Pre-Abraham State of the World
Scholars have established that the first 11 chapters of Genesis serve as an extended prologue, providing essential context and foundational insights for the narratives that follow. These chapters effectively recount the story of creation and delineate how the nation of Israel emerged as a privileged people within this overarching narrative. Genesis opens with God’s profound intention to create beings that can reflect His image, leading Him to craft a suitable environment for this endeavor. He then forms humanity and imparts clear instructions for their living—guidelines that they are fully capable of following. Yet, it becomes evident that other forces interfere with God’s plan. Before long, the trajectory of this project is disrupted, even with just two humans involved. The situation escalates—introducing four named individuals leads to a tragic murder. From that point, the narrative continues its descent into chaos.
What was God to do—scrap the project entirely? Absolutely not; that would only be a victory for the sinister forces that derailed the plan. Starting anew? Certainly, but not from square one. This restart is, in fact, a continuation of the original vision. Abraham would have to do.
The Calling of Abram and the Promise
One traditional way of reading the story of Abraham is through key elements: his calling, the promise, its delayed manifestation, the eventual fulfillment, the testing he faced, and the resolution that followed. In this narrative arc, God called Abraham to leave his homeland and journey to a destination that He would reveal. What stands out as Abraham’s defining attribute for this mission? As the narrative unfolds, it becomes clear that Abraham’s most significant characteristic is his childlessness, compounded by the fact that his wife was beyond childbearing age. This choice by God is profound; to achieve His goal of establishing humans who represent Him accurately, He has deliberately selected a seemingly impossible path. By choosing someone who would require divine intervention to fulfill the promise, God demonstrates His power and purpose. God spoke to Abraham:
Genesis 12:2 ESV
And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.
Of course, becoming a great nation implies having many children and descendants. It sounded like an excellent deal to Abram, who obeyed without question. While he was on his way to where God sent him, at the oak of Moreh, and as if to make the point transparent (Genesis 12:7 ESV): “Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, ‘To your offspring I will give this land.”’ So, Abram is assured again that he will have children, and they will live in the promised land.
Along the way, we learn that Abraham yet has much to learn when the promise was delayed. When famine descended in the land where Abraham lived, he sought relief in Egypt. Afraid that the men of Egypt might kill him so that their king could have Sarah as a wife, Abraham told his wife to agree with him in lying about her true status as Abraham’s wife. Now, this is not the sort of understandable error we all can make when deciding under duress. On the contrary, as the narrator would later reveal, this was a calculated formulaic way that Abraham was going to handle every similar situation (Genesis 20:13). So, Abraham, on two occasions, gave up Sarah for possible sexual exploitation by foreign kings to save himself. The narrator here subtly informs us that God did not choose Abraham for his moral rectitude. God chose Abraham in spite of Abraham.
Nevertheless, God kept reassuring Abraham that his promises would stand. When he was in his eighties, and the promise of a posterity had not materialized, Abraham confronted God:
Genesis 15:2-3 ESV
[2] But Abram said, “O LORD God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” [3] And Abram said, “Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.”
Eliezer was one of Abraham’s numerous capable and trusted servants. In response, God reassured Abraham, through a performed metaphor, that Eliezer would not be Abraham’s heir and that his heir would be like the stars in the sky. On that occasion, Abraham believed the LORD, and God counted it to Abraham as righteousness (Genesis 15:6). As readers would soon discover, what Abraham believed and what God intended are not identical.
Shortly after that encounter, Sarah proposed an old wife’s theory of child-bearing to Abraham. She told him to impregnate her slave girl without the girl’s consent in the hope that the birthing of a child under her roof would result in the opening of her womb. It is just as the Yoruba still say today: Orí ọmọ ní ń pè ọmọ wá ayé. The idea sounded right to Abraham who had just been divinely reassured that he would father a child. Soon, the Egyptian slave girl Hagar was pregnant and gave birth to a boy named Ishmael. Abraham was 86 years old – 11 years after God first promised Abraham he would become the father of many nations. Though it was not what God had in mind, he blessed Ishmael nonetheless since he was a descendant of Abraham.
