Father Franz von Hummelauer's Commentary on Genesis 22:1-18

"The Sacrifice of Abraham" (Genesis 22:1-19)

Source-Critical Introduction (§7)

In this pericope, apart from the name Elohim (אלהים), all features, according to Knobel, indicate the Yahwist as author: anthropomorphisms of God—Gen 22:1 (God testing), Gen 22:12 (God knowing), Gen 22:16 (God swearing). Additionally: Gen 22:1 contains a nocturnal vision (cf. Gen 31:11; Gen 24:46; Gen 2:15); Gen 22:11, 15 feature an angelic apparition; Gen 22:13 mentions a ram miraculously provided; the sacrifice; the dwelling in Beersheba; Gen 22:8, 14 contain an explained place-name; furthermore, from v. 11 onward, certain expressions appear.

Against this Yahwist attribution, Wellhausen, Kuenen (I, 138), and Dillmann—though acknowledging many Yahwistic elements—assign at least the first part of the pericope to another Elohist [Source B], based on: the name Elohim; Gen 22:1's nocturnal vision (cf. 20:3; 21:12); the doubled vocative "Abraham, Abraham" with response "Here I am" (cf. Gen 46:2: "Jacob, Jacob... Here I am"). But what do these arguments ultimately prove? Regarding Gen 22:11, the angel's address from heaven (cf. Gen 21:17)—but this same feature appears in the Yahwist source. Regarding Gen 22:5, the local adverb koh (כֹּה, "here")—but this word is used in that sense so rarely and with such wide intervals that nothing prudent can be concluded from it.

Moreover: Gen 22:2, 12's term yachid (יָחִיד, "only one") recalls Gen 21:14; in Gen 22:13, Abraham seeing the ram which he had not seen before recalls Gen 21:19, where Hagar sees a well she had not previously noticed.

We have reviewed these points not to deny that chapters 22 and 21 share the same author—which we most willingly concede—but so that the reader may perceive how slender are the reasons by which recent critics assign a given pericope now to one source, now to another.

These same scholars again deny Gen 22:15-18 to the second Elohist because: the second angelic apparition seems only loosely attached to the narrative; the thoughts and expressions are Yahwistic in character; and Gen 22:14 (in view of which even the word ha-Moriyah in Gen 22:2 was inserted) intends to derive the sanctity of Mount Moriah from Abraham's own era. All these elements are attributed to the Yahwist, or rather to a redactor who also corrected Elohim to YHWH in Gen 22:11.

Theological Argument and Narrative Unity

Argument: Therefore, anyone reading this pericope even cursorily will perceive that its central purpose is the celebration of Abraham's faith. Hear the Apostle (Hebrews 11:17ff.): "By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was ready to offer his only son, of whom it was said, 'Through Isaac shall your descendants be named.' He considered that God was able to raise men even from the dead; hence, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back."

Relying on faith in divine promises, Abraham had left his ancestral home, wandered through various foreign lands, waited long years for the promised offspring, and finally received him in his hundredth year. The boy was growing up when the father is commanded to sacrifice him. Relying on faith, Abraham nobly undertakes to carry out the command.

Now, if this is the narrative's central purpose, it must originally have included all the parts of which it now consists. Consider: Could the narrative have lacked, first, the angel's command from heaven (vv. 11ff.)? Surely, since seed had been promised to Abraham through Isaac, Isaac could not be removed by death; either he was to be slain and then resurrected (as the Apostle suggests), or the command to kill him was to be revoked by a subsequent divine command. Imagine Isaac's descendants—those who knew that he had lived to old age and fathered children—would they not have needed to be taught by sacred tradition how he escaped the drawn sword unharmed?

Likewise, the second angelic command (vv. 15ff.) must originally have belonged to the narrative. Since God constantly rewarded Abraham's faith with promises, is it credible either that this most excellent act of faith lacked its promised reward, or that the original narrator omitted it? Therefore, the narrative in its substance was originally such as it now stands.

Verse-by-Verse Commentary

Verse 1: "After these things, God tested Abraham"—by presenting to him a remarkable object and material for heroic virtue and obedience, to this end: that He might reveal, sharpen, perfect, and finally crown the virtue latent in his soul.

• Lapide: God tested the father's affection: whether he would prefer God's precepts to his son, and not allow the contemplation of paternal piety to deflect the force of his devotion.

• Ambrose: Not that God might learn what He already knew, but that He might teach the ignorant for what just cause He loved the patriarch.

