Genesis 22

The Lord Tells Abraham To Offer Isaac as a Sacrifice

1 # Ws 10.5; Si 44.20; 4 Macc 7.13,14; 13.12; He 11.17-19. Some years later God decided to test Abraham, so he spoke to him.

Abraham answered, “Here I am, Lord.”

2 # 2 Ch 3.1. 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.” 3So Abraham got up early the next morning and chopped wood for the fire. He put a saddle on his donkey and set out with Isaac and two servants for the place where God had told him to go.

4Three days later Abraham looked off in the distance and saw the place. 5He told his servants, “Stay here with the donkey, while my son and I go over there to worship. We will come back.”

6Abraham put the wood on Isaac's shoulder, but he carried the hot coals and the knife. As the two of them walked along, 7-8Isaac said, “Father, we have the coals and the wood, but where is the lamb for the sacrifice?”

“My son,” Abraham answered, “God will provide the lamb.”

The two of them walked on, and 9#Jas 2.21. when they reached the place that God had told him about, Abraham built an altar and placed the wood on it. Next, he tied up his son and put him on the wood. 10#4 Macc 16.20. He then took the knife and got ready to kill his son. 11But the Lord's angel shouted from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!”

“Here I am!” he answered.

12“Don't hurt the boy or harm him in any way!” the angel said. “Now I know that you truly obey God, because you were willing to offer him your only son.”

13Abraham looked up and saw a ram caught by its horns in the bushes. So he took the ram and sacrificed it instead of his son.

14Abraham named that place “The Lord Will Provide.” And even now people say, “On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.”#22.14 The Lord Will Provide … it will be provided: Or “The Lord Will Be Seen … the Lord will be seen” or “It (a ram) Will Be Seen … it (a ram) will be seen.”

15The Lord's angel called out from heaven a second time:

16 # He 6.13,14. You were willing to offer your only son to the Lord, and so he makes you this solemn promise, 17#He 11.12. “I will bless you and give you such a large family, that someday your descendants will be more numerous than the stars in the sky or the grains of sand along the seashore. They will defeat their enemies and take over the cities where their enemies live. 18#Ac 3.25. You have obeyed me, and so you and your descendants will be a blessing to all nations on earth.”

19Abraham and Isaac went back to the servants who had come with him, and they returned to Abraham's home in Beersheba.

The Children of Nahor

20-23Abraham's brother Nahor had married Milcah, and Abraham was later told that they had eight sons. Uz was their first-born; Buz was next, and then there was Kemuel the father of Aram; their other five sons were: Chesed, Hazo, Pildash, Jidlaph, and Bethuel the father of Rebekah. 24Nahor also had another wife.#22.24 another wife: This translates a Hebrew word for a woman who was legally bound to a man, but without the full privileges of a wife. Her name was Reumah, and she had four sons: Tebah, Gaham, Tahash, and Maacah.

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Genesis 22

CHAPTER 22

1And after that these things were done, God assayed Abraham, and said to him, Abraham! Abraham! He answered, I am present.

2God said to him, Take thine one begotten son, whom thou lovest, Isaac; and go into the land of vision, and offer thou him there into burnt sacrifice on one of the hills which I shall show to thee.

3Therefore Abraham rose by night, and saddled his ass, and led with him two young men, and Isaac his son; and when he had hewn trees into burnt sacrifice, he went to the place which God had commanded to him.

4Forsooth in the third day, he raised [up] his eyes, and saw a place afar;

5and he said to his young men, Abide ye here with the ass, I and the child#22:5 According to Jewish tradition, Isaac was probably 25 years old at this time (Gehman/Josephus). shall go thither; and after that we have worshipped, we shall turn again to you.

6And he took the wood of burnt sacrifice, and laid it on Isaac his son; forsooth he bare fire, and a sword in his hands. And when they twain [or two] went together,

7Isaac said to his father, My father! And he answered, What wilt thou, son? He said, Lo! fire and wood, where is the beast of burnt sacrifice?

8Abraham said, My son, God shall purvey to him the beast of burnt sacrifice. Therefore they went together,

9and came to the place which God had showed to him; in which place Abraham builded an altar, and dressed [the] wood above; and when he had bound altogether Isaac, his son, he laid Isaac on the altar, upon the heap of wood.

10And he held forth his hand, and took the sword to sacrifice his son.

11And lo! the angel of the Lord cried from heaven, and said, Abraham! Abraham! Which answered, I am present.

12And the angel said to him, Hold thou not forth thine hand on the child, neither do thou anything of harm to him; now I know that thou dreadest God, and sparedest not thine one begotten son for me.

13Abraham raised [up] his eyes, and he saw behind him a ram cleaving by the horns among briars, which he took, and offered as burnt sacrifice for the son.

14And he called the name of that place The Lord seeth; wherefore it is said, till to this day, The Lord shall see in the hill.

15Forsooth the angel of the Lord called to Abraham the second time from heaven,

16and said, The Lord saith, I have sworn by myself, for thou hast done this thing, and hast not spared thine one begotten son for me,

17I shall bless thee, and I shall multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven, and as the gravel, either sand, which is in the brink of the sea; thy seed shall wield the gates of his enemies;

18and all the folks of [the] earth shall be blessed in thy seed, for thou obeyedest to my voice.

19Abraham turned again to his young men, and they went to Beersheba together, and he dwelled there.

20And so when these things were done, it was told to Abraham that also Milcah had borne sons to Nahor his brother;

21Huz the first begotten, and Buz his brother, and Kemuel the father of Aram,

22and Chesed, and Hazo, and Pildash, and Jidlaph, and Bethuel,

23of whom Rebecca was born; Milcah childed these eight to Nahor, the brother of Abraham.

24Forsooth his concubine, or secon-dary wife, Reumah by name, childed Tebah, and Gaham, and Thahash, and Maachah.

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