Notes on Genesis 22

I am posting below my notes on Genesis 22. As you can see – they are mostly from Wenham, Ross, Walton, etc.

Here is the WORD file: Notes on Genesis 22.

See also the useful info from Al Mohler.

Notes on Genesis 22

Wenham – p. 99: The account of the sacrifice of Isaac constitutes the aesthetic and theological summit of the whole story of Abraham.  It has long been admired for the brilliance of its narrative technique and for the profundity of its theology, which has inspired so much reflection by Jews and Christians…

NOTE the very strong parallels between chs. 21 and 22!!!

p. 100 – the reference to “the place which God had told him” evokes other “places” where A had built altars or met with God (22:3, 4, 9, 14; 12:6; 13:3, 4; 19:27).

See also the allusion to the very first command given to Abraham in 12:1-3!  Thus the whole of 22:1-19 reverberates with the echoes of earlier parts of the A cycle, and these need to be borne in mind in discussing its structure, in source analysis, and in exegesis.

Introduction (1a)                                                                                 Narrative

1.  God’s command “Sacrifice your son” (1b-2)                                Monologue

2.  Departure next morning  (3)                                              Narrative

3.  The third day at the foot  of the mtn. (4-6b)         Dialogue

4.  Journey up the mountain   (6c-8)                           Dialogue

5.  Preparation for sacrifice     (9-10)                                      Narrative

6.  Angel speaks to stop sacrifice        (11-18)                                                Monologue

Epilogue: Return to Beersheba (19)                                                    Narrative

These 2 last speeches represent the last recorded words of God to A, and it is noticeable how they echo very closely his first self-disclosure in 12:1-3…

p. 101

The narrative climaxes in the long sacrifice scene at the mountain top when at the last minute the angel calls off the sacrifice…the scenes before the sacrifice spin out the preparations and contribute to the build up of suspense…

The narrative is built up of 3 main dialogues with a long angelic monologue!

KEY WORDS: Abraham (18x), Isaac (5x), son (10x)

v. 1 – After these things suggests some time had elapsed between this trial of A and the events recorded in ch. 21 [see end of 21 too – Isaac is probably (at least) a teenager].

Note the GOD (heElohim a few times) vs. the Lord in v. 11…Delitzsch may be correct to see a theological motive behind the variation.  “He who requires from A the surrender of Isaac is God the creator…but it is Jahveh and his angel who forbids this extreme act, for the son of promise cannot perish…In Gen 2-3, the covenant creator is consistently termed “the LORD God,” but in the temptation scene, where alienation between deity and humanity becomes evident, the word “GOD” appears by itself (3:1-5).  Similarly, here is the first half of the story where God is acting in a strange, remote, and inexplicable way, he is called Elohim, but when he is revealed as savior and renews covenant promises, his personal name, “the Lord,” is appropriate and reintroduced.

TESTING shows what someone is really like, and it generally involves difficulty and hardship.

EXAMPLES: The queen of Sheba tested Solomon with riddles (1 Kgs 10:1).

p. 104 – DANIEL and his companions were tested by being put on a simple diet (1:12, 14).

GOD is often said to test Israel through hunger and thirst in the wilderness (Exod 15:25; 16:4; 20:20; Deut 8:2, 16), through false prophets (Deut 13:4), or through foreign oppression (Judg 2:22; 3:1, 14).

Deut 8:2 And you shall remember the whole way that the LORD your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not… 15  who led you through the great and terrifying wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water, who brought you water out of the flinty rock, 16  who fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers did not know, that he might humble you and test you, to do you good in the end.

The PURPOSE of such trials is to discover “what was in your heart, whether you would keep the commandments or not” (Deut 8:2; cf. Exod 16:4), “to humble you…to do you good in the end” (Deut 8:16; cf. Heb 12:5-11).  The use of the term here hints that A will face some great difficulty but that he will ultimately benefit from it!  This is the only time God is said to have tested an individual…

Greydanus – [God] lets Israel know at the outset (v 1) that God did not really require child sacrifice as did the pagan gods but that God was testing Abraham.  “This frees the reader to concentrate on the interaction between A and God rather than wrestle with the entangling perplexity of how God could resort to human sacrifice.” (K. Matthews)

HERE I AM – 3x (vv. 1, 7, 11) – each signals a tense new development in the narrative.

