Is anything too hard for Yahweh? At the set time I will return to you, when the season comes round, and Sarah will have a son.”
⛓ 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.
Allusion6
A deliberate verbal borrowing without a citation formula.
'For everything spoken by God is possible' answers the rhetorical question to Abraham and Sarah, 'Is anything too hard (impossible, LXX) for the Lord?' (Genesis 18:14), in the very context of a miraculous conception by an old, barren woman. The verbal and situational match is high-volume and pointed.
High confidence'The things impossible with men are possible with God' closely echoes the LORD's word to Sarah, 'Is anything too hard for the LORD?', the foundational OT statement of divine possibility against human impossibility. The salvation of the rich, humanly impossible, is staked on this Abrahamic promise of God's power. High coherence and recurrence.
High confidence'Is anything too hard for the LORD?' is the canonical formula of divine possibility that Jesus restates as 'with men it is impossible, but not with God, for all things are possible with God.' Sarah's promised son against natural impossibility is the paradigm. The verbal and theological match (nothing too hard / all things possible) is strong.
High confidence'With God all things are possible' is the strongest verbal kin to 'Is anything too hard (impossible) for the LORD?' spoken at the promise of Isaac; divine omnipotence over the humanly impossible.
High confidenceAbraham 'being fully assured that what he had promised, he was also able to perform' (4:21) answers the rhetorical question of Genesis 18:14, 'Is anything too hard for the Lord? At the appointed time I will return... and Sarah shall have a son.' Paul converts the LORD's question into Abraham's confident assent — God's power over the impossible.
Medium confidenceThe 'appointed time' clause of v.9 also echoes Genesis 18:14, 'Is anything too hard for the LORD? At the appointed time I will return... and Sarah shall have a son,' reinforcing that Isaac is born by divine power, not by natural descent.
Medium confidenceEcho2
A fainter, low-volume reuse, carried by recurrence or thematic coherence.
'Able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think' echoes the OT confession that nothing is too hard/wonderful for the Lord (Genesis 18:14; cf. Jeremiah 32:17,27). The motif of God's unlimited capacity to do what humans cannot conceive coheres, but the volume is low and it is one of several possible backgrounds.
Low confidenceJesus charges the Sadducees with not knowing 'the power of God,' the same divine power that, per Genesis, makes the barren conceive and does what is humanly impossible. The 'power of God' that raises the dead resonates with the patriarchal narratives of God overriding natural limits, though the link is conceptual.
Low confidence