In the Book of Joshua we are told that Israel’s ancestors, meaning Abraham and his father, Terah (Genesis 11:27), and Nahor Abraham’s grandfather (Genesis 11:24), worshiped other gods (Joshua 24:2). In other words, as reckoned by Paul in his epistle to the Romans, when men knew God, vis-à-vis just after the Genesis Flood, they didn’t respect him, as they ought to have done. Rather, they yielded to their own vain imaginations of God, believing they were wise in doing so, and they changed his incorruptible (eternal) form into corruptible (mortal) forms of men, birds, beasts and even creeping things (Romans 1:21-23). In fact, when they decided to reject all accurate understanding of God, God withdrew from them, giving them up to practice all manner of lustful behavior with a reprobate, ungodly mind (Romans 1:24, 28).
So, by the time the Lord called Abraham out of the land of his birth and out of his father’s house of polygamy (Genesis 12:1-3; cp. Romans 1:21-23), he didn’t know the true God. He had no idea what God was like. Everything that happened to him after he was 75 years old (cp. Genesis 12:4) was a learning experience that told him about the God who called him out of Mesopotamia. In other words, Abraham had to be taught anew, how to image or follow/be like God (cp. Genesis 1:27). All knowledge of the true God had vanished and was replaced with the imaginations, vis-à-vis traditions, of men, which included worshiping a god who required human sacrifice. So, how does God correct inaccurate knowledge of him that had been a part of human tradition for centuries before Abraham’s birth?
We are told in the text that God tried Abraham after these things. Some texts say God tempted Abraham, but the Hebrew word has to do with testing with a view of approving the result, similar to the pride a father feels, when his son does well. However, what does after these things refer to. Of course, what God did occurred after Abraham had given Hagar her freedom and sent her and Ishmael away. It was also after he made a treaty with Abimelech, but what is the significance of the trial or test if, the things mentioned in after these things refer to either of these? But, if not these, what does the text mean?
The text also tells us that Abraham planted a grove, while he sojourned in Beersheba and worshiped the eternal/everlasting God. In other words, Abraham worshiped the God of the ages—all future ages (Genesis 21:33-34). In the pagan pantheon, gods are born and can die, just as men do, but, apparently, God revealed himself to Abraham, as the God of the ages, or the God who know all and rules all, the everlasting/eternal God, but how should we understand these things (Genesis 22:1)?
It seems that the Lord gave Abraham a vision of the times of Jesus (cp. John 8:56), and he was helped to understand that Jesus, the Messiah, who was and is the promised hope of the human race (viz. Genesis 3:15), would be a descendant of Isaac. If this is logical and true, then Abraham’s trust in this revelation of God, revealing himself in Jesus, is what the Lord was testing, as it applied to Abraham’s faith. Did he believe it enough to reject its contradiction (Isaac’s death without a descendant) in favor of believing God would still bring it about?
The KJV tells us that God simply told Abraham to take Isaac and sacrifice him as a burnt offering upon the mountains of Moriah (Genesis 22:2). However, this isn’t a good rendering of the Hebrews text. Youngs Literal Translation puts it: “Take, I pray thee, thy son, thine only one, whom thou hast loved, even Isaac…” The Rotherham translation follows the YLT almost verbatim. The NWT puts it: “Take, please, your son, your only son whom you love, Isaac…” Similarly, the ISV translates: “Please take your son…” In other words, God was very gentle in how he phrased his request, and it was a request, not a demand, as the KJV and other translations put it.
How did Abraham react to the Lord’s request? He rose up early in the morning, taking Isaac, wood for the burnt offering and two of his young servants and went on a three-day journey to the mountains of Moriah. So, in Abraham’s heart for three days and three nights, his son, Isaac, was as a dead man (cp. Matthew 12:40), but he believed the Lord, who revealed himself as the God of the Ages, was able to raise his son up, even from the ashes of the burnt offering (Genesis 22:3; cp. Hebrews 11:17-19).
After three days, Abraham saw the place, where he was to sacrifice Isaac. He told the young men to wait some distance from the mountain, while he and Isaac worshiped a short distance away, and he would return with his son (Genesis 22:4-5; cp, Hebrews 11:17-19). Then, Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering, laid it upon Isaac’s shoulders and he took a torch in his hand, and, together, they walked toward the place of the offering (Genesis 22:6).
Isaac, however, noticed that there was wood and a torch for burning the wood, but he asked Abraham, where the sacrifice was that would be burned with the wood (Genesis 22:7). As a final testimony to his faith that the Lord would be true to his word, Abraham told Isaac that the Lord would provide the Lamb for the sacrifice, himself (Genesis 22:8)!
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