v. 2 – PLEASE take…[-na] rare in a divine command and makes it more like an entreaty…With this fourfold characterization of Isaac, the whole poignant tale of Isaac so far, the promise, the delay, and the miraculous fulfillment is summed up.  On him all of A’s hopes are riding…see “whom you love” = the only explicit clue to A’s attachment to his son…obedience to God and love for his son will tear him in diametrically opposed directions…

pp. 104-105

He sees in MORIAH [land of the vision?] the first hint of SALVATION…[cf. Noah and he repented in the flood story – SALVATION is thus promised in the very decree that sounds like an annihilation]…

Clowney – The name “Moriah” already suggests that something will be “seen.”  On that mountain the cost of God’s blessing will be seen.  Abraham will see the cost in the experience of faith.  There, too, God will show the cost that only He can meet: the cost of GRACE.  Abraham will see that God is the Savior.

BURNT OFFERING – involves cutting up and burning the whole animal on the altar and was the commonest type of sacrifice.  It seems to have expressed at least two ideas:

p. 105 – 1) the offerer is giving himself entirely to God (for the animal represents the

offerer)

2) the animal’s death atones for the worshiper’s sins.

The usual victims of burnt offerings were birds, sheep, and a bull (for the wealthy).  BUT – to offer one’s child was quite out of the question for devout orthodox worshipers.

Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my womb for the sin of my soul??? asks MICAH [6:7], expecting his hearers to reply with an emphatic NO!!!

[Leviticus 18:21 and 20:2-5

You shall not give any of your children to offer them to Molech, and so profane the name of your God: I am the LORD.

Lev 20:2  “Say to the people of Israel, Any one of the people of Israel or of the strangers who sojourn in Israel who gives any of his children to Molech shall surely be put to death. The people of the land shall stone him with stones. 3  I myself will set my face against that man and will cut him off from among his people, because he has given one of his children to Molech, to make my sanctuary unclean and to profane my holy name. 4  And if the people of the land do at all close their eyes to that man when he gives one of his children to Molech, and do not put him to death, 5  then I will set my face against that man and against his clan and will cut them off from among their people, him and all who follow him in whoring after Molech.

BUT note that here the commands are all related to MOLECH!!!]

But it was done occasionally in the biblical world, especially in time of dire crisis (Judg

11:31-40; 2 Kings 3:27; 17:17)

[2Ki 17:16  And they abandoned all the commandments of the LORD their God, and made for themselves metal images of two calves; and they made an Asherah and worshiped all the host of heaven and served Baal.

2Ki 17:17  And they burned their sons and their daughters as offerings and used divination and omens and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the LORD, provoking him to anger. 18 Therefore the LORD was very angry with Israel and removed them out of his sight. None was left but the tribe of Judah only.]

In fact, biblical law expects every firstborn son to be dedicated to God but insists that he be redeemed and an animal offered instead (Exod 22:29; 34:20). Later, the Levites by their service were seen as consecrated to God instead of the firstborn in each family (Num 4:45-49).  And it is this background of thought that, as Westermann points out, makes the test comprehensible: “Following Ex. 22:29, it is seen as possible that God can demand such a sacrifice.  In reality, however, human sacrifice is not possible (Ex. 34:20).  It is precisely because of this ambivalence that the command to A is a particularly suitable test.”

[Exod 22:29 “You shall not delay to offer from the fullness of your harvest and from the outflow of your presses. The firstborn of your sons you shall give to me.

Exod 34:20 The firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb, or if you will not redeem it you shall break its neck. All the firstborn of your sons you shall redeem. And none shall appear before me empty-handed. ]

…there is NO EVIDENCE that human sacrifice was ever common in Israel…It is better

to accept that at all periods an Israelite reader would regard God’s demand as

extraordinary, not simply morally but theologically, for Isaac was the son on whose

survival the fulfillment of all the promises depended.

Greydanus: How could God contradict his own law by asking A to offer his son as a burnt offering [request is even more contradictory here because we are dealing with the son of the promise]…

GOD asks A to turn Laughter into smoke! GOD asks A to burn his bridges in front of him as he had turned his bridges behind him (Gen 12:1, 4) and to walk with God alone, to rely solely on God!…at its deepest level the trial was, as Calvin put it, that “in the person of his son, the whole salvation of the world seemed to be extinguished and perished.”

