Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day
Or "he was desirous to see my day", as the Syriac and Arabic
versions rightly render the word; or "very desirous", as the
Persic version: and indeed, this was what many kings and
prophets, and righteous men, were desirous of, even of seeing the
Messiah and his day: we often read of (xyvmh twmy) , "the days of the Messiah": and the
Jews, in their Talmud F25, dispute much about them, how long
they will be; one says forty years, another seventy, another
three ages: it is the opinion of some, that they shall be
according to the number of the days of the year, three hundred
and sixty five years; some say seven thousand years, and others
as many as have been from the beginning of the world; and others,
as many as from Noah; but we know the day of Christ better, and
how long he was here on earth; and whose whole time here is
called his day; this Abraham had a very great desire to see:
and he saw [it] and was glad;
he saw it with an eye of faith, he saw it in the promise, that in
his seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed; and when
it was promised him he should have a son, which was the beginning
of the fulfilment of the other, he laughed, and therefore his son
was called Isaac, to which some reference is here made; he saw
him in the birth of his son Isaac and rejoiced, and therefore
called his name Isaac, that is, "laughter": he saw also Christ
and his day, his sufferings, death, and resurrection from the
dead, in a figure; in the binding of Isaac, in the sacrifice of
the ram, and in the receiving of Isaac, as from the dead; and he
not only saw the Messiah in his type Melchizedek, and who some
think was the Son of God himself, but he saw the second person,
the promised Messiah, in an human form, ( Genesis 18:2
) ; and all this was matter of joy and gladness to him. This
brings to mind what the Jews say at the rejoicing at the law,
when the book of the law is brought out F26
``Abraham rejoiced with the rejoicing of the law, he that cometh shall come, the branch with the joy of the law; Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, Joshua, Samuel, David, Solomon, rejoiced with the joy of the law; he that cometh shall come, the branch with the joy of the law.''