The Sacrifice Of Isaac, Or The Old Testament’s Greatest Scene

By S. Lewis Johnson, Jr.

Lewis Johnson served as a teaching elder and regularly ministered the Word at Believers Chapel in Dallas for more than thirty years. At that time he was a guest speaker at conferences in Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, Australia, Jamaica, and Europe. During his academic career he held professorships in New Testament and Systematic Theology at Dallas Theological Seminary and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He also served as visiting Professor of New Testament at Grace Theological Seminary and as visiting Professor of Systematic Theology at Tyndale Theological Seminary in Amsterdam, Netherlands. At the time of his death in January 2004 he was Professor Emeritus of New Testament Studies at Dallas Seminary. Both MP3 files and printed notes of Dr. Johnson’s sermons and theological lectures may be downloaded from the web site of the SLJ Institute «www.sljinstitute.net».

An Exposition Of Genesis 22:1-19 [1]

Introduction

Can there be any doubt that this scene, that of the sacrifice of Isaac by his father Abraham, is one of the greatest in the history of the salvation of God? It lays solid claim to being the greatest scene recorded in the Old Testament and, in fact, may be surpassed in the New Testament only by the sacrifice of the Son of God at Calvary. When the Greatest Father offered up his Isaac, the real Lamb of God, the scene pictured in the twenty-second chapter of Genesis found its proper climax and antitype. That the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of the offering of Isaac surrounds the latter with a reflected glory. It is, therefore, one of the most famous types, if not the most famous, in the Bible.

Abraham, with whom God had made his fundamental covenant of salvation, was tested at the point of his trust in God, and that is the ultimate test. That he succeeded in the test is remarkable indeed. One commentator writes:

Here was a proof of how much mortal man will do for the love of God. Here was an evidence of childlike faith which must have thrilled the heart of the Eternal God, and moved Him in the very depths of His being. Do you and I love God like this? Is He more to us than our nearest and dearest? Suppose they stood on this side, and He on that side: would we go with Him, though it cost us the loss of all? You think you would. Aye, it is a great thing to say. The air upon this height is too rare to breathe with comfort. The one explanation of it is to be found in the words of our Lord: ‘he who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me’ (Matt. 10:37).” [2]

Well, perhaps we would fail the test at this stage of our Christian experience, but the work of God is not yet completed in our case. Dr. Leon Tucker, a gifted preacher and teacher of another generation, has told the story of a woman who had been broken by a great tragedy in her life. She had lived under the crushing weight of the burden for so many years that praise had been replaced by complaint. Finally she cried out in bitterness of soul, “Oh, I would to God I had never been made.” A friend who was with her, in response to the rebellious words, replied truly and wisely, “Why my dear child, you are not made yet; you are only being made, and you are quarrelling with God’s process.”

There are other things that come before us in the chapter which are important for the study of the Word of God. In the first place, the chapter forms an important link in the developing typology of the Lamb of God (cf. 4:1-7; Exod. 12:1-4). And in the second place, it affords a number of illustrations of the hermeneutical principle, “The Law of First Mention,” according to which it is believed that the first mention of important biblical terms provides significant clues toward the finding of the ultimate meaning of the terms. For example, in this chapter we have the first mention of the word “test,” the word “love,” the word “obey,” and the first mention of God swearing in the Bible. We shall look at the terms in the exposition that follows.

The Preparation For The Sacrifice, Verses 1-8

The Command, Verses 1-2

Now it came about after these things, that God tested Abraham, and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” He said, “Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you.”

The beginning of what someone has called, “perhaps the profoundest personal experience in all the recorded history of the patriarchs,” [3] is introduced by Moses in verses 1-2.

At this point we must make note of the bit of chronological information given us in Genesis 23:1, “Now Sarah lived one hundred and twenty-seven years; these were the years of the life of Sarah.” Was Sarah the only woman whose age is given in the Word? Someone has referred somewhere to “the seven ages of woman: the infant, the little girl, the miss, the young woman, the young woman, the young woman, and the young woman!”

