Genesis 22:1-14 Commentary

This is one of the simplest stories in the whole Bible. That may surprise you but it’s true. From the standpoint of Hebrew language — vocabulary, grammar, syntax, that sort of thing — this story is remarkably straight-forward. In fact, for this reason, many beginning Hebrew students are assigned this text for their first translation work.

That it’s all so straight-forward is disappointing when you might have been hoping that some obscure verb tense here or some ambiguous word translation there might proffer an insight allowing us to make sense of this story. Maybe even to dismiss its complications. Taming its rough edges, softening its horror. Yes. That would have been nice.

Truth be told, I had really hoped my research would unearth some nugget of exegesis that would flip the text, make it so that it doesn’t say what it seems to be saying. I would have loved to offer you an insight by which you could begin your sermon: “This is one of the simplest stories in the whole Bible” because God doesn’t *really* ask Abraham to sacrifice his child. God would never *actually* test someone’s faith this way. And Abraham has disobeyed easier command than this one. Definitely he isn’t going to obey God now!

Let’s start with this honest admission: vocabulary and grammar aside, this text is really hard.

Abraham’s story begins in obedience to God’s command: “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you.” Here, in this chapter, we have the end of Abraham’s story and, in it, we hear parallels to its beginning. “Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.” And Abraham obeys. According to Old Testament scholar, Terence Freitheim “Abraham begins and ends his journey with God by venturing out into the deep at the command of God. The former cuts Abraham off from his past; the latter threatens to cut him off from his future.”

God issues a command and Abraham seems poised to obey. The paucity of detail — not a word about Abraham’s emotional state through those 3 full days of travel — serve as invitation to us. If the author doesn’t tell us how Abraham is feeling, we are meant to ask ourselves, “well, if it were you, how would YOU be feeling about this venture?”

Am I really sure that was God’s voice telling me to do this thing?

And what about all those promises before?

John Calvin offers the thought that, in this situation, “the command and promise of God are in conflict.” What are we supposed to do with that?

What would happen if I just … didn’t do this thing?

How can I live with myself if I do this thing?

How will I tell Sarah?

Again from a commentary, “There is no insight into Abraham’s interior life; all we have is a sequence of verbs: he rose, saddled, took, cut, set out, went, looked up and saw.”

If we are to hear anything of Abraham’s internal process in this text, we hear it best in his spoken words.  When the traveling party reaches the bottom of the mountain, Abraham tells his servants, “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then *we* will come back to you.”

While it’s hard to imagine that he’s exactly wrapped his head around the game plan, it does seem that Abraham has some faith that God will make this right … somehow and that he will descend the mountain with his son.

And, again, after Abraham has laid the firewood on Isaac to pack up the mountain, his son — at some point — ventures this question, “The fire and wood are here, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” one can easily imagine that the knife inserted in Abraham’s heart by God’s initial request is twisted by Isaac’s simple question. Finding voice, Abraham manages, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” Again, it hardly seems he’s wrapped his head around all of this yet but Abraham does have faith that God is going to provide … something.

Ultimately, then, according to Freitheim, “Abraham trusts that God’s promises and command are not finally contradictory; whatever conflict there may be, it is up to God to resolve it and God is up to it.”

And what of Isaac? We don’t have much from the story to go on but we do know that, in preparation for the hike, Abraham straps the firewood to Isaac’s back. So he must have been old enough to take that extra weight up the mountain. Which also means, presumably, old enough to fight back when dad’s plan becomes clear. One of the earliest commentators on Jewish Scripture from Roman antiquity was Josephus and it was his take that Isaac was old enough to be a partner in Abraham’s obedience. Later Jewish commentators have favored this interpretation.

While all three Abramic religions share this story in common, it is only in the Christian imagination that this story foreshadows an even greater story.

Illustration

The Jesus Storybook Bible tells this morning’s text for children (kudos to them for that!) Here’s how Sally Lloyd Jones frames the conclusion of the story: “As they sat there on the mountaintop, watching the embers of the fire die in the cool night air, the stars above them sparkling in the velvet sky, God helped Abraham and Isaac understand something. God wanted his people to live, not die. God wanted to rescue his people, not punish them. But they must trust him. ‘One day, Someone will be born into your family,’ God promised them. ‘And he will bring happiness to the whole world.’ God was getting ready to give the whole world a wonderful present. It would be God’s way to tell his people, ‘I love you.’ Many years later, another Son would climb another hill, carrying wood on his back. Like Isaac, he would trust his Father and do what his Father asked. He wouldn’t struggle or run away. Who was he? God’s Son, his only Son — the Son God loved.”