“Take your son, your only son, Isaac…”
Only son? What about Ishmael? Apparently he’s no longer a part of Abraham’s line, similar to how Cain lost his place in Adam’s line. God has a specific plan for this line, and it doesn’t always go according to the accepted customs of normal inheritance, but rather by where he chooses to give his blessings.
…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.
Well that’s a nice bland couple of sentences to describe a ridiculously insane series of events. I mean, he’s about to kill his son for goodness sakes. So, did Isaac try to fight back? He was old enough to carry the wood, right? And Abraham is 100 years older than Isaac, so he could probably resist, right? We know that he has already questioned his father about the missing lamb, so it’s not like he’s oblivious to what’s going on. After three days of traveling, hiking up a mountain, and working at building an altar, surely Isaac is starting to wonder where this magical lamb is. And then when the altar is done, and there still isn’t a lamb, Abraham turns toward him. And he either allows himself to be bound, or Abraham overcomes him and forcefully restrains his son, blocking out the cries and screams for mercy.
And then he raises the knife. Here it is. After all this time, all the doubts and deception, all the fearing for his own life, and skepticism about this son, after it all he finally gives up fighting and surrenders to God’s plan. He didn’t trust God for his safety, and lied about his wife…twice. He scoffed at the idea that Sarah could have a child, and asked that the blessing be given to Ishmael instead. But now, he is finally to the point of complete belief. God said he was going to make Isaac into a great nation, that’s exactly what he’ll do. Even if this doesn’t make sense, Abraham finally trusts that God will keep his promise, no matter what.
“Now I know that you fear God…”
Just as Abraham knew all along, it was a test. Of course, the test ended without him actually having to harm his son, but the result is achieved. He was willing to sacrifice everything, and completely rely on God and his promise.
As an interesting side note: Abraham seems to be pretty good at following directions and obeying God. Pack up. Leave your home. Go. Circumcise your family. Sacrifice your son.
However, he seems to run into trouble when he doesn’t have some specific task or direction from God. Something about the ‘down-time’ makes wife = sister, servant = wife…
Now whether he just isn’t listening to God at these times, or whether God just isn’t speaking, I don’t know. But it does bring a lot of trouble into his life, and complicate things. If only he always lived his life toward a specific goal, and was constantly asking for guidance, he might have been able to avoid some of those issues.
And just because it’s been a while since we have any decent family records, we get a little chunk to round out the end of this chapter. Namely, we see a certain Rebekah enter the scene.
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