the Third Week after Epiphany
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Genesis 22:2
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And he said, Take nowe thine onely sonne Izhak whom thou louest, and get thee vnto the land of Moriah, and offer him there for a burnt offering vpon one of the mountaines, which I will shewe thee.
And he said, Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of the Amorites; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains of which I will tell you.
He said, "Now take your son, your only son, whom you love, even Yitzchak, and go into the land of Moriyah. Offer him there for a burnt offering on one of the mountains which I will tell you of."
Then God said, "Take your son to the land of Moriah and kill your son there as a sacrifice for me. This must be Isaac, your only son, the one you love. Use him as a burnt offering on one of the mountains there. I will tell you which mountain."
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 of which I shall tell you."
And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest, even Isaac, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt-offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.
And he said to him, Take your son, your dearly loved only son Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah and give him as a burned offering on one of the mountains of which I will give you knowledge.
The Lord said, "Go get Isaac, your only son, the one you dearly love! Take him to the land of Moriah, and I will show you a mountain where you must sacrifice him to me on the fires of an altar."
He said, "Take your son, your only son, whom you love, Yitz'chak; and go to the land of Moriyah. There you are to offer him as a burnt offering on a mountain that I will point out to you."
And he said, Take now thy son, thine only [son], whom thou lovest, Isaac, and get thee into the land of Moriah, and there offer him up for a burnt-offering on one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.
And He said: 'Take now thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest, even Isaac, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt-offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.'
And he said, Take now thy sonne, thine onely sonne Isaac, whom thou louest, and get thee into the land of Moriah: and offer him there for a burnt offering vpon one of the Mountaines which I will tell thee of.
And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.
God said, "Take now your son, your only son [of promise], whom you love, Isaac, and go to the region of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you."
And he said, Take thy son, the beloved one, whom thou hast loved—Isaac, and go into the high land, and offer him there for a whole-burnt-offering on one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.
And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest, even Isaac, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.
"Take your son," God said, "your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah. Offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains, which I will show you."
And he said, "Take your son, your only child, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains where I will tell you."
And He said, Now take your son, Isaac, your only one whom you love, and go into the land of Moriah. And there offer him for a burnt offering on one of the mountains which I will say to you.
Then God said, "Take your only son, Isaac, the son you love, and go to the land of Moriah. Kill him there and offer him as a whole burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about."
God said, "Take your son—your only son, whom you love, Isaac—and go to the land of Moriah! Offer him up there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains which I will indicate to you."
Then He said, "Take now 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 of which I shall tell you."
"Take your son, your only son—yes, Isaac, whom you love so much—and go to the land of Moriah. Go and sacrifice him as a burnt offering on one of the mountains, which I will show you."
God said, "Take now your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love. And go to the land of Moriah. Give him as a burnt gift on the altar in worship, on one of the mountains I will show you."
And he said - Take, I pray thee, thy son, thine only one, whom thou lovest, even, Isaac, and get thee into the land of Moriah and cause him to ascend there as an ascending-sacrifice, on one of the mountains which I shall name unto thee.
He said to him: Take thy only begotten son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and go into the land of vision; and there thou shalt offer him for an holocaust upon one of the mountains which I will shew thee.
He said, "Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Mori'ah, and offer him there as a burnt offering upon one of the mountains of which I shall tell you."
"Take your son," God said, "your only son, Isaac, whom you love so much, and go to the land of Moriah. There on a mountain that I will show you, offer him as a sacrifice to me."
God seide to him, Take thi `sone oon gendrid, whom thou louest, Ysaac; and go into the lond of visioun, and offre thou hym there in to brent sacrifice, on oon of the hillis whiche Y schal schewe to thee.
And He saith, `Take, I pray thee, thy son, thine only one, whom thou hast loved, even Isaac, and go for thyself unto the land of Moriah, and cause him to ascend there for a burnt-offering on one of the mountains of which I speak unto thee.'
He said, "Now take your son, your only son, whom you love, even Isaac, and go into the land of Moriah. Offer him there for a burnt offering on one of the mountains which I will tell you of."
And he said, Take now thy son, thy only [son] Isaac, whom thou lovest, and go into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt-offering upon one of the mountains which I will name to thee.
And he saide: take thy sonne, thyne onlye sonne Isahac whom thou louest, & get thee vnto the lande Moriah, and offer him there for a burnt offering vpon one of the mountaines which I wyl shewe thee.
“Take your son,” he said, “your only son Isaac, whom you love, go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.”