Exod 29:17-18 You shall cut the ram into its parts…and turn the whole ram into smoke on the altar;  it is a burnt offering to the LORD!

=) There would be NOTHING left.  It would be as if Sarah never had given birth to Isaac.  A’s lengthy journey with God would come to naught.  His future would go up in smoke. [Note that A simply obeys here and is very silent – unlike the debate with God over Sodom etc].

Clowney: A was to return to God what he had received from God.  For A, the cost is everything…”Laughter” is gone!…Here is a story where God commands a father to murder his son by slitting his throat.  If A was hauled into a court, he would say that a voice from heaven told him to do it.  Do you want me to worship a God who commands human sacrifice?

Actually this story would be as shocking to believing Israelites as it is to us today…God forbade human sacrifice….capital punishment was the penalty [but again – it seems to be Molech!!!?]

Why, then, do we have this strange exception to God’s law?  Soren Kierkegaard saw it as a divine command to commit murder.  He explained it as the suspension of ethical laws for a higher purpose.  What we constantly forget is the justice of God [=) There is none righteous….God has every right to condemn sinners to death…see the firstborn in Egypt where the LORD provided the Passover lamb as a substitute…The sacrifice of Isaac would have been like the later sacrifice of the Passover lamb.  BUT – the sacrifice of Isaac was not to be, for he was not a perfect offering, a lamb without spot; he could not pay the price of the sins of others. A could not give the fruit of his body for the sin of his soul.]

God could and did require the sacrifice of Isaac [Clowney]….A obeyed without delay…With every sunrise [3 days] A believed and obeyed.

The cost is NOTHING: Total Trust of Faith

A was NOT evading Isaac’s question.  Beyond his own knowledge, he was prophesying.  A would pay the price, but God’s promise could not fail. A had told the servants, “We will return to you.” If need be, God would raise Isaac from the dead (Heb 11:17-19)…The obedience of A is matched by the faith of Isaac.  He does not resist….as a sheep led to the slaughter…

A was ready to give everything in devoted obedience.  Because he feared God, he would pay the price.  The Angel stayed his hand…The Lord Will See (to It).

The cost to A was everything, YET as he clung to the Lord in faith, the cost was NOTHING. He declared that the LORD would provide, and the LORD did provide.  A’s obedience was the obedience of faith.  Isaac was given to A a second time.  He was his by birth and by redemption.  The offering of the sheep symbolized not only consecration but atonement in the blood of a substitute.

In the total commitment of FAITH the cost is everything, BUT in the simple trust of FAITH, the cost is nothing. A worshiped as God renewed his covenant with him.

The demand that the LORD made of A is not unthinkable.  He makes the same demand us you!!! JESUS asks if anyone would follow him….Matthew 10:37-39.  Much as we need the power of his grace to deny ourselves and follow him, His demand has not changed.  Look at the cost: it’s everything.

[The GRACE of GOD’s demand – to strengthen FAITH by testing…God tested to bless…When God provided the ram, he not only spared Isaac (and Abraham!) but showed A that the price of redemption was greater than he could pay.  The LORD himself must provide the offering that brings salvation…”The Lord Will Provide” promises the coming of CHRIST!]

A rejoiced to see the day of Jesus Christ… A too saw that another Isaac must come, the Lamb of God, the Son of God….God meets the cost through substitution: The Lord Sees to It…The cost to A was everything.  He must not spare his own son.  BUT Isaac was spared…The cost to A was nothing, for God provided.  The cost to God was infinite.  He gave everything in the gift of his beloved Son.  He paid the price.  YET, for the JOY that was set before him, Christ endured the cross, despising the shame…(Heb 12:2)…The infinite price that was paid is met only by God’s infinite love (John 3:16)…

p. 106 – v. 3 – the illogical order hints at Abraham’s state of mind…whatever his state of mind, A did what he was told…

v. 4 – THREE DAYS is a typical period for something important…Westermann notes that the mountain of God to which the Israelites sought to travel was 3 days journey (Exod 3:18; 5:3)…

p. 107
CALVIN – observes that the delay made A’s ordeal the more painful.  “God does not require him to put his son immediately to death, but compels him to revolve this execution in his mind during three whole days, that in preparing to sacrifice his son, he may still more severely torture all his own senses.

v. 5 – See parallel with  Mt Sinai where only Moses was allowed to come to the top of the mountain, the people had to stay at the bottom (Exod 19:20, 24; 24:1-2).

