Ever since it came up for discussion in James 2 a few weeks' ago, I've been re-pondering the binding of Isaac in Genesis 22. It certainly has to be one of the more puzzling moments of Scripture (though, honestly, there are lots of things to puzzle over). Throughout this post I give you John Goldingay's translation, from his commentary on the same.
I think the question we most often bring to this text, especially post-Kant, is how can God command Abraham to kill his son? Isn't that a moral violation of God's own code? And if 'he didn't really mean it', how can we trust God at all? Or the voices in our heads.
Those are real questions, worth pondering. But we should also ponder the fact that most nobody (well, people who wrote about it) seems particularly troubled by this until the last few centuries. What does that say about us?
1Subsequently, God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” He said, “I’m here.” 2He said, “Please get your son, your only one, the one you love, Yiṣḥaq, take yourself to the Epiphany region, and offer him up as a burnt offering there, on one of the mountains that I will say to you.”
The story itself is enigmatic. I'm far from a scholar of Hebrew, but working through with a few good aids, the way it is told reminds me of a slow arthouse film, with minimalist dialogue, long slow shots, and the action carries our narrative.
Robert Alter notes about God's command in v2:
The Hebrew syntactic chain is exquisitely forged to carry a dramatic burden, and the sundry attempts of English translators from the King James Version to the present to rearrange it are misguided. The classical Midrash, followed by Rashi, beautifully catches the resonance of the order of terms. Rashi’s concise version is as follows:
“Your son.
He said to Him, ‘I have two sons.’
He said to him, ‘Your only one.’
He said, This one is an only one to his mother and this one is an only one to his mother.’
He said to him, ʾWhom you love.’
He said to him, ‘I love both of them.’
He said to him, ʾIsaac’
The last time that Abraham 'arose early that morning' was to send away Hagar and his son Ishmael, and this story parallels that one in many places. I wonder if we aren't meant to connect Abraham sending away the son of his own efforts to fulfil God's promise, with now the son of God's provision.
3So Abraham started early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and got two of his boys with him, and Yiṣḥaq his son. He cut the wood for the burnt offering, set off, and went to the site that God said to him. 4On the third day, Abraham lifted his eyes and saw the site from a distance. 5Abraham said to his boys, “You stay here with the donkey, while I and the boy go over there and bow low and come back to you.”
No conversation, just the slow methodical description of Abraham doing. We’re never told Abraham’s internal feelings or thoughts. Instead of having his servants do the work, it’s Abraham himself who saddles the donkey. Instead of cutting the wood at the worship site, he himself cuts it before they leave.
I think verse 5 is laden with multiplex meaning. Does Abraham know things we don’t? Does he dissemble? For those who know the story, verse 5 foreshadows the outcome. Perhaps, then, Abraham’s words prophesy unwittingly, better than he himself knows. And yet, as Hebrews 11 suggests, Abraham’s faith is operative here, that even/despite/through God’s command, he can still receive Isaac back from the dead. We should not miss that while he calls Isaac ‘my son’ to his face, to his boys he distances himself from Isaac, ‘the boy’.
6Abraham got the wood for the burnt offering and put it on Yiṣḥaq his son, and got in his own hand the fire and the cleaver, and the two of them walked together. 7Yiṣḥaq said to Abraham his father, “Father!” He said, “I’m here, son.” He said, “Here are the fire and the wood, but where’s the sheep for the burnt offering?”
Isaac, by all accounts, must be a teenager, perhaps 13 or 14. As Abraham put the food and water on Hagar’s shoulders and sent her out, so now too he lays the wood on Isaac. It’s not lost on the New Testament writers, that Jesus bore the wood of his sacrifice to the place of his slaughter. “The two of them walked together” - again I imagine a long cinema shot, in the mode of the best of the westerns, of the two of them walking in silence.
As God called to Abraham, so Isaac now calls out. “I’m here, son”. What that tone must convey. Isaac’s six-word question is, as Calvin says, “a new instrument of torture”, asked in innocence.
8Abraham said, “God is the one who will see for himself to the sheep for the burnt offering, son.” The two of them walked together 9and came to the site that God had said to him. There Abraham built the altar, laid out the wood, bound Yiṣḥaq his son, and placed him on the altar on top of the wood. 10Abraham put out his hand and got the cleaver to slaughter his son.
