Genesis 22Abraham’s Sacrifice of His Beloved Son,

Isaac

Genesis 22:1-1 Some time later [‘After these things’ – KJV] God tested Abraham.

He said to him, “Abraham!”

“Here I am,” he replied.

2 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.”

Genesis 22:1-Q: How old was Isaac when Abraham was told to offer him up as a burnt offering on the altar at Moriah?

The Bible does not give a direct answer to the question of Isaac’s age when he was about to be offered as a sacrifice by his father. We therefore must conclude that neither our understanding of the passage nor our grasp of the points that God wants us to learn depend on knowing his age. However, some linguistic facts are available that shed some light on the matter by pointing us in the direction of Isaac being older than we normally think, i.e., 20+.

Genesis 22:1-In the first place, consider the details pertaining to chronology.

• Sarah gave birth to Isaac when she was 90 years old (Genesis 17:17).

• She would have been 92 or 93, 95 at most, when Isaac was weaned. Then ‘after these things…’

• She died at age 127 (Genesis 23:1)—when Isaac was 37 years old.

Genesis 22:1-• Following Isaac’s birth, the events of the

rest of Genesis chapter 21 (i.e., the driving out of Hagar and Ishmael, and the incident with Abimelech), as well as the events of chapter 22, all occurred during a 35-year period (approximately).

• Notice the expression “many days” in Genesis 21:34, as well as the phrase “after these things” in 22:1.

• These allusions would suggest that some time had elapsed prior to the offering of Isaac.

Genesis 22:1-In the second place, the term “lad” used to refer to Isaac (21:5,12) is a flexible Hebrew term that does not necessarily refer to what we ordinarily think of—i.e., a boy.

• Rather, the term encompasses a wide range of meanings—from a baby (e.g., Exodus 2:6; 2 Samuel 12:16) to a young man (e.g., Absalom in 2 Samuel 14:21; 18:5). It even can refer to “servant” or “attendant” (e.g., 2 Samuel 16:1) as well as soldier/leader (1 Kings 20:14,15,17,19).

Genesis 22:1-• Look closely at the context of the Isaac

passage in 22:5 where the servants that accompanied Abraham and Isaac are referred to as “young men” (22:3,5,19).

• The word “servants” is precisely the same term that is used in verses 5 and 12 to refer to Isaac (cf. Genesus, 1979, p. 555; Wigram, 1980, p. 823; Harris, et al., 1980, 2:585-586).

• Were the servants that accompanied Abraham 5 to 7 year olds? Or were they older? Obviously older

Genesis 22:1-Third, Isaac was given the task of carrying the wood for the impending sacrifice (22:6).

• There would have been enough wood to consume a human body when the wood was set on fire.

• Could a 5- to 7-year-old child carry such a burden? No

Genesis 22:1-Commentaries

Leupold wrote: “He may by this time have arrived at the age of some eighteen to twenty years” (1942, 1:625).

Josephus stated: “Now Isaac was twenty-five years old” (1.13.2).

Adam Clarke said: “It is more probable that he was now about thirty-three” (1:140, emp. in orig.).

Jamieson, Fausset, & Brown asserted that Isaac was “then upwards of twenty years of age” (n.d., p. 29).

Genesis 22:1-Commentaries

J. Curtis Manor described him as “a youth of sufficient strength and agility to carry a load of firewood up a mountainside” (1994, p. 103).

Keil & Delitzsch [K & D] affirmed that “this son had grown into a young man” (1976, 1:248).

Morris added: “The meaning in Isaac’s case should also be ‘young man’ ” (The Genesis Record, 1976, p. 373).

Genesis 22:1-1 Some time later [‘After these things’ – KJV] God tested Abraham.

He said to him, “Abraham!”

“Here I am,” he replied.

Genesis 22:1-Q: Has Jehovah God waited for 37 years to talk to Abraham again?

A: Yes, apparently so.

“Abraham had not heard from God directly for many long years. He seemed to have become silent. Nevertheless, Abraham continued to love and trust Him, knowing that He had wonderfully kept His promises” (Morris, p. 373)

Genesis 22:1-“For many years Abraham had waited for the promised [son, Isaac], in which the divine promise was to be fulfilled. At length the Lord had given him the desired heir of his body by his wife Sarah, and directed him to send away the son of the maid [Ishmael by Hagar]. And now that this son had grown into a young man, the word of God came to Abraham to offer up this very son, who had been given to him as the heir of the promise, for a burnt-offering, upon one of the mountains which should be shown him.” (K & D, p. 249)

Genesis 22:22 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.”

Genesis 22:1-2Q: Where did the idea to sacrifice Isaac come from?

• From Abraham’s own heart?

• A thought suggested by the sight of the human sacrifices of the Canaanites, that he would offer a similar sacrifice to his God?

• Did it originate with the one who tempts us to do evil, Satan himself?

Genesis 22:1-2“The word came from Elohim, the personal, true God, who tried him, i.e. demanded the sacrifice of the only, beloved son, as a proof and attestation of his faith. The issue shows, that God did not desire the sacrifice of Isaac by slaying and burning him upon the altar, but his complete surrender, and a willingness to offer him up to God even by death. Nevertheless the divine command was given in such a form, that Abraham could not understand it in any other way than as requiring an outward burnt-offering, because there was no other way in which Abraham could accomplish the complete surrender of Isaac, than by an actual preparation for really offering the desired sacrifice” (K & D, p. 248)

Genesis 22:1-2Q: Doesn’t James 1:13 say God will never tempt us with evil?

A: Yes. But the Hebrew word in Genesis 22 is nissah, which means to ‘put to the test.’ It should not be translated ‘as ‘tempt.’

