In 18:15 we have discussion where Sarah denied laughing when she overheard the news that she would become pregnant, and the specific sentence: ';and he said, "No, but you laughed"' according to Artscroll's translation.

The Hebrew word vayomer has in implied speaker. Its somewhat ambiguous whether this should be 'he' or 'He' -- specifically whether it is Hashem or Avraham speaking to Sarah.

Metsudah's translation avoids this problem by letting this word be the beginning of a sentence which takes a capital He even if refering to Avraham.

My rabbi recently showed me a commentary which states that Hashem never spoke directly to women regarding certain subjects (we had been discussing Chaya) and this passuk came up.

In keeping with Artscroll's translation, lets take this as Avraham confronting Sarah.

This is the same Avraham and Sarah where Sarah had taken Avraham to task, invoking strict justice for Hashem to judge between them, and Hashem telling Avraham to listen to Sarah. And this was when Hagar had become pregnant.

Back at 15:1-4 we have the section of the covenant between the parts where I have heard it said that Avraham showed less than perfect faith that Hashem's word would be true, that Avraham would have a son. That part of the reason for the decree to serve Egypt was this lacking.

In our parsha it says that it was behind Avraham when Sarah laughed, and other details of Sarah noting that Avraham was old, perhaps too old to have more children, was kept from him. So how did Avraham have sufficient knowledge of what Sarah did to be able to contradict her?

Avraham was told by Hashem that Sarah laughed!

If Hashem says it, then of course Avraham can rely upon it.

If that minor complaint against Avraham was at all valid, does this not show a correction for that lacking?

And if its obviously corrected, why did the negative decree associated with it need to come about? We have a principle that positive promises must come through, but negative decrees can be set aside.

Dear Rob,
I just want to comment on a point you made, who said " No, you did laugh" ? Before I saw your post I always assumed it was Hashem. After all, we don't read that Avraham said anything and we did see that right before this Hashem spoke to Avraham. I looked into the matter and I saw it is a machlokes !! The Ramban says black -on -white that it was Avraham. Yasher Koach !!
Rabbi Flom

quote:

Originally posted by Rabbi Flom:
I looked into the matter and I saw it is a machlokes !! The Ramban says black -on -white that it was Avraham.

What do the other commentators say?