Abraham’s six word reply drips with prophecy and ambiguity alike. For the end of the sentence can be read as “son”, addressing Isaac, or “son”, describing and defining the burnt offering. God will see for himself, but how? Isaac trusts as Abraham trusts.
The only place this verb for binding is used in the Old Testament is here, a word used post-biblically for tying the legs of an animal for sacrifice. The scene is silent, again, as Abraham builds the altar, lays out the wood, binds Isaac, and places him on the wood. Isaac was certainly of an age to struggle and resist his very aged father; he does not.
What tension in the moment, the last moment, as Abraham reaches out to take the knife. Here is the hour of crisis. Everything God had promised to Abraham was focused on the child of the promise, his beloved son. And God has asked Abraham to sacrifice past and present and future, all in all, to him in worship.
11But Yahweh’s envoy called to him from the heavens and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” He said, “I’m here.” 12He said, “Don’t put out your hand to the boy, don’t do anything to him, because now I acknowledge that you live in awe of God, and you haven’t held back your son, your only son, from me.”
The angel speaks from heaven, again with the double call, Abraham, Abraham. Though God has left it to the last possible moment, the divine voice speaks with urgency. For a third time Abraham says, “I’m here”.
Who has learnt what from this test? I think that like Job, it’s not (necessarily) that God needed to find out something he didn’t know, but that the proving produces the provenness. And this is where James 2 is helpful. James 2:21 teaches us that Abraham was justified ‘from his works, offering up Isaac his son upon the altar’, but then cites Genesis 15:6. How does 15:6 relate to 22? Because in Genesis 15 Abraham believes God, and Genesis 22 is the fruition of that faith, made complete in deed. The ultimate expression of Abraham’s faith is his utter obedience to surrender everything, even God’s best gift, to God for God. What does it mean to live in ‘awe of God’? To not hold back even that which we love above all, in obedience to God, because God is to be loved above all. And as Kathleen Goldingay says, “God and Abraham are now bound together in both being willing to sacrifice their sons.”
13Abraham lifted his eyes and looked: there, behind, a ram had caught itself in a thicket by its horns. Abraham went and got the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering in place of his son. 14Abraham named that site “Yahweh Yirʾeh,” so it’s said today, “On Yahweh’s mountain it’s seen to.”
Once more Abraham lifts his eyes. This time he sees ‘another’ ram (taking ʾaḥar as is). The only other places in the OT that the language of ‘see’, a ram, and burnt offerings are connected, are Leviticus 8-9 and 16, the consecration of priests, and the day of atonement. The connection is more than suggestive. God sees us, but he also provides for us, and sees to it, by providing the ram in our place, so that he sees us on the wood, and sees us offering our beloved son, because he didn’t hold back his own beloved son, who bore the wood of his sacrifice.
15Yahweh’s envoy called to Abraham a second time from the heavens 16and said, “By myself I am swearing (Yahweh’s declaration) that since you’ve done this thing and not held back your son, your only one, 17I will really bless you and make your offspring really numerous, like the stars in the heavens and like the sand that’s on the seashore; your offspring will take possession of their opponents’ gateway. 18All the nations on the earth will bless themselves by your offspring, on account of the fact that you listened to my voice.”
19Abraham went back to his boys, and they set off and went together to Beʿer Šeba. Abraham lived at Beʿer Šeba.
The final blessing acts to affirm God’s promises to Abraham, sealed by the one thing God can swear by - himself. Rightly does Luther paraphrase “If I do not keep My promises, I shall no longer be He who I am”. Abraham has given all, and YHWH’s solemn oath does no less, putting his very being on the line to fulfil his promise. Abraham’s faith, perfected in obedience, is the keystone to the story of Scripture from this point onward, an arrow to the cross of Jesus, and a paradigm for every son and daughter of Abraham since, who has trusted in God to the point of total surrender and obedience, prepared to sacrifice their most beloved on the altar, and receiving back hope eternal in the resurrection.
I never connected the sending away of Hagar and Ishmael with the Isaac story. If those are meant to be read in conjunction, you have a historical analogue for the scape goat legislation: one into the wilderness and one to the altar.