NOTE in passing that A calls Isaac “the lad” rather than “my son”, which may suggest that A is trying to be detached.  He has already given Isaac mentally to God, so that in a sense he is no longer his son….[p. 108] It seems that none of these rival interpretations need be ruled out. While lie, prophecy, hope, even disobedience, can surely coexist in the believer, especially in time of acute crisis. The enigmatic ambiguity “we shall return” perhaps gives an insight into the quite contrary ideas agitating A’s mind at this time (I belive; help my unbelief; Mk 9:24; cf. Matt 14:27-32).

vv. 6-8 – The wording here anticipates the moment of sacrifice itself.  Genesis Rabbah, the Jewish midrash, comments that Isaac with the wood on his back is like a condemned man, carrying his own cross.

The pathos of the dialogue is inimitable…can hardly be read without tears (Skinner)…But it is also a gem of OT literary art…NOTE that the scene is framed by So they went both of them together (vv. 6,8)….One sees that the final part of the way was traversed in SILENCE (von Rad), the most poignant and eloquent silence in all literature (Speiser)…Isaac’s silence is again impressive, for it implies his total obedience to his father.  Either way, Isaac is shown to have those qualities of perfection always looked for in sacrificial victims (cf. Lev 1:3 – without blemish).  And either way, our appreciation of the trustful love that existed between father and son is enhanced…

p. 109 = It is also possible to read A’s response as an explicit reply: God will provide a sheep for the burnt offering, namely my son…But the other readings are also possible and contribute to the richness of the narrative. The organization of the story, which makes “God will provide” the turning point of the story, does favor a positive reading, i.e., as an expression of hope, a prophecy, or a prayer, though to Isaac it may well have sounded as an evasion.

CALVIN comments: This example is proposed for our imitation.  Whenever the Lord gives a command, many things are perpetually occurring to enfeeble our purpose: means fail, we are destitute of counsel, all avenues seem closed.  In such straits, the only remedy against despondency is to leave the event to God, in order that he may open a way for us when there is none.  For as we act unjustly toward God, when we hope for nothing from Him but what our senses can perceive, so we pay Him the highest honor, when, in affairs of perplexity, we nevertheless entirely acquiesce in His providence.

vv. 9-10 – …the narrative pace slows for the climactic scene on the mountaintop.

…that an elderly man was able to bind the hands and feet of a lively teenager strongly suggests Isaac’s consent.  So this remark confirms that impression given by vv. 7-8 that Isaac was an unblemished subject for sacrifice who was ready to obey his father, whatever the cost, just as his father had showed his willingness to obey God to the uttermost.

p. 110

v. 11 – The strange God who tested A once again shows himself to be the gracious LORD who keeps His promises (Exod 34:6-7)…

v. 12 – NOW I know…see 18:21 where likewise the mention of God knowing is used more in the sense of confirming His knowledge.

Ross: Westermann points out that it was usually the joyful cry of a person who experienced the effects of God’s action on his behalf (Pss 20:6; 56:9; Exod 18:11; 1 Kgs 17:24).  But here it was transferred to the joyful knowledge of God gained through testing the pious man…

FEAR GOD – very common expression in OT = to honor God in worship in an upright life.  Thus A was worried about the behavior of the people of Gerar… (20:11), while Joseph tries to reassure his brothers that he will treat them fairly because he fears God (42:18).  Perhaps the best parallel is JOB (1:1, 8; 2:3) – blameless and upright, one who feared God, and turned away from evil. Like A, he also underwent a mysterious test of his loyalty to God.