And he sayde: Take ye sonne, this onely sonne of thine, eue Isaac whom thou louest, and go thy waye in to the londe of Moria, & offre him there for a burntofferynge, vpon a mountayne that I shal shew the.
He said, "Take your dear son Isaac whom you love and go to the land of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I'll point out to you."
Then He said, "Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you."
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."
He said, "Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you."
Then He said, "Take now your son, your only one, whom you love, Isaac, and go forth to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you."
Contextual Overview
Bible Verse Review
from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge
Take: Genesis 17:19, Genesis 21:12, John 3:16, Romans 5:8, Romans 8:32, Hebrews 11:17, 1 John 4:9, 1 John 4:10
Moriah: 2 Chronicles 3:1
and offer: Judges 11:31, Judges 11:39, 2 Kings 3:27, Micah 6:7
Reciprocal: Genesis 21:3 - General Genesis 21:11 - because Genesis 22:9 - place Exodus 4:4 - put forth Exodus 29:18 - a burnt offering Leviticus 1:3 - a burnt Leviticus 17:5 - in the open Numbers 23:3 - burnt 1 Kings 17:13 - make me thereof 1 Kings 17:17 - the son of the woman 2 Kings 4:20 - and then died Matthew 1:24 - did Mark 12:6 - his Luke 7:12 - the only John 11:3 - he
Cross-References
And God said, No, but Sarah your wife shall bear you a son; and you shall call his name Isaac: and I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his seed after him.
And God said to Abraham, Don't let it be grievous in your sight because of the lad, and because of your slave. In all that Sarah says to you, listen to her voice. For in Isaac shall your seed be called.
And they came to the place which God had told him of. And Abraham built the altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar, on the wood.
And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son.
And he said, Don't lay your hand on the lad, neither do anything to him. For now I know that you fear God, seeing you haven't withheld your son, your only son, from me.
and said, By myself I have sworn, says Yahweh, because you have done this thing, and haven't withheld your son, your only son,
then it shall be, that whatever comes forth from the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the sons of Ammon, it shall be Yahweh's, and I will offer it up for a burnt-offering.
And it came to pass at the end of two months, that she returned to her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had vowed: and she had no sex with a man. And it was a custom in Israel,
Then he took his eldest son that should have reigned in his stead, and offered him for a burnt-offering on the wall. And there was great wrath against Israel: and they departed from him, and returned to their own land.
Then Solomon began to build the house of Yahweh at Jerusalem on mount Moriah, where [Yahweh] appeared to David his father, which he made ready in the place that David had appointed, in the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite.
Gill's Notes on the Bible
And he said, take now thy son,.... Directly, immediately; not thine ox, nor thy sheep, nor thy ram, nor thy lamb, nor thy servant, but thy son:
thine only [son] Isaac; for, though Ishmael was his son, he was a son by his maid, by his concubine, and not by his wife; Isaac was his only legitimate son, his only son by his lawful wife Sarah; the only son of the promise, his only son, in whom his seed was to be called:
whom thou lovest; on whom his affections were strongly set, being a lovely youth, a dutiful son, and the child of promise; on whom all his hope and expectation of a numerous offspring promised him was built, and in whose line the Messiah was to spring from him; even Isaac, which stands last in the original text: so that, if what had been said was not sufficient to describe him, he is expressed by name, and the description is gradually given, and the name of his son reserved to the last, that he might be by degrees prepared to receive the shocking order; every word is emphatic and striking, and enough to pierce any tender heart, and especially when told what was to be done to him. The Jews i represent God and Abraham in a discourse together upon this head: God said, take now thy son; says Abraham, I have two sons; take thine only son; says he, they are both only sons to their mothers; take him whom thou lovest; I love them both, replied he; then take Isaac; thus ended the debate:
and get thee into the land of Moriah; so called by anticipation, from a mountain of that name in it; the Septuagint render it, "the high land", the hill country of the land of Canaan, particularly that part of it where Jerusalem afterwards stood, which was surrounded with hills: hence Aquila, another Greek interpreter, renders it, "conspicuous", as hills and mountains are, and a mountainous country is; Onkelos and Jonathan paraphrase it, "a land of worship", of religious worship; for in this country afterwards the people of God dwelt, the city of the living God was built, and in it the temple for divine service, and that upon Mount Moriah; and the Targum of Jerusalem has it here,
"to Mount Moriah;''