• Theodoret: For this reason, over three days and three nights, He made trial of his divine love. For the patriarch, placed between nature and faith, with both urging him, gave the palm of victory to faith.

"And He said to him: 'Abraham, Abraham.'" As in v. 11, the Vulgate and LXX double the name. "He answered: 'Here I am.'"

Verse 2: "He said to him: 'Take your son, your only one, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Vision, and there offer him as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I will show you.'"

All these words intend to inflame more and more the father's carnal love for his son, so that afterward he might prefer love of God to his carnal love, and when he conquers, his victory may be more glorious.

• Hugo of St. Victor: As many words here, so many goads, so many temptations.

• Lapide: Moriyah (הַמֹּרִיָּה) is read thus only here; in 2 Chronicles 3:1, ha-Moriah (הַמֹּורִיָּה) appears as the name of the mountain on which Solomon built the temple. But note: whereas there it is the name of a mountain, here it is the name of a region; the name of the specific mountain where Abraham sacrificed is withheld.

2 Chronicles 3:1 says it is the same mountain shown to David; nothing is said about Abraham's sacrifice having once been performed there, whence one might suspect that the author of Chronicles did not know a definite tradition that the sacrifice was offered on that mountain. Nevertheless, that tradition is asserted by Josephus, the Chaldee Targum, Pseudo-Jonathan, and also the Syriac, which in v. 14 writes "on this mountain." The Samaritan text writes mar'ah ha-Mora'ah (מראה המוראה); Mora'ah signifies "vision," whence perhaps Symmachus's reading τῆς ὀπτασίας ("of the vision") may be reduced to the same reading.

Moreover, in Genesis 12:6, for Moreh (מֹורֶה, a place near Shechem), the Samaritan writes Mor (מֹור), so that our be-Moriyah could be be-Mora with the local he (ה) added. Calmet states that the Samaritans locate the place of Abraham's sacrifice near Shechem; however, note that the Samaritan version does not preserve the proper name here but translates chaziythah ("of vision").

Also in Deuteronomy 11:30, for Moreh, the Samaritan has Mora'ah. The Hebrew, Vulgate, Targum, Jerome, and Aquila read here indeed τὴν καταφανή ("the manifest"), deriving it from 'or ("light"). Jerome interprets it as "vision" (Quaestiones Hebraicae). But the Syriac in both places reads 'Ariyah, "land of the Amorites"—a people who occupied broad stretches of the Holy Land—and the LXX in 2 Chronicles 3:1 likewise reads Αμωρία, and here τὴν ὑψηλήν ("the high one"), since 'amor originally means "to be high," and "Amorites" probably signifies "mountain-dwellers." Indeed, this reading is more probable than the others.

Nevertheless, we do not assert that because the name of the region is given here, the name of the mountain itself was not also Moriah—which the etymology in v. 14 perhaps hints at. Later Hebrews, lest the name of that most holy place recall the detested Amorites, could have transformed the name from 'Amori to Moriyah, whose interpretation from the root ra'ah ("to see") was altogether in the genius of Hebrew etymology. However, I do not have demonstrated that a continuous tradition existed among them regarding the identity of the temple site and Abraham's sacrifice site.

While other places consecrated by the patriarchs—Shechem, Bethel, Hebron, Beersheba, etc.—were used for sacred worship by their descendants, especially in the era of the Judges, I believe they were restrained by a certain reverence from offering sacrifice where their ancestor Isaac had been laid upon an altar; and thus the memory of the place was gradually obliterated. Only if you suppose this can the pious opinion be tolerated that the place of Abraham's sacrifice is the very Mount Calvary. For if any tradition had persisted among the Jews that Abraham's sacrifice occurred on Calvary, no one—neither Jew nor Roman—would ever have dared to desecrate that place with executions.

Verse 3: "So Abraham rose early in the morning" (i.e., at dawn), "saddled his donkey, took with him two young men and Isaac his son; and when he had cut the wood for the burnt offering, he set out and went to the place of which God had told him."

Sarah was not informed of the journey's purpose (Ephrem), who perhaps would have given her husband bad counsel, as Eve did to Adam (Procopius). This also makes it more probable that Isaac was not informed either (v. 7).

Verse 4: "On the third day, Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place afar off."

Jerome notes that in truth the journey from Gerar to Mount Moriah is a three-day journey. God tested the just man's virtue by the distance of the place. Consider, moreover, what the just man probably endured during those three days, as he pondered the command and the fact that he, with his own hands, was about to slay so beloved a son—sharing the matter with no one—and marvel at his pious, religious, and prudent soul (Chrysostom).