Ross: The one who truly feared the LORD reckoned that compliance with the Word of God, no matter what the cost, was the primary responsibility…The true worshiper fears the LORD; that is, the true worshiper draws near the LORD in love and adoration and reverence but shrinks back in fear of such an awesome deity (Ex 20:18b-21)…

Greydanus: Fearing G does not mean that A is afraid of God.  Fearing God here is practically equivalent to obeying God’s commandments.  See Deut 5:29:

Oh that they had such a mind as this always, to fear me and to keep all my

commandments, that it might go well with them and with their descendants forever!

v. 13 – …His subsequent action invites comparison with NOAH.  As soon as N left the ark, he offered sacrifice.  Similarly, as soon as A had unbound his son, he offered a sacrifice instead of his son.  In both instances, the motives of the sacrifice are implied rather than explained.  In both, they express devotion and gratitude and assure God’s benevolence toward future generations (8:18-9:17)…

p. 111 – Like Hagar (16:13-14), he has proved that the LORD does provide: she has named a well as a perpetual reminder of the LORD’s saving concern; A named the mountain…In the mount of the LORD He may be seen! [??]  NOTE that the niphal is regularly used of the LORD appearing to men (cf. 12:7; 17:1; 18:1), thus making a link with A’s past experience and forward to Israel’s future experiences on the mountain of God (Exod 3:1-2, 16; Lev 9:4, 6).

vv. 15-18 – p. 111

NOAH received great assurances about his descendants’ future after his sacrifice, and JOB’s property was doubled after his trial, while HAGAR was promised that her unborn son would father descendants without number…they are the last and most emphatic statement of the promises given to Abraham:

By myself I swear = first and only divine oath in the patriarchal stories, though it is frequently harked back to (24:7; 26:3; 50:24; Exod 13:5; often in Deuteronomy)…by MYSELF gives the oath a special solemnity and weight (Jer 22:5; 49:13; Amos 4:2; 6:8; Heb 6:13-18).

DECLARES the LORD [neum YHWH] = phrase is found 364 times in the OT, mostly in the prophets but only one other time in the Pentateuch (Num 14:28).  This formula points above all to God’s dependability…

I shall really bless you…I shall really multiply you…

Possess the gates of your enemies = conquer your enemies’ cities!

NOTE that this is the 35^th and last time that the Lord speaks to Abraham…

v. 18 – note the change: in your descendants instead of you!

A promise which was previously grounded solely in the will and purposes of Yahweh is transformed so that it is now grounded both in the will of Y and the obedience of Abraham….The FLOOD story provides another paradigm of this intermeshing of divine mercy and human obedience…

v. 19 – Isaac is not mentioned though he has been the subject of the promise, and no mention is made about what Sarah felt.  Commentators and preachers have often been tempted to fill in the gaps, but in so doing they draw attention  away from the central thrust of the story, A’s wholehearted obedience and the great blessings that have flowed from it.

EXPLANATION – pp. 112-118

Is he willing to love God with all his heart, mind, and soul? Does he trust and obey simply because it pays him to do so: in the words of the Satan of Job: Does Job fear God for nought?…Thou has blessed him…(Job 1:9-10)….like JOB, A was unaware that his trial was a test!!! =) torn between his faith in the divine promises and the command that promised to nullify them, between his affection for his only surviving son and heir and his love for God…

Go by yourself…But as hard as that command was [in 12:1], it was easy to carry out compared with “offer him there as a burn offering.”  On that occasion, the order to break with the PAST was at least sweetened by promises of a glowing future, of a new land, numerous descendants, and blessings to nations.  HERE – the command has no such incentives to it; indeed, to carry it out would seem to vitiate any chance of these oft-repeated promises ever being fulfilled.  The only glimmer of hope in the command is the name of the mountain, MORIAH, which A later will discover means “the LORD will provide, or appear,” but when he is told to go there, this is completely obscure to him.

NOW I know that you fear God – he has put obeying God above every other consideration = beginning of wisdom = like JOB.

NOW – he knows why the mountain is called MORIAH: it means “the LORD will provide,” or as others have said, “In the mountain of the LORD he may be seen.” He has discovered that God draws near those in deepest distress.

For the first and last time in Genesis the LORD swears an oath in his own name guaranteeing what he is about to say [but cf. 15 with the ratification ceremony], a guarantee reinforced by the formula “declares the LORD.” From now on, the LORD promises that he will not simply bless A but really bless him.  His descendants will be so numerous that they will be compared not just to the stars but to the sand of the seashore.  And they will not merely inherit the land; they will conquer it…A’s descendants, as well as A himself will be a source of blessing to “all the nations of the world.”

BECAUSE you have OBEYED ME – all the promises first made to A decades earlier are now augmented and guaranteed by the LORD unreservedly.