the Jews are divided about the reason of this name, some deriving it from a word k which signifies to "teach", and think it is so called, because doctrine or instruction came forth from thence to Israel; others from a word l which signifies "fear", and so had its name because fear or terror went from thence to the nations of the world m; but its derivation is from another word n, which signifies to "see", and which is confirmed by what is said Genesis 22:14:
and offer him there for a burnt offering; this was dreadful work he was called to, and must be exceeding trying to him as a man, and much more as a parent, and a professor of the true religion, to commit such an action; for by this order he was to cut the throat of his son, then to rip him up, and cut up his quarters, and then to lay every piece in order upon the wood, and then burn all to ashes; and this he was to do as a religious action, with deliberation, seriousness, and devotion:
upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of; for there were several of them adjoining to, or pretty near each other, which afterwards went by different names, as Mount Sion, Deuteronomy 4:48; the hill Acra; Mount Calvary, Luke 23:33; and Mount Moriah, 2 Chronicles 3:1; supposed to be the mount intended; and so Aben Ezra says it was the place where the temple was built, and where was the threshing floor of Araunah, 2 Chronicles 3:1. Some learned men are of opinion, that the account which Sanchoniatho o gives of Cronus or Saturn sacrificing his own son, refers to this affair of Abraham's; his words are,
"there being a pestilence and a mortality, Cronus offered up his only son a whole burnt offering to his father Ouranus;''
which Porphyry p, from the same historian, thus relates; Cronus, whom the Phoenicians call Israel, (a grandson of Abraham's, thought, through mistake, to be put for Abraham himself,) having an only son of a nymph of that country called Anobret, (which according to Bochart q signifies one that conceived by grace, see Hebrews 11:11;) whom therefore they called Jeoud (the same with Jehid here, an only once); so an only one is called by the Phoenicians; when the country was in great danger through war, this son, dressed in a royal habit, he offered up on an altar he had prepared. But others r are of a different sentiment, and cannot perceive any likeness between the two cases: however, Isaac may well be thought, in the whole of this, to be a type of the Messiah, the true and proper Son of God, his only begotten Son, the dear Son of his love, in whom all the promises are yea and amen; whom God out of his great love to men gave to be an offering and a sacrifice for their sins, and who suffered near Jerusalem, on Mount Calvary, which very probably was a part of Mount Moriah; and which, with other mountains joining in their root, though having different tops, went by that common name.
i T. Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 89. 2. Pirke Eliezer, c. 31. Jarchi in loc. k ××¨× "docuit". l ××¨× "timuit". m T. Bab. Taanith, fol. 16. 1. n ר×× "vidit". o Apud Euseb. Evangel. Praeparat. p. 38. p Apud ib. p. 40. & l. 4. c. 15. p. 156. q Canaan, l. 2. c. 2. col. 711, 712. r See Cumberland's Sanchoniatho, p. 37, 38, 134, &c.
Barnes' Notes on the Bible
- Abraham Was Tested
2. ×ר×× morıÌyaÌh, âMoriahâ; Samaritan: ××ר×× moÌr'aÌh; âSeptuagint,â Ï ÌÏÎ·Î»Î·Ì hupseÌleÌ, Onkelos, âworship.â Some take the word to be a simple derivative, as the Septuagint and Onkelos, meaning âvision, high, worship.â It might mean ârebellious.â Others regard it as a compound of ×× yaÌh, âJah, a name of God,â and ×ר×× mıÌr'eh, âshown,â ×××¨× moÌreh, âteacher,â or ×××¨× moÌraÌ', âfear.â
14. ×ר×× yıÌr'eÌh, âJireh, will provide.â
16, × ×× ne'um, ÏÌηÍμα reÌma, âdictum, oracle; related: speak low.â
21. ××Ö¼× buÌz, âBuz, scoffing.â ק××Ö¼×× qemuÌ'eÌl, âQemuel, gathered of God.â
22. ××× chaÌzoÌ, âChazo, vision.â פ×××©× pıÌldaÌsh, âPildash, steelman? wanderer?â ××××£ yıÌdlaÌp, âJidlaph; related: trickle, weep.â ×ת×Ö¼×× betuÌ'eÌl, âBethuel, dwelling of God.â
23. ר××§× rıÌbqaÌh, âRibqah, noose.â
24. ר××Ö¼×× re'uÌmaÌh, âReumah, exalted.â ××× tÌ£ebach, âTebach, slaughter.â ××× gacham, âGacham, brand.â ת××©× tachash, âTachash, badger or seal.â <××¢×× maâaÌkaÌh, âMaâakah; related: press, crush.â
The grand crisis, the crowning event in the history of Abraham, now takes place. Every needful preparation has been made for it. He has been called to a high and singular destiny. With expectant acquiescence he has obeyed the call. By the delay in the fulfillment of the promise, he has been taught to believe in the Lord on his simple word. Hence, as one born again, he has been taken into covenant with God. He has been commanded to walk in holiness, and circumcised in token of his possessing the faith which purifieth the heart. He has become the intercessor and the prophet. And he has at length become the parent of the child of promise. He has now something of unspeakable worth, by which his spiritual character may be thoroughly tested. Since the hour in which he believed in the Lord, the features of his resemblance to God have been shining more and more through the darkness of his fallen nature - freedom of resolve, holiness of walk, interposing benevolence, and paternal affection. The last prepares the way for the highest point of moral likeness.
