Making peace with the Abraham and Isaac story

Genesis 21:1-3, 22: 1-14

Last week we began at the beginning. And as we make our way through the Old Testament, I have made some cuts, so we do not literally spend a year of Sunday doing this. So I have moved to the the most climatic, as well as problematic part of Abraham's story. But First before we dive into this little gem of a passage let me catch us all up to speed.

The Abraham story begins when God approaches Abraham and makes him a series of promises. God promises that he will give Abraham descendants, and that they will become a great nation. If Abraham will follow to a place that God will show Abraham, that it will be his land, and his decedent’s land, and that this people of God will be more numerous than the stars in the sky.

From that point on, Abraham had followed God and abided with God and that covenant. Though the story is not one-sided. There were times where Abraham fell short of what God had asked him to do. He had not always been trusting, he had not always been truthful, and to put it mildly, he did not always exemplify the ideals to which we like to hold our biblical heroes. At one point, Abraham distrust God's ability to protect Abraham and his household and somehow thought that lying to a local king and telling him that Sarah was not his wife by his sister. Yeah, as you can imagine that ended “well.” At another time, in an attempt to make God's promise happen, Sarah and Abraham agreed that it would be best if he produced a child with her servant Hagar. Hagar gave birth to a Son. The fall out from that little event was no end of trouble between Abraham and Sarah. And in the end both of them did wrong by them both. The story comes to its zenith here with one of the most re-told stories of the Old Testament.

Despite how much this story is told and retold, it’s also one of the most problematic passages of the entirety scripture, and often raises as many questions as it provides answers. Although, the first three versed of chapter 21 are included for context, let's just dive right into chapter 22.

Q: What problems do you see with this passage? Q: What seems odd, or strange here? Q: Why is it odd or problematic?

Throughout the ages, biblical scholars have wrestled with some of these questions. And though there isn’t a way to just hand wave these questions away, we can try to navigate along with them to see how the story is meant to function in its original context. So, let’s start with v. 1-2 of this narrative

1 After these things God tested Abraham. He said to him, "Abraham!" And he said, "Here I am." 2 He said, "Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you."

Q: What is the “These things”spoken of here in this passage?

Q: Why would it be important for us to remember that this happened “after” they had sent Hagar and Ishmael away

Q: What do we know in this passage that Abraham doesn’t?

Q: What does it mean, “God 'tested' Abraham? What is the purpose of a test? What does the test tell us about the test taker? What does it tell us about the test giver?

Q: What to you think the purpose of God's test of Abraham is?

Q: In what ways has Abraham shown his faith in God in the past? In what ways has he failed to show faith in God?

Q: Why is there so much reiteration at the beginning of the second verse 2?

Q: What is a sacrifice?

Q: There are actually two things Abraham is asked to sacrifice. One is clear in the text, the other is not. What are those two things? – Isaac, and the promise of descendants.

Q: How must Abraham feel at this point?

One of the things that is so very unusual about this passage is that we’re not told what anyone thinks. As much as we imagine the emotional reactions of all characters, we’re not told about how they feel, how they react, or anything of the sort. While we want to supply those things they are not really of much consequence in the scope of this narrative. Rather than focus on the personal trials, the story pushes on to something else.

And so the story presses on in verses 3-6

3 So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac; he cut the wood for the burnt offering, and set out and went to the place in the distance that God had shown him. 4 On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place far away. 5 Then Abraham said to his young men, "Stay here with the donkey; the boy and I will go over there; we will worship, and then we will come back to you." 6 Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. So the two of them walked on together.

Q: Who goes with Abraham?

Q: What do they do in the story?

Q: What does Abraham say to his servants?

Q: Why does he say this? Why do you think he says this?

Verses 6-8:

6 Abraham put the wood for the burnt offering on his son Isaac. He himself carried the fire and the knife. The two of them walked on together. 7 Then Isaac spoke up. He 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?" 8 Abraham answered, "God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son." The two of them walked on together.

Q: Who carries the wood?

Q: So, how old do you think Isaac must be here?

Q: What question does Isaac ask? Where is the lamb?

Q: What answer does Abraham give? God will provide the lamb.

Q: Why does Abraham give this reply?

Q: What does this reply tell us about what Abraham is thinking?

Abraham’s reply of “God will provide” is going to become a theme here. This is actually a good time to take a step back and ask a question of how this story would historically be read. If we imagine ourselves as living in ancient Israel, either under the time of the kings of Israel and Judah, or maybe even during the Roman occupation of the land, we would see ourselves as God’s people living in the land that God had given us. We would have the questions, why are we living here, how has God’s promise come to us? Why is it that we covenant to live as God’s people and why has he covenanted to be our God? And in part, this story advances as the ancestor of our faith follows God. He is willing to give back to God all that God has given him. He is willing to give back the son he loves and he is willing to give back the promises that God has made. And why? In part, because he believes that God will provide. How have the people of God come to live in this land, and how have they been sustained as the People of God’s Covenant? It is because God provides. But we’ll come back to that in a bit. Let’s look at 9-14

9 They reached the place God had told Abraham about. There Abraham built an altar. He arranged the wood on it. He tied up his son Isaac. He placed him on the altar, on top of the wood. 10 Then he reached out his hand. He took the knife to kill his son. 11 But the angel of the LORD called out to him from heaven. He said, "Abraham! Abraham!" "Here I am," Abraham replied. 12 "Do not lay a hand on the boy," he said. "Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you have respect for God. You have not held back from me your son, your only son." 13 Abraham looked up. There in a bush he saw a ram. It was caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram. He sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. 14 So Abraham named that place The LORD Will Provide. To this day people say, "It will be provided on the mountain of the Lord."

