Back from the Dead

Genesis 22:1-19

Abraham loved his son Isaac more than his own life.  As the years passed, and the boy grew, that bond of love grew, too.  Isaac was an obedient son, and he did everything asked of him, whether tending the flocks or killing a lamb or kid for a family feast.  He knew God as intimately as his father did, though not for so many long years.  Abraham spent endless hours sharing with his son his own experiences with the Lord, and the promise of a bright future of which he himself was the first fulfillment.

One morning, though, things were different.  Abraham was distant, almost morose, and he hardly spoke when Isaac addressed him.  He had two of his servants load wood for a sacrifice on a donkey, and he left with them and Isaac early in the morning.  They were going, he said, to offer a sacrifice on a mountain he knew in the land of Moriah, in the southeastern reaches of Canaan.  Throughout the journey, which took three days, he seemed preoccupied, and spoke little.  When they finally reached their destination, he continued acting strangely.

"The two of you stay here with the donkeys," he told his young men, "Isaac and I will return after we make the sacrifice."

He then loaded the wood for the sacrifice on the back of his son, and took his knife to kill the offering.  After a while, Isaac, who had been walking in silence alongside his father, finally spoke.

"Father?"

"Yes, my son," Abraham replied, not looking directly at him.

"I am carrying the wood for the sacrifice, and I see the knife for killing it, but where is the sacrifice itself?"

Abraham was silent for so long that Isaac thought he wasn't going to answer, then he replied, in a low voice, "God will provide a lamb for the burnt offering."

Puzzled, but satisfied that his father knew best, Isaac said no more.  The two of them walked on up the mountain to the place Abraham selected for the sacrifice.  He then took stones, which Isaac helped him carry, and built an altar.  He laid the wood on top of it for the fire.  Isaac's puzzlement turned to horror when his father tied him with the same cord that had bound the wood.  Even then, he trusted his father, and did not resist, though both he and Abraham were weeping as his father bound him to the altar.

As Abraham raised his knife to kill his son, his tears streaming in rivers down onto Isaac's body, a voice suddenly called out to him from out of the sky above, "Abraham!  Abraham!"

The knife paused in the air, but did not fall, as he looked up toward the voice.  "I am here, Lord."

"Do not harm the boy, or do anything to him.  Now I know that you fear God, because you would deny your only son, even the son of my promise, from me, as I asked."

Abraham looked around, and saw a ram caught by its horns in some nearby bushes.  He cut the ropes binding his son, and killed the ram for the sacrifice.  He called the name of the place, in his language, "Jehovah-jireh," or God provides.  The place of the sacrifice was known for many generations thereafter.  Before Abraham left the place with Isaac, God spoke to him a second time.

"Because you have done this thing, and have not denied me even your only son, I will greatly bless you through your descendents.  They will be as numerous and numberless as the sands on the seashore, or the stars in the sky."

As he had told his servants, both he and Isaac returned later down the hill.  All of them returned to Abraham's camp at Beersheba, in the dry southern pastures of Canaan.