Verse 1-19
God tests Abrahamâs unreserved obedience to his will. âThe God.â The true, eternal, and only God, not any tempter to evil, such as the serpent or his own thoughts. âTempted Abraham.â To tempt is originally to try, prove, put to the test. It belongs to the dignity of a moral being to be put to a moral probation. Such assaying of the will and conscience is worthy both of God the assayer, and of man the assayed. âThine only one.â The only one born of Sarah, and heir of the promise. âWhom thou lovest.â An only child gathers round it all the affections of the parentâs heart. âThe land of Moriah.â This term, though applied in 2 Chronicles 3:1 to the mount on which the temple of Solomon was built, is here the name of a country, containing, it may be, a range of mountains or other notable place to which it was especially appropriated. Its formation and meaning are very doubtful, and there is nothing in the context to lend us any aid in its explanation. It was evidently known to Abraham before he set out on his present journey. It is not to be identified with Moreh in Genesis 12:6, as the two names occur in the same document, and, being different in form, they naturally denote different things. Moreh is probably the name of a man. Moriah probably refers to some event that had occurred in the land, or some characteristic of its inhabitants. If a derivative, like ×ר×× porıÌyaÌh, âfruitful,â it may mean the land of the rebellious, a name not inapposite to any district inhabited by the Kenaanites, who were disposed to rebellion themselves Genesis 14:4, or met with rebellion from the previous inhabitants. If a compound of the divine name, Jah, whatever be the other element, it affords an interesting trace of the manifestation and worship of the true God under the name of Jab at some antecedent period. The land of Moriah comprehended within its range the population to which Melkizedec ministered as priest.
And offer him for a burnt-offering. - Abraham must have felt the outward inconsistency between the sacrifice of his son, and the promise that in him should his seed be called. But in the triumph of faith he accounted that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead. On no other principle can the prompt, mute, unquestioning obedience of Abraham be explained. Human sacrifice may have been not unknown; but this in no way met the special difficulty of the promise. The existence of such a custom might seem to have smoothed away the difficulty of a parent offering the sacrifice of a son. But the moral difficulty of human sacrifice is not so removed. The only solution of this, is what the ease itself actually presents; namely, the divine command. It is evident that the absolute Creator has by right entire control over his creatures. He is no doubt bound by his eternal rectitude to do no wrong to his moral creatures. But the creature in the present case has forfeited the life that was given, by sin. And, moreover, we cannot deny that the Almighty may, for a fit moral purpose, direct the sacrifice of a holy being, who should eventually receive a due recompense for such a degree of voluntary obedience. This takes away the moral difficulty, either as to God who commands, or Abraham who obeys. Without the divine command, it is needless to say that it was not lawful for Abraham to slay his son.
Upon one of the hills of which I will tell thee. - This form of expression dearly shows that Moriah was not at that time the name of the particular hill on which the sacrifice was to be offered. It was the general designation of the country in which was the range of hills on one of which the solemn transaction was to take place. âAnd Abraham rose up early in the morning.â There is no hesitation or lingering in the patriarch. If this has to be done, let it be done at once.
Genesis 22:4-10
The story is now told with exquisite simplicity. âOn the third day.â From Beer-sheba to the Shalem of Melkizedec, near which this hill is supposed to have been, is about forty-five miles. If they proceeded fifteen miles on the first broken day, twenty on the second, and ten on the third, they would come within sight of the place early on the third day. âLifted up his eyes.â It is scarcely necessary to remind the reader of the Bible that this phrase does not imply that the place was above his point of view. Lot lifted up his eyes and beheld all the vale of Jordan Genesis 13:10, which was considerably below the position of the observer. âAnd return unto you.â The intimation that he and the lad would return, may seem to have rested on a dim presentiment that God would restore Isaac to him even if sacrificed. But it is more in keeping with the earnestness of the whole transaction to regard it as a mere concealment of his purpose from his servants. âAnd he bound Isaac his son.â There is a wonderful pathos in the words his son, his father, introduced in the sacred style in this and similar narratives. Isaac, when the trying moment came, seems to have made no resistance to his fatherâs will. The binding was merely a sacrificial custom. He must have concluded that his father was in all this obeying the will of God, though he gave him only a distant hint that it was so. Abraham is thoroughly in earnest in the whole procedure.
