Genesis 22: The Binding of Isaac
God said, “Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you.” (Genesis 22:2)
This is one of the most confounding statements in the entire Bible. How can it be that God tells Abraham to sacrifice his son? Isn’t that human sacrifice? Is God actually asking for something that contradicts His nature? Is this some kind of cruel joke??
Consider the absurdity. Imagine God tells you, “I want you to steal that iPhone from Walmart.” Then just as you’re about to leave the store with the iPhone in your pocket, He says “Okay stop.” Or imagine God tells you, “I want you to commit adultery.” Then just as you’re about to cheat on your spouse, God says, “Okay stop.” These examples demonstrate the absurdity because God wouldn’t send you on an errand that contradicts His nature. And yet, to ask for a human sacrifice contradicts His nature because He is very much opposed to the sin of human sacrifice. Moreover, what a cruel thing to do! To call for something and then, at the last moment, step in and retract it. To put this lightly: what in the world is going on here?
Well please note, our translations accurately translate the Hebrew in Genesis 22:2. But here’s the thing: the Hebrew itself reveals another level. As it’s been said, reading a translation of the Bible is like kissing a woman through a veil: it’s very close, but more intimacy is still waiting for you. And indeed, the original language gives away a more intimate truth. The truth is, in Genesis 22:2, God does not say what our translations say.
To understand just exactly what God did say, we first need to look at two other Hebrew words God could have used...
First, the Hebrew word “zebach” is the word meaning to slaughter for sacrifice. This is where we get the word “shochet,” one who ritually slaughters animals. God did not tell Abraham to go and zabach Isaac. He did not say slaughter your son for sacrifice.
Second, the word “korban” is the word for a burnt offering. God did not tell Abraham to make Isaac a korban. Korban is likely where we get our English word “carbon,” because after making a burnt offering (a korban), all you have left is carbon. God did not tell Abraham to go and make his son a korban.
So what does God tell Abraham to do to Isaac? He says to Abraham, “Take then your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, and alah him there for an olah upon one of the mountains of which I will tell you.”
“...alah him there...” Alah in Hebrew means “to go up,” “to ascend,” “to cause to ascend.”
“...for an olah...” Olah in Hebrew means “that which ascends,” or “that which goes up.”
Now it’s tricky because a burnt offering is called an olah, like when Noah got off the ark and made an olah to God of every clean animal and bird on the altar he erected. But understand, the focus of a burnt offering is the going-up-ness of it, and it’s only by fire that something is made to go up. Olah is like the noun version of the verb alah. It’s a going-up! It’s that which ascends! So for instance, to make aliyah is to go up to Jerusalem for a pilgrimage feast, or in synagogue you aliyah to the bimah to read from the Torah. Someone who makes aliyah is called an oleh (m. singular) or an olah (f. singular) because they go up. You can see the words are connected at their root.
Now when God tells Abraham to cause to ascend his son Isaac as a going-up, what does this mean in the ears of Abraham? Of course, it means to offer Isaac as a burnt offering like he would an animal! That’s how a man on earth causes a going-up to ascend to God above. Abraham understands the language well, or at least he thinks he does. However, he doesn’t take into account there’s a deeper truth hidden in the language that God has yet to reveal! And it’s a profound truth too, something you and I may take for granted having the Old and New Testament already laid down for us.
That truth is this: that a person can alah to God as an olah WITHOUT physically dying on the altar. By way of a substitute, the person can die and yet live on as a living sacrifice––as a person who has ascended to God but continues on in the world below. What a radical concept! Isaac in fact died on the altar that day, yet he climbed off the altar that day. He went on living as an olah.
How can this be? A substitute died in his place.
How can this be? A substitute died in his place.
May we appreciate the beauty and wisdom of God’s language to Abraham. He doesn’t tell Abraham to slaughter his son for sacrifice, or to burn his son. It’s more like He says, Abraham, I want you to bring him up to Me. I want him to go up, to become that which ascends. God then leaves it at that. He adds no more.
Again, God does not want Isaac to die physically. That is never the real request! Such a request would contradict His nature. But here is something you and I can relate to: Abraham interprets God’s Word through the filter of his own paradigm. And in Abraham’s paradigm, to make Isaac “go up” means to kill him on the altar and then set him ablaze. So Abraham prepares to do just that. He prepares to make his son go up by fire. He doesn’t know otherwise.
But he misunderstands the request.
But he misunderstands the request.
...And God lets him misunderstand.
What?! Have I lost my hinges? What am I saying? That God would let a man act in light of a misunderstanding? Certainly God would care enough to clarify! Certainly God would not let matters of life and death transpire based on a misinterpretation! ...Right?
“And Jesus answered them, saying ‘Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days’” (John 2:19).
This is the misunderstanding that instigates the Son’s death (Matthew 26:61). His Jewish contemporaries failed to realize what Jesus was talking about. They heard it in the context of their own understanding. But Jesus was not referring to the Temple in Jerusalem. He was referring to Himself! Yet not once did Jesus correct them; not once did God clarify what He meant. He let them misunderstand.
The misunderstanding was critical to the end game.
The misunderstanding led to a break through to deeper understanding.
This is worth some thought. When Abraham went to act on a misunderstanding––a misunderstanding created by the limits of paradigm, a misunderstanding that would’ve resulted in the death of Abraham’s son––God graciously held back the knife. God introduced to the world the concept of a living sacrifice. He brought forth a substitute to die in place of. Then later, when Abraham’s descendants went to act on a misunderstanding––a misunderstanding created by the limits of paradigm, a misunderstanding that would result in the death of His Son––God let it happen. Death was not withheld.
...But why?
Because the misunderstanding led to a break through to deeper understanding. You and I can now live on as living sacrifices, as His Son became the substitute who died in our place. Had it not been for the misunderstanding, none of this would have been realized.
Remember that verse, Genesis 22:2? “God said, ‘Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, and alah him there as an olah on one of the mountains of which I will tell you.” That word translated as “son” is the word ben in Hebrew, a word that can also be translated as people (of a nation). So in a sense, God says to Abraham, “Take now your people, your only nation, whom you love...and offer there an olah.” You see, within Isaac, all of Israel was represented. All of Israel was bound on that altar. And then all of Israel climbed off that altar, when the substitute God provided died in place of his ben, his “people,” a people who alah to God as those who go up yet remain fully alive down here on earth.
May we, the sons and daughters of Abraham––grafted in or natural born––praise Him, the Father and the Son, the Substitute, the In Place Of!