In Genesis 21:8, Isaac’s weaning is mentioned, when she was between ninety-three and ninety-five years of age. Thus, the events of chapter twenty-two occurred during the intervening period of about thirty-five years. A comparison of 21:34 with the phrase, “after these things,” in 22:1, leads to the conclusion that Isaac’s offering up took place quite a time after his birth. He was no longer a child, perhaps being at least in his teens and possibly older. It is true that he is called a “lad” in verses 5 and 12, but the Hebrew word נַעַר (naʿar) is rather flexible in meaning and could refer to a young man in his twenties. [4] We should bear this in mind as we study the account.

According to the record Abraham had not heard from the Lord God in some years, but suddenly the blow fell! And when it fell, like a bolt from the blue, it brought him the severest test of his life, and perhaps the severest test that a mere man has ever been called to make. The patriarch was told to take Isaac and offer him as a burnt offering on Mount Moriah.

There are three ways of looking at the command. Some feel that the demand was for a human sacrifice, similar to the human sacrifices in Old Testament times that were practiced by Israel’s neighbors. Others have contended that God never meant for Abraham to offer up Isaac literally, but only to dedicate him completely. This view, if carried to its logical conclusion, would appear to compromise the necessity of the sacrificial death of our Lord Jesus Christ. And, in addition, it may be asked why Abraham gathered together all the materials for a literal offering if he never intended to offer Isaac in this way (cf. vv. 3, 6, 9)? It is, therefore, best to see God as intending an actual human sacrifice of Isaac as a test of Abraham’s trust in the promises given him by God and of his affection for the God of the promises. Later, in the Mosaic Law, human sacrifices were specifically forbidden.

The phrase, “God tested Abraham,” is important. Hebrew word order is inverted in the original text for emphasis and an article is used with “God” for further heightening of effect. [5] The test, of course, was not intended to bring out the evil in the man of faith, but to bring out the good that God had wrought in him. Those qualities in him, produced by divine grace, are to be brought into exercise. All of the experiences of the Christian life are similarly occasions in which God works to produce the fruit of divine enablement in our lives (cf. Phil. 2:12-13).

The test was, thus, a test of trust versus “common sense” and human affection. Will Abraham believe the promises and love the God of the promises sufficiently to do his will, even if it means parting with his dearest, divinely promised possession, who was the “only link with the far-off goal to which Abraham’s life was dedicated (see 21:12)?” [6] It was the severest of tests. Sometimes it is said that trials are “God’s vote of confidence in us.” [7] I do not doubt that, but in the actual undergoing of them it is not always easy to rely on that truth. We are not all Abrahams, although we would wish to be.

Every syllable of the command of verse 2, “Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you,” is calculated to excite his affection for Isaac to the highest pitch. As Spurgeon says, “If George Herbert were speaking of it, he would say the words are all a case of knives cutting at Abraham’s soul. There is scarce a single syllable of God’s address to him, in the opening of the trial, but seems intended to pierce the patriarch to the quick.” [8] It is, first, “Take now your SON.” A father slay a SON? Of all the possessions of Abraham, and he had many, why his SON? And then he adds, “your only son.” The Hebrew word rendered “your only son” is an adjective (יָחִיד, yāḥîḏ) that means the unique one, one and only. [9] Actually, Isaac was not Abraham’s only son (cf. 21:11), but he was the one in whom the promises centered, born by promise to the aged couple, and thus preeminently loved. The Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, renders the words well, “your beloved son, whom you have loved.” [10] The word “only” takes on a special meaning, for Ishmael has just recently been sent away to the wilderness.