Genesis 22:11-14
At this critical moment the angel of the Lord interposes to prevent the actual sacrifice. âLay not thy hand upon the lad.â Here we have the evidence of a voice from heaven that God does not accept of human victims. Man is morally unclean, and therefore unfit for a sacrifice. He is, moreover, not in any sense a victim, but a doomed culprit, for whom the victim has to be provided. And for a typical sacrifice that cannot take away, but only shadow forth, the efficacious sacrifice, man is neither fit nor necessary. The lamb without blemish, that has no penal or protracted suffering, is sufficient for a symbol of the real atonement. The intention, therefore, in this case was enough, and that was now seen to be real. âNow I know that thou fearest God.â This was known to God antecedent to the event that demonstrated it. But the original âI have knownâ denotes an eventual knowing, a discovering by actual experiment; and this observable probation of Abraham was necessary for the judicial eye of God, who is to govern the world, and for the conscience of man, who is to be instructed by practice as well as principle. âThou hast not withheld thy son from me.â This voluntary surrender of all that was dear to him, of all that he could in any sense call his own, forms the keystone of Abrahamâs spiritual experience. He is henceforth a tried man.
Genesis 22:13-14
A ram behind. - For âbehindâ we have âoneâ in the Samaritan, the Septuagint, Onkelos, and some MSS. But neither a âsingle ramâ nor a âcertain ramâ adds anything suitable to the sense. We therefore retain the received reading. The voice from heaven was heard from behind Abraham, who, on turning back and lifting up his eyes, saw the ram. This Abraham took and offered as a substitute for Isaac. Both in the intention and in the act he rises to a higher resemblance to God. He withholds not his only son in intent, and yet in fact he offers a substitute for his son. âJehovah-jirehâ, the Lord will provide, is a deeply significant name. He who provided the ram caught in the thicket will provide the really atoning victim of which the ram was the type. In this event we can imagine Abraham seeing the day of that pre-eminent seed who should in the fullness of time actually take away sin by the sacrifice of himself. âIn the mount of the Lord he will be seen.â This proverb remained as a monument of this transaction in the time of the sacred writer. The mount of the Lord here means the very height of the trial into which he brings his saints. There he will certainly appear in due time for their deliverance.
Genesis 22:15-19
Abraham has arrived at the moral elevation of self-denial and resignation to the will of God, and that in its highest form. The angel of the Lord now confirms all his special promises to him with an oath, in their amplest terms. An oath with God is a solemn pledging of himself in all the unchangeableness of his faithfulness and truth, to the fulfillment of his promise. The multitude of his seed has a double parallel in the stars of heaven and the sands of the ocean. They are to possess the gate of their enemies; that is, to be masters and rulers of their cities and territories. The great promise, âand blessed in thy seed shall be all the nations of the earth,â was first given absolutely without reference to his character. Now it is confirmed to him as the man of proof, who is not only accepted as righteous, but proved to be actually righteous after the inward man; âbecause thou hast obeyed my voiceâ Genesis 26:5. The reflexive form of the verb signifying to bless is here employed, not to denote emphasis, but to intimate that the nations, in being blessed of God, are made willing to be so, and therefore bless themselves in Abrahamâs seed. In hearing this transcendent blessing repeated on this momentous occasion, Abraham truly saw the day of the seed of the woman, the seed of Abraham, the Son of man. We contemplate him now with wonder as the man of God, manifested by the self-denying obedience of a regenerate nature, intrusted with the dignity of the patriarchate over a holy seed, and competent to the worthy discharge of all its spiritual functions.
