For it is written,
Rejoice, you barren that bear not; break forth and cry, you that travail not: for the desolate has many more children than she who has a husband.
Read Chapter 4
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
Sarah signifies the heavenly Jerusalem, having been deserted for a long time by her husband’s embraces because of her perceived sterility. For men such as Abraham did not use women to satisfy lust but for the procreation of offspring. Now to her sterility age had also been added…. The age of Isaac’s parents serves to signify that, new though the people of the New Covenant are, their predestination lies nonetheless with God and is that heavenly Jerusalem of old.
"Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not; for she that is desolate hath many more children than she that hath an husband.".
"Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not; for she that is desolate hath many more children than she that hath an husband."
Rejoice, thou barren. Rejoice, 0 Church, called out of the Gentiles; thou who wast once barren, without faith in God, and formerly not wont to bear children to Him—now that thou art espoused to Him break forth and cry. The synagogue, whose husband was the law, or even God Himself, not as a father tender, but as a lawgiver terrible, brought forth Jews only according to the flesh. But the Church embraces as a mother all the nations that believe on Christ. Therefore the synagogue has borne to God comparatively a small number of spiritual children. She bare the Prophets, the Patriarchs, and a few other righteous men, and that not in her own strength, but by the power of Christ, the father of the New Covenant.
The Apostle quotes Isa. liv1. The Jews indeed interpret the passage of their return to the earthly Jerusalem. The Millenarians understood it of the thousand years of sensual happiness which they pretended that the Saints would spend on earth after the Day of judgment, as Jerome testi...
And the Phrygians style him, he says, "very fruitful "likewise, "because "says he, "more numerous are the children of the desolate one, than those of her which hath an husband; "
Who is the woman with the husband? Is it not obviously the synagogue [as married to the law]? Yet the barren one has surpassed her in childbearing. For the synagogue contains one nation, whereas the children of the church fill Greece, Africa, land, sea and the whole inhabited world. Do you see how Sarah foreshadowed our future in deeds and the prophet in words? Homily on Galatians
The church was not only barren like Sarah and did not only become rich in children like her, but it also gave birth in the same way as Sarah. For just as it was not nature but the word of God that made her a mother … so too in our own regeneration it is not nature of any kind but the word of God spoken through the presbyter, as the faithful know, in the waters of the font, as in a womb, that fashions and regenerates the one who is being baptized.
Who is this who before was barren, and desolate? Clearly it is the Church of the Gentiles, that was before deprived of the knowledge of God? Who, she which has the husband? plainly the Synagogue. Yet the barren woman surpassed her in the number of her children, for the other embraces one nation, but the children of the Church have filled the country of the Greeks and of the Barbarians, the earth and sea, the whole habitable world. Observe how Sarah by acts, and the Prophet by words, have described the events about to befal us. Observe too, that he whom Isaiah called barren, Paul has proved to have many children, which also happened typically in the case of Sarah. For she too, although barren, became the mother of a numerous progeny. This however does not suffice Paul, but he carefully follows out the mode whereby the barren woman became a mother, that in this particular likewise the type might harmonize with the truth.
