Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” “Here I am,” he replied. Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.”

 

Early the next morning Abraham got up and loaded his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. He said to 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.”

 

Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, “Father?” “Yes, my son?” Abraham replied. “The fire and wood are here,” Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them went on together.

 

When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!” “Here I am,” he replied. “Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.” Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called that place The Lord Will Provide. And to this day it is said, “On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.”

 

The angel of the Lord called to Abraham from heaven a second time and said, “I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me.” (Genesis 22:1-18)

Does God ask for human sacrifice? Why is such an archaic-seeming text found in the Bible? Testing someone, in the Bible, means knowing them, discovering their true identity (see Deuteronomy 8:2). What then is the test with which Abraham is faced? God says literally: “Go, take your son, and bring him up for a burnt offering.” Does God mean: offer your only son in sacrifice (as Abraham understands at first)? Or rather: Go up together, you and your son, to offer a sacrifice (this may be Abraham’s secret hope, because he told the other servants “we will come back to you”)?

If we understand “to bring up” in the most obvious sense, that is, to offer a sacrifice, then the test involves much more than Isaac’s life alone. Does Abraham have to give up God’s promise, related to the miracle of the birth of his son in his old age, a miracle which had been announced by the three angels in Genesis 18? God seems to want to destroy what he has slowly built up. Receiving a gift and being put to the test are often associated in the Bible. Any gift is in itself a test: will the person who receives it cling to the gift in itself or look beyond it to discover the person offering it?

Abraham passes the test. God told him: “You have not withheld from me...”, in other words, you did not cling jealously to the gift. Thus God sees in truth the faith of Abraham, who continued to search for the will of his God in the midst of a dark night. “God sees” is the etymology of the name of the mountain on which the father and son are standing: “Moriah”. But the narrator immediately adds: “The Lord is seen” (v. 14). In this symbolic place, the encounter between Abraham and God becomes mutual recognition.

Yet, instead of the son, represented by the “lamb” in the question of Isaac (v. 7), it is the “ram,” a father-figure, which is sacrificed. Although he did not sacrifice his son, Abraham sacrificed his fatherhood, in the sense of possessing the son of the Promise. Abraham no longer possesses his son (the name of Isaac is no longer mentioned), but he saw God and was seen by God in truth. What he finds now is the promise of God, made possible once again: “Through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed.”

Is there not in this text the mystery of all fatherhood and motherhood—to be willing to let go of one’s own children in order to launch them into Life? God himself will take the place of Abraham mysteriously by “not sparing his only Son” on the cross (John 3:16; Romans 8:32). By this “loss”, we gain life.

 Have I ever been led by faith to take an extra step that was not easy?

 Are there situations where I feel that I have to lose in order to win?