With the nineteenth verse of this chapter may be said to close the main revelation of the third Bible given to mankind, to which the remainder of this book is only a needful appendix. It includes the two former Bibles or revelations - that of Adam and that of Noah; and it adds the special revelation of Abraham. The two former applied directly to the whole race; the latter directly to Abraham and his seed as the medium of an ultimate blessing to the whole race. The former revealed the mercy of God offered to all, which was the truth immediately necessary to be known; the latter reveals more definitely the seed through whom the blessings of mercy are to be conveyed to all, and delineates the leading stage in the spiritual life of a man of God. In the person of Abraham is unfolded that spiritual process by which the soul is drawn to God. He hears the call of God and comes to the decisive act of trusting in the revealed God of mercy and truth; on the ground of which act he is accounted as righteous. He then rises to the successive acts of walking with God, covenanting with him, communing and interceding with him, and at length withholding nothing that he has or holds dear from him. In all this we discern certain primary and essential characteristics of the man who is saved through acceptance of the mercy of God proclaimed to him in a primeval gospel. Faith in God Genesis 15:0, repentance toward him Genesis 16:0, and fellowship with him Genesis 18:0, are the three great turning-points of the soulâs returning life. They are built upon the effectual call of God Genesis 12:0, and culminate in unreserved resignation to him Genesis 22:0. With wonderful facility has the sacred record descended in this pattern of spiritual biography from the rational and accountable race to the individual and immortal soul, and traced the footsteps of its path to God.
The seed that was threatened to bruise the serpentâs head is here the seed that is promised to bless all the families of the earth. The threefold individuality in the essence of the one eternal Spirit, is adumbrated in the three men who visited the patriarch, and their personal and practical interest in the salvation of man is manifested, though the part appropriated to each in the work of grace be not yet apparent.
Meanwhile, contemporaneous with Abraham are to be seen men (Melkizedec, Abimelek) who live under the covenant of Noah, which was not abrogated by that of Abraham, but only helped forward by the specialities of the latter over the legal and moral difficulties in the way to its final and full accomplishment. That covenant, which was simply the expansion and continuation of the Adamic covenant, is still in force, and contains within its bosom the Abrahamic covenant in its culminating grandeur, as the soul that gives life and motion to its otherwise inanimate body.
Genesis 22:20-24
This family notice is inserted as a piece of contemporaneous history, to explain and prepare the way for the marriage of Isaac. âMilkah, she also,â in allusion to Sarah, who has borne Isaac. So far as we know, they may have been sisters, but they were at all events sisters-in-law. The only new persons belonging to our histoy are Bethuel and Rebekah. Uz, Aram, and Kesed are interesting, as they show that we are in the region of the Shemites, among whom these are ancestral names Genesis 10:23; Genesis 11:28. Buz may have been the ancestor of Elihu Jeremiah 25:23; Job 32:2. Maakah may have given rise to the tribes and land of Maakah Deuteronomy 3:14; 2 Samuel 10:6. The other names do not again occur. âAnd his concubine.â A concubine was a secondary wife, whose position was not considered disreputable in the East. Nahor, like Ishmael, had twelve sons, - eight by his wife, and four by his concubine.
Clarke's Notes on the Bible
Verse Genesis 22:2. Take now thy son — Bishop Warburton's observations on this passage are weighty and important. "The order in which the words are placed in the original gradually increases the sense, and raises the passions higher and higher: Take now thy son, (rather, take I beseech thee × × na,) thine only son whom thou lovest, even Isaac. Jarchi imagines this minuteness was to preclude any doubt in Abraham. Abraham desired earnestly to be let into the mystery of redemption; and God, to instruct him in the infinite extent of the Divine goodness to mankind, who spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, let Abraham feel by experience what it was to lose a beloved son, the son born miraculously when Sarah was past child-bearing, as Jesus was miraculously born of a virgin. The duration, too, of the action, Genesis 22:4, was the same as that between Christ's death and resurrection, both which are designed to be represented in it; and still farther not only the final archetypical sacrifice of the Son of God was figured in the command to offer Isaac, but the intermediate typical sacrifice in the Mosaic economy was represented by the permitted sacrifice of the ram offered up, Genesis 22:13, instead of Isaac." See Dodd.
Only son — All that he had by Sarah his legal wife.
The land of Moriah — This is supposed to mean all the mountains of Jerusalem, comprehending Mount Gihon or Calvary, the mount of Sion and of Acra. As Mount Calvary is the highest ground to the west, and the mount of the temple is the lowest of the mounts, Mr. Mann conjectures that it was upon this mount Abraham offered up Isaac, which is well known to be the same mount on which our blessed Lord was crucified. Beer-sheba, where Abraham dwelt, is about forty-two miles distant from Jerusalem, and it is not to be wondered at that Abraham, Isaac, the two servants, and the ass laden with wood for the burnt-offering, did not reach this place till the third day; see Genesis 22:4.
