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"And they said unto him, Where is Sarah thy wife? And he said, Behold, in the tent.
And he said, I will certainly return unto thee according to the time of life; and lo, Sarah
thy wife shall have a son. And Sarah heard it in the tent door, which was behind him.
Now Sarah and Abraham were old and well stricken in age; and it ceased to be with
Sarah after the manner of women. Therefore Sarah laughed within herself, saying, After
I am waxed old shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also? 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?" (Gen. 18: 9-14).
Thus the very existence of the seed of Abraham depended on a miracle. The origin of
the Jewish nation, the people of Israel, was a miracle. When that nation had grown, their
deliverance from Egypt, so vividly described in the opening chapters of Exodus, was
accompanied by a multiplicity of miracles. (The words mopheth, oth and pala occur
some twenty times in the first thirteen chapters of Exodus).
Throughout the whole of the O.T. we see miracle after miracle, sign after sign and
wonder after wonder associated with this people. We see God guiding them, protecting
them, teaching them and disciplining them by using signs, wonders and external displays
of His power. It would be impossible to give them all but we list some of the main ones.
(1)
The Beginning of the Nation.
Genesis
15: 12-16
Abram's deep sleep
15: 17
Fire on Abram's sacrifice
17: 17; 18: 12; 21: 2
Conception of Isaac
19:
Destruction of Sodom
19: 26
Lot's wife
20: 17, 18
Closing the wombs of Abimelech's household
21: 19
Opening Hagar's eyes
25: 21
Conception of Jacob and Esau
30: 22
Opening Rachel's womb
37: 5-11
Joseph's dreams
Exodus
3: 2
Flaming bush
4: 3-30; 7: 10, 12
Transforming rod into a serpent
4: 6-30
Leprosy on hand of Moses
(2)
The Plagues of Egypt.
Exodus
7: 20-25
Water into blood
8: 5-14
Frogs
8: 16-18
Lice
8: 20-24
Flies
9: 3-6
Murrain of pestilences
9: 8-11
Boils and blains
9: 22-26
Thunder and hail
10: 12-19
Locusts
10: 21-23
Darkness
12: 29, 30
Death of firstborn / Passover