The words “whom you love” remind Abraham of his great love for his unique son just at the moment when he is to lose him. “Oh, stern word,” Spurgeon exclaims, “that seemeth to have no bowels of compassion in it! Was it not enough to take away the loved one, without at the same instant awakening the affections which were so rudely to be shocked?” [11] Each of the opening phrases, then, heightens the tension of the surprising command another degree. [12]

We have here the first mention of the word “love” in the Word. Does it not suggest that the love of a godly father for his son is a miniature picture of the love existing among the persons of the Holy Trinity, and in particular the love of the Father for the Son of God (cf. John 17:24)? It is an interesting fact that in the New Testament the first occurrence of the word “love” is a clear expression of the love of the Father for the Son (cf. Matt. 3:17; Mark 1:11; Luke 3:22). If Abraham loved Isaac, how much more deeply and fully did the Father love the Son! In the gospel of John the first occurrence of the word “love” is found in the great verse of God’s love for the world of Jews and Gentiles (3:16). The love of the Father for the Son is mirrored in the love of the Father for the world. He, who loved him, loved us. How fortunate we are!

The trial touched Abraham at his tenderest spot, for it touched Isaac, the apple of his eye. Nothing could have been a greater test than that which involved the heir of the promises, the child of his old age, the laughter (Isaac’s name means “laughter”) of his life. The question that faced the patriarch is not simply: “Do I love God more than this, my greatest human love?” but, “Must I give back to God the long-delayed divine gift of Isaac, the only one through whom, so far as I understand it, the promised greatness of my seed can come (cf. Gen. 12:1-3; 15:4-21; 17:1-8)?” “Must I give Isaac back to God in sacrifice? Does this not mean the sacrifice of the far-off glorious future for which my whole life has been lived? I gave up my past in leaving Ur, and shall I now give up my promised future?” The tension of the developing story is unrelieved.

Abraham was told to go to “the land of Moriah.” Moriah was the place upon which the later temple would be built (cf. 2 Chron. 3:1). Calvary could be seen from Mount Moriah, as they were of the same elevation. It was a beautiful suggestion that later readers would follow out to its conclusion. It was to foreshadow the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ, the sacrifice of God’s Son on Calvary. Meyer comments, “Tradition, which seems well authenticated, has always associated that ‘mountain in the land of Moriah’ with the place on which, in after days, stood the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite, and the site of Solomon’s Temple; and there is a wonderful appropriateness in the fact that this great act of obedience took place on the very spot where hecatombs [13] of victims and rivers of blood were to point to that supreme Sacrifice which this prefigured.” [14]

The Response, Verse 3

So Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him and Isaac his son; and he split wood for the burnt offering, and arose and went to the place of which God had told him.

The struggle in the heart of the aged man of faith, was, no doubt, a hard one, but the issue was resolute, quick obedience. There were many ways in which God might fulfill the promises in Isaac to him, but only one way by which he might do his part, and that was to obey. That is what he did, reckoning that it was not for him to reason out the how of the matter, but simply to do the will of God. There was one primary thought in the old man’s mind, and the writer of Hebrews tells his readers about it. He “considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead” (Heb. 11:19). “God is able.” That is the thing that strengthened and motivated him. A faith like this, one that simply believes the word of God, being confident that he will do exactly what he says, is the faith that overcomes. May we obtain it! It resulted in quick obedience, or what Meyer has called, “the habit of instantaneity.” [15] “Isaac must live!” dominated his thinking.

The agonizing ordeal begins in silence, and the trip to Moriah is taken in silence. The matter-of-factness of the preparations with no insight given into the emotional state of the principals is striking. “The “chaste reticence” [16] is part of the author’s great skill in telling the story.

The Ascent Of Moriah, Verses 4-8

On the third day Abraham raised his eyes and saw the place from distance. Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey, and I and the lad will go over there; and we will worship and return to you.” Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son, and took in his hand the fire and the knife. So the two of them walked on together. Isaac spoke to Abraham his father and said, “My father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” And he said, “Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” Abraham said, “God will provide for Himself the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” So the two of them walked on together.

Abraham left the young men who accompanied him and Isaac at the foot of Mount Moriah with the words, “I and the lad will go over there; and we will worship and return to you” (v. 5). They would worship, that is, recognize the worth-ship of God, on the mountain. What a magnificent word, and how remarkable that at the moment of the greatest test of his life the patriarch was occupied with the excellencies of his great God! In the midst of the greatest sorrow and struggle he was undergirded by the knowledge of the Holy One that he had learned through the years. It was, of course, one of the secrets of the successes of the past. And is not that the secret of the success that any saint has in the trials of life? It is the knowledge of God that sustains us in trials. And, if that is so, then how important it is that we obtain this knowledge through the doctrinal study of God’s Word.

