Now Abraham and Sarah were old, well advanced in age. Sarah had passed the age of childbearing.
⛓ Read Genesis 18 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.
Allusion2
A deliberate verbal borrowing without a citation formula.
'They both were well advanced in years' and 'Elizabeth was barren' reproduces almost verbatim the description of Abraham and Sarah, who 'were old, advanced in years,' with Sarah barren (Genesis 11:30; 18:11). High volume and recurrence (the motif returns at 1:18, 36) establish the Abraham-Sarah type-scene as the controlling frame.
High confidence'Elizabeth your relative also has conceived a son in her old age... who was called barren' replays the Sarah situation of Genesis 18:11 and the impossible-birth promise. Recurrence of the aged-barren-woman motif (cf. 1:7) sets up the 'nothing impossible' declaration that follows.
Medium confidence