Laughter! Between Isaac and Aqhat’s Birth Pronouncements

Sarah says that God made her a צְחֹק. The same word is used elsewhere, such as Ezekiel 23:32, to refer to a laughingstock, something decidedly negative, referring to derisive laughter. Here, Sarah’s pronouncement carries that negative edge, but may refer to more benign, even joyous, skeptical and awkward laughter. (See below.)

Translation NJPS with adjustments.

Despite both Abraham and Sarah laughing, Sarah alone is called out by God for her response to the news. See discussion in Tammy J. Schneider, “Sarah, Afraid of Abraham, Denies Laughing,” TheTorah (2021). Scholars working with a source critical perspective note that these laughing stories derive from different sources, and thus do not necessarily share the same perspective on Sarah’s old age, or how the couple learned of Sarah’s immanent pregnancy. For some source critical discussions, see Zev Farber, “Is Sarah Old or Young When Kidnapped by Abimelech?” TheTorah (2014); Tzemah Yoreh, “The Sacrifice of Isaac in Context: Recovering a Lost Ending of the Akedah,” TheTorah (2014).

This figure is distinct from the biblical character Daniel, a Judean living in the Neo-Babylonian and early Persian periods, serving as an advisor to the kings.

The term here is cognate with biblical Rephaim (רְפָאִים). Editor’s note: For more on the meaning of this term in the Bible, see Laura Quick, “Og, King of Bashan: Underworld Ruler or Ancient Giant?” TheTorah (2020).

Harnemite, meaning a native of the (otherwise unattested) Harnem region.

English quotes come from “Aqhat” translated by Simon B. Parker, in Ugaritic Narrative Poetry, ed. Simon P. Parker, SBL Writings from the Ancient World Series (SBL 1997), 49–80, with small adjustments.

Editor’s note: For more on this term, see Robert Harris, “Who Was Balaam’s God: YHWH El? Or Bull El?” TheTorah (2014); Rami Arav, “The Golden Calf: Bull-El Worship,” TheTorah (2022).

Note the parallel expression in biblical Hebrew, when YHWH swears חַי אָנִי “by my life” (Num 14:21, 28).

This description is highly poetic. Below is the transliterated Ugaritic with my more literal translation:

B uni[l] / pnm tšmḫ On Danel, his cheeks became joyful

w ‘l yṣhl pit / And above, his forehead shined

yprq lṣb w yṣḥq / His brow relaxed, and he laughed

p‘n lhdm ytpd He placed his foot on the footstool

yšu / gh w yṣḥ He raised his voice and exclaimed…

Particularly notable is the prominent use of end rhymes in this unit – note the rhyming of pit and ytpd, and tšmḫ with wyṣḥq and wyṣḥ.

General similarities among these and other birth narratives, with a focus on incubation scenes, were first noted by Julian Obermann in How Daniel Was Blessed with a Son: An Incubation Scene in Ugaritic, JAOS Supp 6. (1946), 28 –29. More detailed schematic comparisons are also provided by Dorothy Irvin in Mytharion: The Comparison of Tales from the Old Testament and the Ancient Near East, AOAT 32 (Neukirchener 1978) 138. Edwin M. Good, “Two Notes on Aqhat,” Journal of Biblical Literature (1958): 72–74, expanded on Obermann’s observations and noted further connections between the Genesis stories and the Ugaritic myth, including the shared appearance of laughter in the stories, which he interprets as joyful. More recently, Robert S. Kawashima has noted some parallels in "Biblical Narrative and the Birth of Prose Literature,” in The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Narrative, ed. Danna Nolan Fewell (Oxford University Press, 2016), 51–60; these will be noted further below. Another similarity between the stories from later in Aqhat is the centrality of a hunting bow in the Aqhat Epic and in the narrative of Ishmael and Hagar’s expulsion in Genesis 21, which is directly related to Isaac’s birth (particularly Gen 21:16, 20). See Good, “Two Notes on Aqhat,” 73.