The care of the father is seen in the division of burdens, the father taking the dangerous objects, the knife and the fire, and the son the wood for the trip to the top of the mountain. The two young men who accompanied Abraham and his son cannot go with them to the top of the mount, suggesting that in the final analysis it is only the Father and the Son of God who can really know the awful experience of the payment of the penalty for sin (cf. 2 Cor. 5:21).

When he said “and we will…return to you,” he was affirming his faith in the resurrection power of God, as the writer of Hebrews reminds us (cf. Heb. 11:17-19). Isaac has been dead for three days in his mind, the three days of the journey to the mountain, but he expects him to be given back to him as one raised from the dead. The reference to the Great Antitype, the Lord Jesus Christ, is clear.

On the way to the top of the mountain the “oppressive silence” [17] is resumed. Twice it is said, “The two of them walked on together” (vv. 6, 8). It reminds us of the beautiful harmony that existed between the Father and the Son as the mediatorial work was carried out by the Son (John 4:34; 8:16, 29; 16:32; cf. 2 Kings 2:1-6).

The silence is broken briefly as the son asks, “My father! Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” (v. 7). The old man answers ambiguously, perhaps tenderly evasively, although his answer comes close to the ultimate solution, which he apparently did not yet know. The ultimate answer to Isaac’s question is that given by John the Baptist in his reference to the Lord Jesus, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). The profound silence returns until they arrive. [18]

“The loading of the wood on to Isaac,” Kidner points out, “brings inevitably to mind the detail in John 19:17: ‘he went out, bearing his own cross.’ But the fire and the knife are in the father’s hands. Victim and offerer walking both of them together (the poignant refrain returns in verse 8) foreshadow, however, the greater partnership expressed in Isaiah 53:7, 10.” [19]

He was oppressed and He was afflicted,
Yet He did not open His mouth;
Like a lamb that is led to slaughter,
And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers,
So He did not open His mouth …
But the Lord was pleased
To crush Him, putting Him to grief;
If He would render Himself as a guilt offering.

Important also in the picture is the willingness seen in the submission of Isaac to his father’s will, one of the preeminent features of the sacrifice of the Son of God (Isa. 53:7; Matt. 26:39; Heb. 5:8).

The Sacrifice Of Isaac, Verses 9-14

The Altar Constructed, Verse 9

Then they came to the place of which God had told him; and Abraham built the altar there and arranged the wood, and bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood.

The account again slows down, and the details are given “with frightful accuracy.” [20] Speiser suggests, “Abraham goes about his task with abnormal attention to each detail, with the speechless concentration of a sleepwalker, as if thus to hold off by every possible means the fate that he has no hope of averting.” [21]

It had been three days of agony, with Isaac dead in his own mind all that time, but now the struggle reaches its climax. Meyer writes:

Can you not see the old man slowly gathering the stones, bringing them from the furthest distance possible; placing them with reverent and judicious precision; and binding the wood with as much deliberation as possible? But at last everything is complete; and he turns to break the fatal secret to the young lad who had stood wondering by. Inspiration draws a veil over that last tender scene—the father’s announcement of his mission; the broken sobs; the kisses, wet with tears; the instant submission of the son, who was old enough and strong enough to rebel if he had the mind. Then the binding of that tender frame; which, indeed, needed no compulsion, because the young heart had learned the secret of obedience and resignation. Finally, the lifting him to lie upon the altar, on the wood. Here was a spectacle which must have arrested the attention of heaven. Here was a proof of how much mortal man will do for the love of God. Here was an evidence of child-like faith which must have thrilled the heart of the Eternal God, moved him in the very depths of his being. Do you and I love God like this? [22]

The Interruption And The Substitution, Verses 10-13

Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” He said, “Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.” Then Abraham raised his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him a ram caught in the thicket by his horns; and Abraham went and took the ram and offered him up for a burnt offering in the place of his son.