Verse 5: "And Abraham said to his young men: 'Stay here with the donkey; I and the boy will go over there; and when we have worshiped, we will come again to you.'"

The ancients endeavor in various ways to excuse Abraham from falsehood:

• Ambrose: "He prophesied what he did not know."

• Caietan suggests he held out hope that the son—through whom seed had been promised by God—would soon be raised again (cf. Hebrews 11:19).

• Bonfrère thinks he spoke of himself alone using the plural, or understood a condition: "if life accompanies us." In this he used a restriction certainly legitimate for concealing the truth from servants.

Verse 6: "Abraham also took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son." Isaac carried the wood for himself; Christ carried for Himself the gibbet of the cross (Ambrose). Caietan rightly judges from these details that Isaac's age can be conjectured to some degree: he had accompanied his father on foot for three days and now carries wood up the hill. Yet I scarcely think he had passed beyond childhood into much of adolescence (question on v. 7: the boy rather speaks).

"And he himself carried in his hands fire and a sword." And as the two went on together...

Verse 7: "...Isaac said to Abraham his father: 'My father!' And he said: 'Here I am, my son.'" Literally: "Behold, I, my son"—whence you may perceive the sense of this formula even in other passages.

"Consider here, I pray, the just man's anguish: how he bore it with his ears, how he could answer the boy, how he was not confounded in mind, how he could conceal from his son what was about to happen" (Chrysostom).

"Behold," [Isaac says,] "the fire and the wood; but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?" Seh (שֶׂה) means a flock animal, a sheep or goat. Therefore, Abraham pretended [that the sacrifice would be] a burnt offering of some lesser animal; therefore, the load of wood was only such as a robust boy could carry; nor is it said that Isaac carried all the wood alone, but perhaps he carried some portion.

Verse 8: "Abraham said: 'God will provide for Himself the victim for a burnt offering, my son.'" So they went both of them together.

Verse 9: "And they came to the place of which God had told him; and Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood."

After the wood was arranged, Josephus introduces Abraham instructing his son about what was planned. He was bound here, of course, willingly, imitating his father's noble spirit according to his age; nor does it seem probable (per Mar) that he was then thirty-seven years old—a number invented by those believing the boy was sacrificed in the year Sarah died. God desires tender victims. He was bound lest any unseemly movement while being slain might detract from the sacrifice's sanctity (Caietan), and that he might be a type of Christ fastened to the cross with nails (Lapide).

Verse 10: "Then Abraham put forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son."

By this act, the father, as far as in him lay, actually performed the sacrifice he had been commanded, and by intention offered the completed victim (Chrysostom). Human sacrifices were customary among the surrounding nations (2 Kings 16:3; Psalm 106[105]:38). Later the Moabites indulged in them (cf. 2 Kings 3:27) and the inscription of their king Mesha; the Arameans indulged (2 Kings 17:31); the Phoenicians and Carthaginians indulged—among whom even their god Cronos sacrificed a son (Sanchuniathon).

Abraham's deed certainly demonstrates that God did not require human sacrifices from His chosen people, nor would they be pleasing to Him; for if they had been pleasing, from no one would they have been more pleasing than from Abraham himself. Nevertheless, the account in Genesis 22 does not contain an explicit prohibition of such sacrifices (cf. what we have said on Judges 11).

Dillmann asserts gratuitously that this narrative implies that the ancient Hebrews, like other Semites and Canaanites, indulged in human sacrifices and afterward rejected them, and that the horror with which they regarded them is expressed by this fabricated story about Abraham. On how God could command a human sacrifice, cf. Pererius.

Verse 11: "And behold, the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, and said: 'Abraham, Abraham!' And he said: 'Here I am.'"

The divine voice in a way held back his hand and intercepted the blow of his vibrating right hand (Ambrose).

Verse 12: "He said: 'Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only one, from Me.'"

"Now I know"—I now perceive sufficiently, nor do I need further proof—"that you fear God."

Verse 13: "And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him [for 'achar, אַחַר, the Samaritan, LXX, Syriac, Pseudo-Jonathan, and several Hebrew codices read 'echad, אֶחָד, 'one'; the Chaldee combines both readings] a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns [in sebekh, בַּסְּבַךְ—'in a thicket,' where branches interweave; Aquila: ἐν συχνεῶνι; Symmachus: ἐν δικτύῳ; LXX: ἐν φυτῷ Σαβέκ]. Abraham went and took the ram, and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son."