God may with good motives allow us to be tested, but He will never place inducements before us to lead us into temptation above what we can bear (I Cor. 10:13).

God’s ultimate objective is what is good for us ---to prove our faith and spiritual worth. (Key Word Study Bible, footnote, pg. 31)

Genesis 22:1-2I Cor. 10:13 – “No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, that you may be able to endure it.”

Genesis 22:1-2Q: Is Abraham being asked by God to bring his REASONING MIND into mental and spiritual captivity to demonstrate his faith in the Living God?

A: Yes. He did not question the truth of the Word of God, which had been addressed to him in a mode that was to his mind perfectly infallible (not in a vision of the night, however, of which there is no mention in the text), but he stood firm in his faith, ‘accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead” (Heb. 11:19).

Genesis 22:2Q: What was going on in Abraham’s mind?

• “This doesn’t sound like you God!”

• It sounds like the pagan idols around the Negev

• You promised to make Isaac a great nation, and he isn’t even married yet (at age 37)!

• What will happen to all of your promises if you make me do this?

• What about your promises to Sarah! It will kill her!

Genesis 22:2Q: Did Elohim actually tell Abraham to kill Isaac?

A: No. He told him to ‘offer’ him up as an offering.

Nothing is said about killing him, although Abraham probably thought of no other possibilities at that time

Genesis 22:2Q: Did Abraham and Sarah love their son too much?

Q: Was there a danger they might forget God by too much attention to God’s promises?

A: God wanted Abraham’s full love and devotion, and although He didn’t want Isaac to be killed, He still wanted Abraham’s faith to be ‘tested’ to know what was in Abraham’s heart

Genesis 22:2Q: What does it mean to be ‘proved’ or ‘tested?’

Jesus was ‘tempted’ or tested or ‘proved’ – or ‘approved,’ so everyone could see that, in spite of the greatest tests to which He could conceivably be subjected, he would stand spotless and blameless

Ex: An Engineer may know his design will stand the stress and strain to which it is subjected, because he knows it is designed properly; but construction specifications will require that it be tested---not to assure the engineer, but to assure the public that it will stand (Morris, p. 374)

Genesis 22:2“The greatest test in the life of Abraham (God testing him) came after he received the promised seed [Isaac] following a long wait. The test was very real: he was to give Isaac back to God. As a test it was designed to prove faith. And for it to be a real test, it had to defy logic; it had to be something Abraham wanted to resist.

God had told the patriarch to send Ishmael away (21:12-13), and now He told Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. Abraham had willingly sent Ishmael away, but he would not want to kill Isaac”

(Walvoord, The Bible Knowledge Commentary, vol. 1, p. 64)

Genesis 22:2“It is one thing to claim to trust God’s word when waiting for something; it is quite another thing to trust and obey His word after it is received. This was a test of how much Abraham would obey God’s word. Would he cling to the boy now that he had him, or would he still obey and return him to the Lord? In other words how far would Abraham go in obedience? Did he really believe that God would still keep His word and raise the seed of promise [from the dead]?”

(Walvoord, The Bible Knowledge Commentary, vol. 1, p. 64)

Genesis 22:2There are obvious connections with God’s earlier words to Abraham, and Abraham’s faith:

1.To leave Haran and go to the land God would show him (12:1-3)

2.But in this subtle reminder of the original call God also reminded him of the fulfillment, which made the test so hard: Take your son, your only son Isaac whom you love”

3.The command to sacrifice his own son as a burnt offering would have undoubtedly seemed totally unreasonable (even though child sacrifice was known in Canaan).

4.How then could God fulfill the promises He made earlier (12:1-3), to say nothing of Abraham’s emotional loss of his only son, born to him so late in life? (Walvoord, The Bible Knowledge Commentary, vol. 1, p. 64)

Genesis 22:2Q: Is this the first time the word ‘love’ is mentioned in the Bible? “Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love…”

A: Yes

Deut 6:5 “And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might”

I Cor. 13:13 says love is the greatest gift

I John 4:8 says God is love

Genesis 22:2Q: Are there other uses of the word ‘love’ in Genesis?

Yes, several

1. Gen 24:67 – “and she [Rebekah] became his [Isaac] wife and he loved her”

2. Gen 25:28 “Isaac loved Esau…but Rebekah loved Jacob

3. Gen 27:4,9,14 – “make me a savory dish that I love”

4. Gen 29:18 “Jacob loved Rachel…more than Leah”…

Genesis 22:2Q: If this is the case about love being mentioned for the first time, why is it used in this way?

Why not as love for a husband/wife

Why not as love of a man for God

Q: Why is it used as the love of a father for a son?

“The deep love of a father for his only son (yet a father who is willing to slay him) is thus inferred to be representative of the most complete and meaningful concept of the very word ‘love’ itself” (Morris, p. 375)

Genesis 22:2Q: What is the first use of the word ‘love’ in the New Testament? The baptism of Christ in the Synoptics

Matthew 3:17 – “And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”

Mark 1:11 – “And there came a voice from heaven, saying, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”

Luke 3:22 – “And the Holy Spirit descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him, and a voice from heaven, which said, Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased”

Genesis 22:2If Abraham loved his son, how much greater is God’s love for His Son?

Q: What is the first verse mentioning love in the Gospel of John?

John 3:16 – “For God so loved (past tense) the world, that He gave (past tense) His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes (present tense) in Him should not perish (future tense), but have (present tense) everlasting life”

Genesis 22:2In Matthew, Mark and Luke, God shouts His love for His son. But in John, He shouts His love for US so much that He was willing to sacrifice His only and beloved Son, in order that we might be saved.

I John 4:9-11 – “ 9 This is how God showed His love among us: He sent His one and only Son into the world that we might live through Him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”