This is the section that records the patriarch’s passing of his final exam in submission to the will of God. It is magnificent in its picture of Abraham’s obedience and glorious in its depiction of the divine grace and mercy in the provision of a substitute, which to the dullest of spiritual minds portrays the supreme substitutionary sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God.

As Abraham was about to slay his son, he was interrupted by the Angel of the Lord and then allowed to see a ram caught in a thicket, which he offered up for Isaac. On the human side, the will of God is done. On the divine side, mercy is poured out and the suffering of death avoided by the sacrifice of a substitute. Almost all of the great truths of redemption are found here—the voluntary nature of the sacrifice, the penal nature of it, the effective substitionary character of it, the definiteness of the propitiatory work, the completeness of the divine provision, and the sufficiency of the work for the resting of the soul.

When we read in verse twelve “for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me” (cf. v. 16), we remember that Paul uses the words in Romans 8:32 (“He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all”) in a verse that convincingly teaches the definiteness of the saving work of Christ, if one will simply reflect upon that verse’s meaning. [23]

One incidental point that should be noted here is the fact that the distinction between the Angel of the Lord and Yahweh himself seems almost completely removed. The Angel has been speaking to the patriarch, but he says that Abraham has not withheld his only son “from Me” (v. 12; cf. vv. 15-16). [24]

The Commemorating Name, Verse 14

Abraham called the name of that place The Lord Will Provide, as it is said to this day, “In the mount of the Lord it will be provided.”

The account moves on with no mention of praise and thanksgiving from Abraham, in keeping with the sense of awful solemnity and seriousness in which Abraham’s trial is depicted. The name given to the place is sufficient indication of the depth of gratitude felt by the patriarch and his son. He gave the name, “The Lord Will Provide,” [25] to the place. The reader is left with a sense of the never-failing provision of deliverance by a faithful promise-keeping God, highlighted by the offering of the Antitype of Abraham’s offering, the Lord Jesus Christ, on Golgotha.

The Oath Of Reaffirmation, Verses 15-19

The Promises, Verses 15-18

Then the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven, and said, “By Myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this thing and have not withheld your son, your only son, indeed I will greatly bless you, and I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your seed shall possess the gate of their enemies. In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.”

For the first time the Lord swears an oath, and it is to confirm the promises made to the patriarch so long ago, in which the patriarch has manifested such a deep faith by his offering up of the one in whom his seed was called (cf. 21:12). The best comment on the meaning of this is found in the use made of the context by the author of Hebrews in Hebrews 6:13-18:

For when God made the promise to Abraham, since He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself, saying “I will surely bless you and I will surely multiply you.” And so, having patiently waited, he obtained the promise. For men swear by one greater than themselves, and with them an oath given as confirmation is an end of every dispute. In the same way god, desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, interposed with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us.

The triumphant outcome of the promise program is stated here in Genesis 22:15-18, the seed of the patriarch being victor over all its enemies. This is a new promise, but it is implied in the others. [26] It is clear from this section that one of the chief purposes of Abraham’s test was the specific one of testing his faith in the Abrahamic promise program. He passes it with flying colors, and a new feature is added to it.

The Return To Beersheba, Verse 19

So Abraham returned to his young men, and they arose and went together to Beersheba; and Abraham lived at Beersheba.

A final historical note concludes the account. I wish more had been given. For example, would it not be interesting to know Sarah’s response to all of this? A late Jewish tradition has offered some speculation. It is said that Sarah, when Abraham returned and told her what had happened, uttered six cries and died! [27]

Conclusion

We return, in conclusion, to the point of the test of Abraham, God’s “friend” (Isa. 41:8). There can be little doubt that on one level it was Abraham’s faith in God (cf. vv. 12, 16-17), and specifically his faith in God who had made messianic promises to him. Isaac was the child of the promise. Would Abraham sacrifice the son who was necessary for the fulfillment of the promise, and apparently forego the divinely stated long range goals of the history of salvation? Every saving blessing lay ultimately in the son of his old age, for Christ would come from him. Shall the old man give him up on a bare word of God?