In this way – A’s long pilgrimage of FAITH, which has not been without its lapses from true piety, is brought to a triumphant conclusion.  God’s test had put A on the rack.  YET – torn between his love for his son and his devotion to God, he emerged victorious with his son intact and his faithful obedience rewarded beyond all expectations.

IT is this categoric affirmation of the PROMISES that gives this chapter such an important place, not just in GENESIS but in the whole Pentateuch…the oath is often referred to subsequently…not only exceeds every previous formulation but every subsequent statement of the promises…These promises look far into the future…its horizon is not bounded by the career of Abraham.

As elsewhere in Genesis – his actions foreshadow the later history of ISRAEL.  They too were called to go a 3-day journey to worship God on a mountain =) LAW + blessings if they keep it…Every father in Israel was expected to dedicate his firstborn son to the LORD and to redeem him by offering a sacrifice.

In EXODUS – this redemption of the firstborn recalls the PASSOVER in which the firstborn sons of Israel were spared judgment.  It may be that Genesis is implicitly comparing Isaac’s rescue to that sparing of Israel’s firstborn sons in the Exodus and the ram A offered to the Passover lamb.

In later Jewish tradition (Book of Jubilees – c. 100 BC) – a connection is made between Passover and the sacrifice of Isaac.  The word TESTED also invites comparison with the Exodus experience, for it most frequently occurs in connection with Israel’s wilderness wanderings…In post-biblical Judaism, it was sometimes affirmed that the temple sacrifices were accepted because of the merits of Isaac…The emphasis in the biblical account is certainly on A’s OBEDIENCE.

In other ways, the role of A here anticipates the role of later national religious leaders.

In 18 and 20 he appeared as a prophetic intercessor.

Here he acts more as a priest, especially like Moses, who ascended the mountain to worship God.

In another way he appears as the archetypal wise man [SAGE] of the Psalms and Proverbs who “FEARS GOD.”

More exactly, he is an example of the righteous suffering like Job, “who feared God…”  The story of Job is the story of Genesis 22 writ large….Finally the suffering Servant of Isaiah 53 seems to combine in his person images drawn from Gen 22 [like A and like Isaac] with those of JOB…And like ISAAC offered himself, rather than anyone else.  BUT unlike Abraham, Isaac, or JOB, the servant actually died (Isa 53:8).

THE NT – develops this imagery in a very striking way.

For them A and Isaac are types of God the Father and JESUS.  BUT where A did not quite sacrifice Isaac, JESUS did actually die.  This typology is very widespread in the NT.  See texts below…

JAMES and HEBREWS thus use the account of Isaac’s sacrifice not just to shed light on the atonement but on the kind of behavior the pious should imitate. CRISES that test faith and obedience to the uttermost are still part of the disciple’s lot.  The disciple too must be ready to take up the cross and follow.  And those who endure to the end may hope to hear the LORD’s commendation: Well done, good and faithful servant; enter into the joy of your LORD.

CHURCH FATHERS

ORIGEN – What do you say to these things, A? What kind of thoughts are stirring in your heart?  A word has been uttered by God that is such as to shatter and try your faith….What are you thinking?…BUT since the spirit of the prophets is subject to the prophets [1 Cor 14:32], the apostle Paul, who I believe, was teaching by the Spirit what feeling, what plan A considered, has revealed it.  He says…[quoting Heb 11:17-19]….A knew himself to prefigure the image of future truth.  He knew the Christ was to be born from his seed, who also was to be offered as a truer victim for the whole world and was to be raised from the dead…

Tell me, A, are you saying to the servants in truth that you will worship and return with the child or are you deceiving them? If you are telling the truth, then you will not make him a burn offering.  If you are deceiving, it is not fitting for so great a patriarch to deceive.  What disposition therefore does this statement indicate in you???

I am speaking the truth, he says, and I offer the child as a burnt offering.  For this reason I carry the wood with me, and I return to you with him.  For I believe, and this is my faith, that “God is able to raise him up even from the dead.” [same as Caesarius of Arles]

Show that FAITH in God is stronger that the affections of the flesh.  For A loved Isaac his son, the text says, but he placed the love of God before the love of the flesh, and he is found not with the affections of the flesh but “with the affection of Christ,” that is with the affection of the WORD of GOD and of the Truth and Wisdom.