Verse 14: "So Abraham called the name of that place 'The Lord will see' [YHWH yir'eh, יִרְאֶה]."

These are the same words as in v. 8; therefore: "The Lord provides." Therefore, if the name Moriah is derived from here, it is not (cf. Gesenius) to be explained as "chosen by God" nor "given by God to be seen" (vision of God).

The following sentence was certainly added by a later hand, perhaps by a redactor: "As it is said to this day, 'On the mount of the Lord it shall be seen/provided.'" The Masoretes certainly pointed the verb as Niphal; the LXX has ὤφθη ("He appeared"); and the Chaldee and Syriac referred "on this mountain" to Mount Zion, on which God manifested Himself long afterward. But if the words are so understood, the proverb did not in fact flow from Abraham's deed—which the text affirms—but from some more recent event.

Jerome already grasped the true sense, although he still rendered the verb passively: "And this went out as a proverb among the Hebrews: that whenever, placed in distress, they desire to be lifted up by the Lord's aid, they say: 'On the mount the Lord is seen'—that is, just as He had mercy on Abraham, so He will have mercy on us also."

Indeed, the words S'D (as it is said) seem to indicate that Hebrews of that era used the proverb in this sense: "God will provide for us in His own time and manner, just as He provided for Abraham on the mountain." And Vatables, Bonfrère, and others note that the words are the same as in v. 8: Elohim yir'eh ("God will see/provide"). Abraham, therefore, perceiving that what he had earlier said unknowingly was a prophecy of what afterward occurred, from that called the mountain "The Lord will see"—that is, "will provide." This appellation, however, can be extended further to strengthen the trust in God of all who are in calamities, so that in whatever difficult and calamitous circumstance they may be, they may not lose heart, but, deprived of human help, may flee to divine aid (Pererius).

Verse 15: "And the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven..."

I believe "a second time" was written with this purpose: that the reader may note that the angel spoke to Abraham from heaven twice—v. 11 and v. 15. For shenith (שֵׁנִית), a more general meaning "again, a second time" is nowhere demonstrated; therefore the word here certainly has some emphasis. You may derive this from the fact that the angel in truth spoke twice. But if this does not remove all doubt, consider, I pray, the manner in which, before these sacred documents were collected into one, tradition was preserved among the Hebrews. It was circulated orally, especially if not exclusively, recited among individual tribes—not all [traditions] among all, nor everywhere in the same words.

And I believe one method by which these traditions were finally collected and committed to writing was this: that they were becoming too distorted, indeed were perishing, in various places. Imagine now that two narratives of Abraham's sacrifice were available to a redactor: one from which (otherwise perhaps more complete) vv. 11-14 had dropped out due to the similarity of the sentences in vv. 11 and 15, and the hearer might be led to suppose (join v. 16 immediately to v. 10) that Abraham had actually slain his son and that human sacrifices were not entirely hateful to God; another, perhaps not so complete regarding vv. 1-10, but distinctly reporting the second angelic address. There was then a most weighty reason why the redactor should complete the former narrative from the second, adding also the word "second" in v. 16.

Verse 16: "By Myself I have sworn, says the Lord..." (cf. Hebrews 6:13: "For when God made a promise to Abraham, since He had no one greater by whom to swear, He swore by Himself"). Cf. Exodus 32:13. God imitates human customs, since men place greater faith in promises confirmed by an oath; He Himself also swears (Chrysostom).

The formula ne'um YHWH (נְאֻם יְהוָה, "oracle of the Lord"), apart from here, is read in the Pentateuch only in Numbers 14:28—a formula of especially solemn oath, which God uses very rarely.

The following promises had been made previously; nevertheless, here (Pererius) they are all confirmed together and, regarding some points, more distinctly (Caietan):

"Because you have done this, and have not withheld your son, your only one" (cf. v. 12),

Verse 17: "I will indeed bless you, and I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore" (cf. 13:16; 15:5; 17:2, 6; 18:18). "And your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies."

This last promise had not been pronounced previously in so many words; nevertheless cf. 12:3 and 15:14. The phrase seems (cf. 24:60) to have been then more usual, expressing complete triumph over enemies (cf. Pererius).

Verse 18: "And by your descendants shall all the nations of the earth bless themselves, because you have obeyed My voice." Cf. 12:3; 18:18, where it was said "in you"; here a little more distinctly: "in your descendants"—which seed is understood, as in the preceding clauses, as Abraham's entire chosen posterity, but especially Christ.

CONTINUE