Reckoning that God has infinite methods at his disposal for accomplishing his purposes, but that there is only one way to obey him, and that is the way of implicitness, the patriarch obeyed. From that time on Isaac was a child of a resurrecting God to him.

But, second, a product of Abraham’s faith was his love for a God who had made such magnificent promises to him. That love, implanted in his heart by prevenient grace (cf. Rom. 5:5), proved itself invincible, too, just because it was divine love, ministered to him in the Spirit. The patriarch was, thus, carried to victory by electing grace, divinely implanted faith, and responsive love for the God of the messianic promises. Carried to victory by a sovereign Master while on the mount, he stands as one whose life and trials illustrate most nobly our Lord’s dictum, “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me” (Matt. 10:37). Abraham was worthy.

Perhaps, then, it was on the mount of Moriah that the patriarch had the experience that our Lord referred to, when he said, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad” (cf. John 8:56). And, having seen it, with a new joy in his heart and a new brightness upon his face Abraham returned to the waiting men, communing with Isaac over the glory of the Lord that had touched their lives. And the memorableness of the experience of the place he called “The Lord Will Provide” lit up all the commonplaces of his life in the days that were to come. Such are the rewards of the experience of God. May they be ours!

Notes

1. This is article two in a twelve-part series, “Anticipations of the Messiah in the Old Testament.”
2. F. B. Meyer, Abraham: or, The Obedience of Faith (London: Morgan and Scott, 1911), 177.
3. E. A. Speiser, Genesis, AncB (Garden City: Doubleday, 1964), 164.
4. The rabbis differed on the upper boundary of a ךֶנעֱר. Rabbi Meir said twenty-five, Rabbi Akiba said thirty, and Rabbi Ishmael said twenty. All agreed it is a precise term for youth “with the particular connotation of vigor and strength.” Cf. H. F. Fuhs, “ךֶנעֱר,” TDOT, 9:480.
5. Speiser, Genesis, 162.
6. Speiser, Genesis, 164.
7. Meyer, Abraham: or, The Obedience of Faith, 168.
8. Charles Haddon Spurgeon, “Mature Faith—Illustrated by Abraham’s Offering Up Isaac,” in The Treasury of the Bible (reprint ed., Grand Rapids: Baker, 1981), 1:112-117 (esp. 112).
9. Speiser, Genesis, 163. Cf. H.-J. Fabry, “יָחִיד,” TDOT, 6:46.
10. The text of the Septuagint has τὸν υἱόν σου τὸν ἀγαπητόν, ὅν ἠγάπησας.
11. Spurgeon, “Mature Faith—Illustrated by Abraham’s Offering Up Isaac,” 113.
12. Derek Kidner, Genesis, TOTC (Downers Grove: Inter-Varsity Press, 1967), 143.
13. Editor’s note: The word “hecatomb,” rarely used today, is from a Greek word (ἑκατόμβη) meaning literally, “an offering of a hundred oxen” (ἑκατόν [“hundred”] + βοῦς [“ox”]). “A great public sacrifice (properly of a hundred oxen) among the ancient Greeks and Romans, and hence extended to the religious sacrifices of other nations” (OED, s.v. “hecatomb”). In the plural it has come to mean “a great slaughter.”
14. Meyer, Abraham: or, The Obedience of Faith, 174.
15. Meyer, Abraham: or, The Obedience of Faith, 172.
16. Gerhard von Rad, Genesis, rev. ed., trans. John H. Marks OTL (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1972), 240.
17. von Rad, Genesis, 241.
18. von Rad, Genesis, 241. Prof. von Rad quotes a fellow German writer (Steinthal), “A subject on which all great poets of world literature from Aeschylus to Shakespeare and Goethe might write in competition would be, ‘What did Abraham and Isaac say to each other as they went together to the place where the father was to sacrifice the son?’… Here is the simplest and perfect solution of the problem.” Von Rad adds that the simplest and perfect solution to the question is that found in Genesis 22:6-8. It is surely true to all of the spiritual and emotional mood of the moving event.
19. Kidner, Genesis, 143.
20. Von Rad, Genesis, 241.
21. Speiser, Genesis, 165.
