This story is one of the most beautiful and complex stories in scripture.
Jewish and Christian Traditions
Jewish scholars call this story “The Binding of Isaac.” Christian scholars call it “The Testing of Abraham.” These different traditions help us to see another vital difference of interpretation. Jewish readers see a concrete story of the relationship between God, Abraham, and Isaac. Christian readers see a spiritual story about the relationship between God and humanity.
The Chrsitian tradition seems to sacrifice the heart of the story for a broader theological principle. We might well learn from Jewish tradition and think about our own concrete, physical, real relationships with young people in our care, whom we see as our future, and what it is like for us to trust God will provide for them when find ourselves in Abraham’s position, feeling like we risk sacrificing them on altars of our own fashioning.
In this way of reading the story, we might see scripture offering a model of Abraham’s experience as a father, times from his own life when his son has been in mortal danger but saved or rescued or provided for at the last possible moment. This way of reading the story is helpful for its understanding of the working of scripture, not to convey an historical event as we understand historical events with our post-enlightenment way of understanding, but instead to see a very human story told and retold in a way that speaks deep truths our human journey, our experience of faith, and what it means for us to trust God when trust in God is all we have.
Testing, Not Testing
The theme of God testing Abraham is distinct to this story. In all other cases, when God is the subject, the object is Israel. This theme is especially notable in the testing of Israel as they wander in the desert.
God tests Abraham, and each time he is called, Abraham responds, “Here I am.” Isaac carries the wood; Abraham the fire and the knife. Angel stops Abraham, and a ram is found in a thicket.
In keeping with understanding the neatness of this story, how it serves as a model, we might see Abaraham not as passing a test but as an anguished father who is in severe trial throughout. He does not pass a test but his child is saved, thanks be to God!
Violence, Morality, Voice
God and Abraham come off poorly in this story, so poorly that artists and philosophers have tended to focus on its violence, representing Abraham as a crazed lunatic forceable stopped by an angel. In Fear and Trembling, Danish Philosopher Søren Kierkegaard says that Abraham is certainly not hearing the voice of God, because God would not tell him–or us–to violate moral law by killing his own son.
While Kierkegaard’s reading makes sense philosophically, it misses the deeper truths of the story in the tender and familiar back and forth conversations between God and Abraham and Isaac.
The repetition and rhythm, Abraham responding “Here I am,” conveys Abraham’s openness and responsiveness and a sense that he is making it up as he goes along, an experience we all understand.
Mirror: Hagar and Ishmael
The similarities between the Hagar and Ishmael story (Gen. 16:13, 21:19) are striking. Abraham finds himself in much the same place as Hagar: as Hagar’s eyes are opened to see water for her son, Abraham’s eyes are open to see a ram caught in a thicket. For both parents, God provides a way in the darkest moment.
God Learns and Other Challenging, Important Themes
Renown Old Testament scholar, Walter Bruegemann, offers a deeply challenging reading.
He said, ‘Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.’ Gen. 22:12:
Bruegemann says “God genuinely does not know..the flow of the narrative accomplishes something in the awareness of God. He did not know. Now he knows.”
While other scholars do not go so far as Brueggemann, his reading of the text seems to underlie the outcome they see of this story. God takes a risk on Abraham, not knowing how he would respond. If God tests within relationship to determine his loyalty, then God cannot disdain such an expression of loyalty.
At one point as they journey up the mountain, when Abraham and Isaac leave their companions to travel along together, Abraham expects God will provide, that he and Isaac will return together:
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.’ Gen 22:5
This theme is again repeated through Isaac’s questioning of his father as they walk up the mountain, Isaac with the wood Abraham put on his back, and with Abraham himself carrying the fire and the knife:
Isaac said to his father Abraham, ‘Father!’ And he said, ‘Here I am, my son.’ He said, ‘The fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for a burnt-offering?’ Abraham said, ‘God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt-offering, my son.’ So the two of them walked on together. Gen. 22:7-8
The question that arises, as we learn from Jewish scholars, is why, believing God will provide, Abraham nonetheless binds Isaac and puts him on the altar of wood, and then raises up the knife. If Abraham indeed believes God will provide, then why does he not see the ram in the thicket before he binds Isaac?
Alas, this is a question scholars have debated and for which there is no good answer. The binding of Isaac may be a moment of weakness for Abraham, perhaps symbolic and representative, of what I can’t say.
There is another moment, though, that is deeply meaningful, to be sure, though this part of the story is left unspoken
Upon seeing the ram in the thicket, Abraham unbinds Isaac, and sets him free. This unsaid, deeply suggestive part of the story resonates with parents whose children have escaped mortal perils, from chemotherapy to car accidents to addictions to all those decisive times for which we pray for deliverance, for God to provide.
And yet another unsaid part of this story is its effect on Isaac.
It seems safe to say, as Isaac’s story continues on from this moment, that Abraham’s trust in God becomes Isaac’s trust in God.
Resources:
Genesis 12-36. A Continental Commentary. Claus Westerman. Fortress Press Ed.: Minneapolis. 1995.
The New Interpreter’s Bible. Vol. I. Abingdon P.: 1994.
Suppose It Matters 