God knew, and it was not hidden from him, since it is he “who has known all things before they come to pass.” BUT these things are written on account of you, because you too indeed have believed in God.  But unless you fulfill “the works of faith” (2 Thess 1:11) unless you are obedient to all the commands, even the more difficult ones, unless you sacrifice and show that you place neither father nor mother nor sons before God, you will not know that you fear God.  Nor will it be said of you, “Now I know that you fear God.”

This RAM is a type of CHRIST in the flesh…

ATHANASIUS – Thus the sacrifice was not for the sake of Isaac but for that of A, who was TESTED by being called upon to make this offering.  And of course, God accepted his intentions, but he prevented him from slaying Isaac.  The death of Isaac would not buy freedom of the world.  NO – that could be accomplished only by the death of our Savior, by whose stripes we are healed.

CAESARIUS of ARLES: When A offered his son Isaac, he was a type of God the Father, while Isaac prefigured our LORD and Savior.

CHRYSOSTOM – All this, however, happened as a type of CROSS.  Hence Christ too said to the Jews, “Your father A rejoiced in anticipation of seeing my day; he saw it and was delighted.” [Jn 8:56]  How did he see it if he lived so long before? In type, in shadow.  Just as in our text the sheep was offered in place of Isaac, so here the rational Lamb was offered to the world.  You see, it was necessary that the truth be sketched out ahead of time in shadow.  NOTICE, I ask you, dearly beloved, how everything was prefigured in shadow: an only-begotten son in that case, and only-begotten son in this; dearly loved in that case, dearly loved in this.  “This is my beloved Son… [he also quotes Paul in Romans 8]…Up to this point there is shadow, but now the truth of things is shown to be more excellent.  This rational Lamb, you see, was offered for the whole world; he purified the whole world…Through Him all worship of demons is made pointless; through him people no longer worship stone and wood…Do you see what the shadow is, on the one hand, and truth, on the other?

AUGUSTINE – Isaac is the one beloved son typifying the Son of God, bearing the wood himself, just as Christ bore the cross.  Lastly the ram itself was a type of Christ.

NOTE that Tertullian and Augustine liken the ram caught by its thorns in a brier-thicket to Christ receiving a “crown of thorns on his head”.

SPURGEON – When did A see Christ?…On the top of Moriah, when his own son was on the wood, and his own hand was lifted up, he may have seem the son of God, and the uplifted hand of God offering the Great Sacrifice. When he took the ram from the thicket, and so saved the life of his son, how clearly he must have understood the blessed doctrine of substitution, which is the very centre of the gospel.

GREYDANUS – Preaching Christ from GENESIS

THEOCENTRIC INTERPRETATION

Westermann observes, “The majority of interpreters…see the narrative holding A up as an exemplar…It seems to me, however, that when one refers the praise to A (Kierkegaard), one has not understood the narrative…The narrative looks not to the praise of the creature, but to the praise of God.” Although A and Isaac appear to be the main characters, in reality GOD is the protagonist.  “God tested”; A assures Isaac, “God will provide”; the LORD stops A from offering Isaac; the LORD provides the ram; A names the place, “The LORD will provide; the narrator adds, “as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the LORD it shall be provided’”; and the LORD promises to bless A, his offspring, and the nations!

TEXTUAL THEME and GOAL

Von Rad maintains that one of the main thoughts in this narrative is “the idea of a radical test of obedience.  That God, who has revealed himself to Israel, is completely free to give and to take, and that no one may ask, “What are you doing?’ (Job 9:12; Dan 4:32), is without doubt basic to our narrative…Y tests Faith and Obedience.  Also Wenham…

=) Whenever the sovereign God tests the faith of his people, he demands unquestioning, trusting obedience.

NOTE: Although this themes is not unbiblical, I believe that it misses the specific theme of this particular narrative…ISRAEL would have identified with ISAAC…the heart is God will provide!!!

=) The LORD provides a lamb for a burnt offering so that Isaac/Israel may live.

=) GOAL: to teach ISRAEL that it lives only by the grace of the LORD who PROVIDES… + to assure ISRAEL that their faithful covenant LORD can be trusted to provide their redemption.

=) SERMON THEME and GOAL

The LORD provides a sacrificial Lamb so that his people may live.

To assure God’s people that their faithful covenant Lord can be trusted to provide their redemption.