Now, before we go too much farther, I want to take a moment to call for the children’s attention. As much as this story is kind of strange where we have an adult and a younger person and some things which might be a little scary, I want to make sure that we say that this story IS strange. We adults do not take children away from others in order to frighten or harm them. And if there are adults that take you aside to frighten or hurt, then this chapter is not saying that it is okay. And if there are adults that frighten or harm us, then we tell another adult, right? Okay. With that said, we can move on to some questions.

Q: What is happening here?

Q: How do Abraham and God address each other? How does that compare to Verse 1?

Q: Why does God stop Abraham?

Q: Once God knows that Abraham will do as God has asked, what happens afterward?

Although we have been talking about this as if it is a story about Abraham, this is just as much, if not more, a story about God. These early narratives in Genesis tell us a lot about who God is and what God is like. Many of them were included in the Biblical narrative because it let the early Hebrew know that their God was not like the gods of the cultures that surround them. Just like the Genesis 1 narrative told them they and all the world were loving created by a God who declared all of creation, including humanity good. Which was emphatically not the case with religious stories of the cultures that surrounded, their gods were not loving, or kind, or caring, their gods did not think the world was necessarily a good thing and most of the time humans were a nuisance to be tolerated and put up with. This narrative also shared a truth about God that set God apart from the gods of the cultures around them.

Most of the cultures around them, the way the god-human relationship, if you wanted something from a god you had to give the god something to coax the god to give it to you and then once it was provided you would need to give something else to the god to show your appreciation, so the god would continue to do things for you and hopefully not smite you or kill all your livestock and make all your fields barren, or withhold rain so that you all suffered. The gods of the cultures around them were keen on making humans suffer and there was a continual movement on behalf of the humans to try to assure that the gods were happy so that they would not make the humans suffer. So say, you wanted for the land to be fertile and to produce food, you had to give the god something to coax the god to make the land fertile. Once the god gave you a harvest you then needed to give part of that back to the god to keep the god happy so that next year the god would remember that you were thankful and not be angry with you and destroy all your crops with drought or bugs, or whatever.

It worked the same way with children. A man wanted many sons, to help him with the work, and to carry on his line. So when a man was given a son by the gods, he gave his first son back to the gods in the form of a human sacrifice, to assure that he would have more sons.

Q: Knowing this about the cultures all around, what do you think this narrative told the early Hebrews about their God, as compared to the gods around them?

Here is the good news for the Hebrews of the ancient world. God does not require the death of their first born sons! (In fact God abhors human sacrifice! This was good news, to them. This was amazing news. This God, the God they worshiped was not blood thirsty. It was another way of affirming to them that God was kind, God was caring, God was compassionate. God loved them and their children!

Q: In what ways do we sacrifice our children today? To what gods of the culture around us do we make these sacrifices?

Q: What is the good news for us today? What good news can we find in this story?

Q: What does God ultimately do in this passage?

Q: Does God providing this ram remind you of anything else in the scriptures?

The Old and New Testament commentators love taking this idea of God providing, and applying it to other narratives in the scriptures. Most Jewish commentators go almost immediately to the Passover celebration where God provides a substitution for the life of the firstborn son. New Testament writers and commentaries put a high value in the comparison in God providing a way of salvation through the death of Jesus. Though whichever way you take these parallels, this story is about God providing.

Q: What does Abraham call this place?

This story is about a very frightening walk of faith. There are circumstances that are almost certainly the most terrifying tribulation that Abraham experiences. Though having the ability to look backwards on this passage, we know that this is a story of provision, and not sacrifice. When we ask the question of what our journey is for, how we got to where we are, and where we might be headed, it is a journey that gives us far more questions than we have answers. The passage almost begs us to ask questions about the character’s intentions. It almost begs us to ask what God is thinking just as much as we may ask what Abraham and Isaac are thinking. Though despite these very good, and sometimes very troubling questions, we have a journey of faith and a story of providing.

I almost always ask the children what God is doing in any given story. And three times we are given the answer. God provides. So, how does God provide for us? This is not always so easily answered. The promise here is not that of material riches, or of physical comfort. So, what does God provide?

In short, God has provided for us to be where we are now. God provides what is needed for the next step. God provides a relationship with God. We read this story because we are as much the People of God as those who read this story 100, or 1000, or 3000 years ago. God calls to us, and we reply, “Here I am Lord.” God asks us to follow to the place God will show us. It is no accident that the story ends with the same statement of the Covenant that has appeared time and time again in Genesis. God calls us into a relationship that we may know God, and that God may be our God, and that together we may be God’s people. God provides for us to continue to take the next step of faith.