(Written by Sheila
Gail Landgraf)
It was the third day
of their journey and Abraham walked on
in faith, straight up the mountain that God showed him with his son Isaac by
his side.
Abraham carried the knife and
the fire and Isaac carried the wood.
Not a word was heard
from Abraham. It was Isaac who broke the
silence. Isaac called out to Abraham;
“My Father.” “Here I am, my son” Abraham
answered.
Isaac noted that he
saw the fire and the wood but asked where is the lamb for the burnt
offering? Abraham answered: “God will provide the lamb for the burnt
offering my son.”
We read in the midrash
that when Abraham answered these words Isaac put his head between his hands and
wept, then asked Abraham if this was from the Torah that he had heard Abraham
discuss with Sarah. The midrash speaks
of Abraham weeping at this point and mentions that Isaac sought to comfort him
and a conversation took place where Isaac gave his father permission to fulfill
God’s will through him. Isaac states
that he wished for his blood to provide atonement for the Jewish people. Both the Torah and the Midrash state that the
father and son walked on together in agreement.
It seems that Isaac, probably in his mid to late thirties now,
understood and went willingly to a sacrificial death, Abraham leading him there
and willingly giving him over to God.
Have you ever had to
“walk on?” Sometimes walking on is a
very hard thing to do. Sometimes we are
asked to do very hard things, like carry wood and fire and a knife. Everything feels like a struggle of the will. Life is full of sacrifices that must be
made. They usually come through the
things we cherish and the ones that we love the most.
Walking on takes great courage, but more than
that; walking on takes great love.
Abraham and Isaac walked on completely submitted to God’s will because
of the great love they both shared for God and each other. The story of the Akadah is the first place in
the bible where we hear of the Hebrew word for love. There is no greater love than this, that a
man would lay down his life for his brothers or that a father would give his
son in exchange for other people’s lives.
So they came to the
designated place that God showed them.
Most believe this was the very same place that Adam had offered
sacrifices to God, a place that had been destroyed during the great flood. After the flood Noah had rebuilt the place of
the altar and offered up offerings to God there with his family. Nimrod had destroyed this place after the
fall of the tower of Babel, and now Abraham rebuilt the altar in this exact
same spot. He laid the wood in
order. As Abraham built, Isaac had every
opportunity to escape and run away. He
stayed, submitted and humble, ready to do his Father’s will, believing that God
would save them both through this offering.
Abraham bound a submitted
and willing Isaac who laid himself down on top of the wood. It is very significant that Isaac laid himself
down on top of the wood. We know of many
years later when another Son would come from another Father and willingly lay
himself down on top of the wood of a tree, just as Isaac laid atop this altar of wood
that his father built.
In offering the sacrifice
it was important for the throat of the sacrifice to be slit quickly. The scriptures say Isaac set his face like a
flint to fulfill God’s will. Isaac lay
with his eyes directed toward heaven.
Abraham stretched out his hand to make the cut. For a few seconds Abraham examined the knife
to be sure it was ritually fit for the cut.
It was in that very moment that The Angel of the LORD called his name
from heaven! “Abraham! Abraham!”
The Angel of The
LORD told Abraham not to lay a hand on the boy and not to harm him. “For now I know that you fear God, seeing
that you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.”
With joy Abraham
immediately released Isaac and recited the prayer of blessing: “Blessed are You LORD, who revives the dead!”
Abraham lifted his
eyes from the prayer and beheld a ram caught by the horns in the thicket. Abraham
took the ram and offered it up on the altar in the place of his son. With the thought in mind of a substitute offering, Abraham prayed while sacrificing the ram that God would regard the
offering as though it were his son. God
accepted Abraham’s offering in place of Isaac.
It is said in the
midrash that Abraham, after making the sacrifice, prayed to God and mentioned
that he had not questioned or argued when God had made the request of him, but
that he had willingly offered up his son until God stopped the action. Abraham requested that God remember this each
time one of the sons of his later generations sinned and Abraham requested that God
would have mercy on their sins because of this and always forgive them. Many of Abraham’s descendants can be very
thankful for that prayer.
The Talmud mentions
that God asked Abraham to sound the sound of the rams horn before him each year
so that He would remember the binding of Isaac and count it as mercy toward the
children of Abraham forever. This is why
we blow the shofar at Rosh Hashanah, to remind God to be merciful to His
children who are doing their best to be faithful. Each year at the sound of the shofar, God is
reminded of the prayer of blessing from Abraham.
This place where God
had called for the sacrifice of Isaac is a very sacred place. Abraham called it Adonai Yireh which means
“The LORD will provide” because God had provided a ram in place of Isaac.
Moriah comes from
the verb “ra’ah,” which means “to see.”
It was said on Mt. Moriah that the LORD saw the need of the people and
made provision for a substitute sacrifice that would save them.
Mt. Moriah, which is
called Zion has been the place for many, many sacred events ever since. Many years later Jacob, the son of Isaac dreamed here of a ladder that
reached up to heaven. Years after that,
the Temple was built on the very spot where Isaac was bound and Jacob dreamed
of Heaven.
It was in this very
place where another Son, the true Son of God, the perfect lamb, was eventually
sacrificed on a cross of wood for all of the sins of mankind. Isaac, as brave and courageous as he was, is
only a shadow of the great and awesome love of Jesus Christ for His
people. He died for us all right in this
very same spot on Mt. Moriah.
On The Mountain of
The Lord God truly provided a lamb.
