"Be fruitful and multiply," was the blessing of God:
   barrenness therefore was reckoned a reproach.  The intense
   desire of having children, observable among the Jewish women,
   arose not only from this reproach of barrenness, but from the
   hope of being the mother of the promised seed, and Him in whom
   all the nations of the earth were to be blessed.

  29:31  1Sa 1:5,6  Isa 4:1  Lu 1:21,25,27