hundred years old? Will Sarah, who is ninety years old, give birth?”
⛓ Read Genesis 17 forward — the whole chapter and its afterlife →Where this passage surfaces again, sorted by the strength of the link. Each kind of reuse — formal quotation, deliberate allusion, faint echo, figural pattern — carries its own mark. Follow any reference to read it in place.
Allusion3
A deliberate verbal borrowing without a citation formula.
'He being about a hundred years old, and the deadness of Sarah's womb' (4:19) draws directly on Genesis 17:17, where Abraham, told he will have a son, says 'Shall a child be born to him who is a hundred years old? And shall Sarah, who is ninety, bear?' Paul reuses the numeric detail and the implied biological impossibility.
High confidence'Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day' connects to Abraham's laughter/rejoicing at the promise of Isaac, read in Jewish tradition as joy over the messianic future. Moderate Coherence; the verb of rejoicing and the forward-looking 'day' are anchored in the covenant-promise scenes of Abraham.
Medium confidence'For I am an old man, and my wife is well advanced in years' mirrors Abraham's incredulous self-talk: 'Shall a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old?' (Genesis 17:17; cf. 18:11-12). The old-age objection to a birth promise is a coherent Abrahamic echo.
Medium confidence