Genesis 22:1-19: Meditation the Biblical

Genesis 22:1-19: Meditation

The Biblical passage in which God demands that Abraham sacrifice his son Isaac is one of the most troubling passages of the Bible for a modern reader. He or she is inclined to wonder: Why would God demand that Abraham sacrifice his son, when the patriarch had struggled so long and so hard to have a child? Why would God demand the life of an innocent, young boy? The God of Israel was supposed to be the one a true God, who did not required human sacrifices like the false, pagan gods of antiquity. The sacrifice demanded by God is twofold -- of the son and also of Abraham's faith in God's righteousness. Abraham passes this test, trusting absolutely that God will not demand an evil action of him, although his heart is heavy. Isaac's trust in God and his father is also absolute, and the young boy follows his father without complaint.

Two interpretations are possible of Abraham's actions: first, that Abraham was obedient yet believed that he was being forced to sacrifice Isaac, because what God gives, God can also take away

. Or, Abraham was confident that this was a test, that God was moral and that he could make the motions of the sacrifice without fear. These dual interpretations are both supported by the passage. The first interpretation is supported by textual evidence of Abraham's sorrow. Yet Abraham also responds to Isaac that God will provide the animal for the burnt offering, indicating that he knows, at some level, that Isaac will be spared. Abraham does not say that he will provide the animal: Isaac is God's gift, and it is always God who provides, not man.

Abraham's seemingly contradictory response of faith in God and sorrow at God's will is perfectly captured in the dilemma chronicled in Genesis 22 -- and is often mirrored reflected in our own, daily circumstances. A father who must send his son to fight in a war knows that to do so is necessary, yet mourns the inevitability of the conflict that will put his child in harm's way. He mourns the circumstances of the world that demands the sacrifice, even while he gives it willingly, trusting in the goodness of God and God's larger plan. Having faith does not mean that one does not feel sorrow at the inevitable. It is not sinful to feel sad that physical death is a part of the human, fallen world. A woman who loses her elderly mother will still weep, even though she knows that death comes to us all even while she also believes that eternal life comes to us all. The tears, like Abraham's heavy heart, are evidence of our humanity, even while, like Abraham, we believe that God will spare us at the end of time.

Simultaneously in the moment of losing a loved one, with the same heavy heart felt by Abraham, believers also know that God will provide the sacrifice for the burnt offering -- God's only Son. Christians have long read Genesis 22 as a typological foreshadowing of Jesus' sacrifice for the sins of humanity on the cross. Isaac is a young innocent and a miraculous gift from God to the childless Abraham. Jesus is similarly given and taken away as a sacrifice in a manner that parallels Isaac: although Jesus suffers and dies in the physical world, the Son lives on in a reborn, physical and spiritual sense, like Isaac lives another day.