A reading from the book of Genesis (22:1-18)
It happened some time later that God put Abraham to the test. ‘Abraham, Abraham!’ he called. ‘Here I am,’ he replied. God said, ‘Take your son, your only son, Isaac whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and there you shall offer him as a burnt offering on one of the mountains which I shall point out to you.’
Early next morning Abraham saddled his donkey and took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. He chopped wood for the burnt offering and started on his journey to the place that God had indicated to him. On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. Then Abraham said to his servants, ‘Stay here with the donkey. The boy and I are going over there; we shall worship and then come back to you.’ Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering, loaded it on his son Isaac, and in his own hands carried the fire and the knife. Then the two of them set out together. Isaac spoke to his father Abraham, saying, ‘Father’. He replied, ‘Here I am, my son.’ He said, ‘Look, here are the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?’ Abraham replied, ‘My son, God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering.’ And the two of them went on together.
When they arrived at the place that God had indicated to him, Abraham built an altar there, and arranged the wood. Then he bound his son Isaac and put him on the altar on top of the wood. Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to kill his son. But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven. ‘Abraham, Abraham!’ he said. ‘Here I am,’ he replied. He said, ‘Do not raise your hand against the boy or do anything to him, for now I know you fear God. You have not refused me your own beloved son.’ Then looking up, Abraham saw a ram caught by its horns in a bush. Abraham went and took the ram and offered it as a burnt offering in place of his son. Abraham called this place ‘The Lord provides’, hence the saying today: ‘On the mountain the Lord provides.’
The angel of the Lord called Abraham a second time from heaven. ‘I swear by my own self, the Lord declares, that because you have done this, because you have not refused me your own beloved son, I will shower blessings on you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars of heaven and the grains of sand on the seashore. Your descendants will gain possession of the gates of their enemies. All nations on earth will bless themselves by your descendants, because you have obeyed my command.’
This uncomfortable reading actually provides reassurance to the listener in its opening words: ‘God put Abraham to the test’. God commands Abraham to take his son to the mountain of sacrifice. The voice is insistent: ‘your son’, ‘your only son’, ‘the one you love’, ‘Isaac’. The command, apparently given at night, is followed ‘early next morning’ by Abraham’s obedience, narrated in some detail. Two servants accompany the father and the son. After three days they arrive at their destination.
Abraham and Isaac leave the servants and continue, Isaac carrying the wood, as Jesus will carry his cross. Isaac enquires about the offering, and is told that God ‘will provide’. Abraham’s fundamental attitude is to trust, but the tension increases. On arrival at the place of sacrifice Abraham lays out the wood, and then ‘binds’ (‘aqad) his son. The story will be known as the ‘aqedah, the ‘binding’ of Isaac. The narrator tells how Abraham reaches out to ‘slaughter’ his son, employing a term used for animal sacrifice in Leviticus 4.
The call from heaven ‘Abraham, Abraham’ relieves the tension. Abraham was right to trust. The speech stresses that he is willing to give back his son, his ‘only’ son, the son of the promise so long awaited by Abraham and Sarah. In a further speech of God’s messenger the promise already made (Genesis 12 and 15) is renewed. God has seen, and God has provided a solution. The name given to the mountain, Moriah, stresses both sight and provision.
In verse 19 (not included in the reading) Abraham returns to where the boys are waiting. Abraham has been tested and has trusted. He has fulfilled his confident earlier promise to the boys, ‘we will sacrifice and we will return’. Isaac is no longer named. He is unbound, no longer tied by his father. He is free.
This second ‘night of salvation’ prepares for the free self-offering of the Son, whose resurrection we celebrate. Jesus provides a sublime example of trust in God. He faces the test. Life, not death, triumphs.
Psalm 16 (15) This psalm expresses trust in the Lord in the face of death, and fittingly follows the story of the Binding of Isaac. God will not abandon the psalmist’s life to Sheol, nor let his ‘holy one’ (hasid) see the ‘pit’. Rather, God will reveal the path of life, and the fulness of joy. In the Acts of the Apostles, Luke has both Peter, in the Pentecost sermon, (2:25-28), and Paul, preaching in Antioch, (13:35), apply this psalm to Jesus.