HEBREW WORD STUDY – HOLY LAUGHTER – TSACHAQ – צחק
Genesis18:12,14: “Therefore Sarah laughed within herself, saying, After I am waxed old shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also? (14) Is anything too hard for the Lord?”
When Sarah overheard God telling Abraham that she was going to have a child at the age of ninety, she laughed. The word used in the Hebrew here for laugh is tsachaq. Lexicographers have debated the nature of this word to determine what type of laughter Sarah had. Was it mockery? Was it just mirth? Was it laughter of unbelief? Was it laughter of pure joy? Only the context will tell and even that is cloudy. So we are stuck with man’s best guess as to what type of tsachaq (laughter) Sarah had. So what are some of these best guesses? Let me offer one for your consideration.
God’s response in saying that nothing is too hard, might suggest that it was a laughter of unbelief and possibly mockery. But maybe not. The word hard is pala’ which is in a Niphal form. As a Niphal it would more correctly be rendered as; “A wonderfully hard thing from the Lord.” the word thing is devar which is usually rendered as a word spoken from the heart. In the context of its use with God it would refer to a word spoken from God’s heart.
I would suggest an appropriate rendering to be: “Is anything that comes from the heart of God too wonderful or marvelous?” As the interrogative is uncertain, we could also render this as: “There is nothing more wonderful than an expression of the heart from God.”
We really can’t be sure from the text what type of laughter Sarah initially had but we can be certain after Sarah realized she had heard from God’s heart her laughter was one of pure joy – holy laughter.
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