Editor’s note: See discussion Ben-Zion Katz, “God’s Appearance to Abraham: Vision or Visit?” TheTorah (2013); Marty Lockshin, “The Angel YHWH Visits Abraham: Rashbam Reworks a Christian Interpretation,” TheTorah (2024).

Much of what leads up to this scene is missing, but the fact that the Kotharat are not introduced here suggests that they were already present, and that it is this divine entity that broke the news to him, and that like Abraham, he greeted them.

In a later Aqhat Epic scene, when the artisan deity Kothar-wa-Ḥasis arrives to gift a bow and arrows, Danel tells his wife to slaughter and prepare a lamb for the god, as well as to serve wine. This too is similar to Abraham’s enlisting of Sarah’s help, and the slaughter and preparation of a young animal in Gen 18:1–8.

Laura Quick offers an excellent overview of this idea, and probes traces of it in biblical and early Jewish literature. See Laura Quick, "Bitenosh’s Orgasm, Galen’s Two Seeds and Conception Theory in the Hebrew Bible," Dead Sea Discoveries 28.1 (2021): 38–63 for an overview of this idea in biblical and early Jewish literature. See also, Marianne Grohmann, “Biblically, How Are Babies Conceived?” TheTorah (2024).

For another instance of laughter related to being informed of impending childbirth, see KTU 1.12 I:12, where the god El also laughs in his heart when he comes to understand that two goddesses/women are pregnant (his involvement is unclear, but he does name the children).

An example of non-Duchenne laughter is evident later in the myth, when Aqhat spurns the goddess Anat by questioning her desire for his hunting bow, asking: “Do women now hunt?!” to which the goddess responds by laughing and beginning to inwardly plot Aqhat’s demise (Aqhat 1 VI:40–41). This is a derisive laugh, expressing her displeasure at his words and behavior.

For an excellent synthesis of laughter research, see Matthew Gervais and David Sloan Wilson, "The Evolution and Functions of Laughter and Humor: A Synthetic Approach," The Quarterly Review of Biology 80.4 (2005): 395-430.

For ancient representations of sexual experiences in old age, see Gwendolyn Leick, “Too Young – Too Old?: Sex and Age in Mesopotamian Literature,” pages 78–95 in Sex in Antiquity: Exploring Gender and Sexuality in the Ancient World, ed. Mark Masterson, Nancy Sorkin Rabinowitz, and James Robson (London: Routledge, 2015), 89–93. This is also a major theme in the Sumerian school text known as the Old Man and the Young Girl, recently published in a new edition in Jana Matuszak, "A Complete Reconstruction, New Edition and Interpretation of the Sumerian Morality Tale ‘The Old Man and the Young Girl,’" Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und vorderasiatische Archäologie 112. 2 (2022): 184–218.

Cf. Genesis 15:6, where Abraham believes. Robert Kawashima interprets their laughter and statements as “wry musings on the rather belated fulfillment of Yahweh's promise” (“Biblical Narrative and the Birth of Prose Literature," 58). I largely agree, but the statements may be more than wry, and reflect unease and unsureness.

For an ancient Near Eastern story of a couple adopting a baby and pretending that it is their biological child and that the woman labored and delivered the child, see the Hittite myth CTH 363, known as “The Sun God, the Cow, and the Fisherman.” An English translation can be found in Harry A. Hoffner Jr., Hittite Myths (SBL, 1998), 85–87.

Editor’s note: See discussion in Joel S. Baden, “God Opened Her Womb – The Biblical Conception of Fertility,” TheTorah (2017).

Editor’s note: Some readers, therefore, took the story to imply that God produces the child directly. See Samuel Z. Glaser, “Isaac’s Divine Conception?” TheTorah (2018).

For another interpretation of this emotional complexity, see L. Juliana Claassens, "Tragic laughter: Laughter as resistance in the Book of Job," Interpretation 69.2 (2015): 143–155, here 144–148.