22. Meyer, Abraham: or, The Obedience of Faith, 177.
23. Editor’s note: Open theists latch on to Genesis 22:12 in order to deny the doctrine of the foreknowledge of God. Sanders quotes Brueggemann with approval: “God genuinely does not know…. There is real development in the plot. The flow of the narrative accomplishes something in the awareness of God. He did not know. Now he knows” (Walter Brueggemann, Genesis, Interp [Atlanta: John Knox, 1982], 187). Sanders writes, “God’s statement ‘now I know,’ raises serious theological problems regarding divine immutability and foreknowledge…. It should be noted…that the only one in the text said to learn anything from the test is God” (John Sanders, The God Who Risks [Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1998], 52). Ware sees three problems with Sanders’ interpretation: (1) If God had to test Abraham to find out what was in his heart, then this would call into question God’s present knowledge of Abraham’s inner spiritual, psychological, mental, and emotional state. Exegesis requires that we not only look at the surface meaning of a given text but also at what the rest of the Bible says about God. Elsewhere Scripture teaches us that God knows fully the thoughts and intentions of the hearts and inner lives of people [1 Sam. 16:7; 1 Chron. 28:9; 1 Kings 8:39]. (2) The open theist positions suggests that God needed this test to know specifically whether Abraham feared God. It was only as Abraham prepared to kill Isaac that God learned that he feared him. Did not Abraham’s past conduct provide God with a basis for knowing the state of his heart? [cf. Rom. 4:18-22; Heb. 11:8-12, 17-19]. (3) Given open theism’s commitment to libertarian freedom, the test could not have accomplished what they claim it accomplished. If God were seeking to ascertain whether Abraham would be faithful in the future, then he was seeking to know Abraham’s libertarian free choices in advance, which open theists say God cannot know! Feinberg adds these notes on the text: First, Genesis 22:1 says that God tested Abraham. The chapter records a test of Abraham, not a test of God or his knowledge. Second, this was not God’s first test of Abraham, and the earlier tests certainly gave God some idea of how Abraham felt about him. Ware argues that the best way to interpret Genesis 22:12 is to understand that when Abraham prepared to raise his knife God literally saw and experienced at that moment what he had known from eternity (Bruce A. Ware, God’s Lesser Glory [Wheaton: Crossway, 2000], 73; John S. Feinberg, No One Like Him [Wheaton: Crossway, 2001], 765). Frame adds a traditional perspective when he says that in light of the Bible’s overall view of God’s knowledge, it is best to see Genesis 22:12 as anthropomorphic. “All biblical references to God are anthropomorphic in the sense that they speak of God in human language, use concepts that are at least somewhat understandable to human beings, and make some comparison, at least implicitly, between God and human beings. And all such references are literal in that, rightly understood, they present God as he really and truly is” (John M. Frame, No Other God [Phillipsburg, PA: P & R, 2001], 48).
24. Von Rad, Genesis, 241.
25. The Hebrew text reads, יהוה יִרַאֶה (YHWH yir\eh). In many popular devotional works it is translated, “Jehovah Jireh,” as it is translated in the King James Version.
26. Speiser (Genesis, 166) writes, “The object of the ordeal, then was to discover how firm was the patriarch’s faith in the ultimate divine promise.” Von Rad (Genesis, 243) contends that the promise that Abraham’s seed “will possess the gate of their enemies” (v. 17) is an idea still foreign to the basis of the Abrahamic promises. He may have overlooked Genesis 17:6 (cf. 24:60).
27. For this tradition von Rad (Genesis, 243) cites Hermann L. Strack and Paul Billerbeck, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch (1928; reprint ed., Mühnchen: C. H. Beck’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1965), 4:182.