The God who forbade child sacrifice, the God who stopped A from offering his only son, is the God who loved us so much that he offered up his one and only Son.  And now nothing at all “will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” No matter how difficult our circumstances, we can fully trust God for our salvation.  He provided the ram so that Isaac and Israel could live; he provided “his only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish but may have eternal life” (John 3:16).

GOD provides!

A. P. ROSS

The one who fears God, that is, the faithful worshiper, will obediently surrender to God whatever He asks, trusting in God’s promises of provision and blessing.

[At the heart of God’s program of blessing is SACRIFICE, and although that may seem the way of failure, in God’s marvelous dealings it is the way of VICTORY!!!]

The test of obedience for the Christian would not differ essentially.  The LORD calls believers to obey his instructions, including sacrificing themselves and their possessions to him in fear and devotion…Christ’s requirements for disciples allowed no rivalries and no holding back.  The Christian life became a life of worship in which the true worshipers feared the Lord and surrendered themselves to him.

WALTON – Genesis NIV

With the birth of Isaac, the resolution of Ishmael dilemma, and the settling around Beersheba in the last chapter [21], the designation of YHWH as the Enduring God indicates the stability, security, and permanence that A now feels in the covenant and his relationship with God.  This condition is not to last, however, as God tests A.  The very God who has become recognized and appreciated for bringing enduring stability and security is the God who is responsible for such turmoil.

He sees Moriah (and Sinai) as places where God took care of the details…Human sacrifice was culturally logical [in that culture/worldview], despite being emotionally harsh, and only baffling in light of the covenant promises…

It is now NOT the impending death of Isaac that is the obstacle; rather, it is the prospect that A and his descendants may be more attached to the promised blessings and benefits of the covenant than to God…[On God’s reason]…The difference here, however, is that God does not really intend for Abraham to make the sacrifice…His purpose is to see what A is prepared to give up.  In the end God’s reason and God’s purpose is one and the same…The text maintains that the sequence of events is done for God’s benefit….We must differentiate between knowledge as cognition and knowledge as experience.  We can agree that God knew ahead of time…BUT there is ample evidence throughout Scripture that God desires us to act our faith and worship regardless of the fact that He knows our hearts.  God wants us to pray even though He knows what we are going to say [and what we need]…

Thomans Mann – God demands that A kills his own son; within the context of the cycle, God demands that A kills the promises God has made, and thus return the world to its state at the end of the Primeval cycle.  Of course, son and promises cannot be separated, but the weight of meaning lies in the fact that Isaac is a gift who embodies God’s promise of blessing, land, and nationhood.  The test is one of obedience and trust.  In essence, it is a test of Abraham’s relationship with Yahweh. It asks whether A’s trust is really in God, and not simply in what He has promised.  A has built altars before and sacrificed to this God, when God renewed the promises.  Is he willing now to build an altar and sacrifice the promises themselves, embodied in his son, in order to demonstrate his unswerving trust in the God who stands behind the promises?

…in the names attributed to God A moves in the right direction [in ANE other deities (not the ‘major/national’ ones) were involved in the daily life of the people].  He has recognized that this covenant God of his is not just a replacement deity for one of the standard categories of deities.  He is filling all the roles of deity. We can hardly begin to understand how revolutionary this was!

Are you willing to follow God if there is nothing in it for you? … [Today] we would not ask, “Would you be willing to give up your child?” Instead we would have to ask, “Would you give up eternity in heaven for God?”…Would we give back our lives if he gave nothing back but himself???…God asks no less of us than to be our all in all!

RELEVANT TEXTS

Romans 8:31-32

Rom 8:31  What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?

Rom 8:32  He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

Rom 8:33  Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies.

Rom 8:34  Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died–more than that, who was raised–who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.

Rom 8:35  Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?

Rom 8:36  As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

Rom 8:37  No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

Rom 8:38  For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers,

Rom 8:39  nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

John 3:16

James 2:21-23

Jas 2:21  Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar?

22  You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; 23  and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness“–and he was called a friend of God.

Hebrews 11:17-19

Heb 11:17  By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, 18  of whom it was said, “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.”

19 He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.

Matthew 10:37 Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

38  And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.

39  Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

1 Pet 1:19-20

1Pe 1:17  And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, 18  knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, 19  but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.

1Pe 1:20  He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you 21 who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.