When Abraham was ninety-nine years old and twenty-four years after God first promised Abraham (God’s sense of time seemed slower), God was finally ready to make good his promise. But by this time, Abraham had understandably become an unwilling partner. He was old, and Sarah was past the age of childbearing. Plus, Abraham already have a 12-year-old boy. So, as far as Abraham was concerned, all seemed good. So when God showed up with the now-overworn formulaic promise again, this time adding that the promised child would be from Sarah, Abraham reacted understandably:
Genesis 17:17-18 ESV
[17] Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said to himself, “Shall a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?” [18] And Abraham said to God, “Oh that Ishmael might live before you!”
Earlier, Abraham had a testimony of believing God. But these verses show that he did not believe what God had in mind. Indeed, he is here suggesting to God to change his plans and consider using Ishmael. This suggestive or bargaining act is an important point we will come back to later. The passage continues:
Genesis 17:19 ESV
[19] God said, “No, but Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his offspring after him.
With a pinch of divine humor, Abraham would be perpetually reminded of his unbelief by naming the promised son Isaac.
Abraham Negotiates with God for Sodom
Two significant events happened before the promised son was born. In Genesis 18, God and two angels appeared to Abraham. God used the opportunity to restate his promise to Abraham, but the real business of the day was the imminent judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah – neighboring cities to Abraham’s and the residence of Abraham’s beloved nephew Lot. Almost as a man talks to a friend, God did not want to keep Abraham in the dark about what he was about to do to Sodom and Gomorrah. God was inviting and counting on Abraham to show off what he has learned of God’s character in twenty-five years of walking with him:
Genesis 18:17-19 ESV
[17] The LORD said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, [18] seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? [19] For I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice, so that the LORD may bring to Abraham what he has promised him.”
This passage is very critical to the argument of this essay. In verse 19, God reveals something new about his calling of Abraham. Abraham would become the father of many nations, but God wants him to train up his household “to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice.” This Abrahamic pedagogical role also has something to do with God fulfilling his promise. How was Abraham supposed to know how to carry that out Yahweh’s way? Well, that was the point of his 25-year long education. It was time to see what the student had learned. Besides, the matter also concerns Abraham personally because his nephew lived in the land.
Upon hearing about the divine intention of destroying Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham revealed what he has learned in the ensuing dialogue:
Genesis 18:23-25 ESV
[23] Then Abraham drew near and said, “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? [24] Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city. Will you then sweep away the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous who are in it? [25] Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?”
A few things are remarkable here. Quite noteworthy is that Abraham’s sense of justice does not match the ubiquitous ancient Near Eastern eye-for-eye dictum. Abraham seems to have grown past that. If that were the sort of Justice Abraham had in mind, the request would not have been to spare the whole city for a handful of righteous people. On the contrary, that sort of justice would have required destroying the entire city except the righteous few! So, what Abraham really pleads for is “mercy tempered with justice.” Furthermore, Abraham by now in his theology education is convinced that Yahweh was incapable of being unjust, treating the guilty and the righteous negatively alike. He had no problem with God treating the guilty and the righteous positively alike.
For whatever reason, Abraham began the negotiations with God from 50. Then he progressively reduced the requirement to 10, but not before he revealed more of his understanding of God’s character. Abraham began the negotiations with, “Let not the LORD be angry, and I will speak.” This is itself not an inappropriate stance to display before a deity, but there is nothing in this passage to suggest that Yahweh is impatient with Abraham. This is not a bargain. God patiently waited as Abraham increasingly lowered the bar for Sodom’s salvation from 50, 45, 40, 30, 20, and then to 10 righteous people. As Middleton puts it, “It is as if YHWH was looking for an excuse to save Sodom (and Lot)” (142). But Abraham had not known that attribute of this deity yet.
Why did Abraham stop at 10 righteous people? A common explanation among churchgoers is that Abraham probably reasoned that there would be at least 10 righteous people in Sodom: Lot, his wife, their two daughters, the fiances of the daughters, and the two sets of parents of the fiances. In the narrative world of Genesis, however, that explanation is unlikely. The central reason why God called Abraham in the first place was because the world had gotten so bad and needed a restart. So, it is not likely that anyone not acquainted with Yahweh would be righteous. Hence, Lot’s daughter’s fiances’ families are unlikely to be righteous people. A more likely explanation is that Abraham had not learned that this deity could be that merciful, and he perhaps was afraid to dare any further. By Jeremiah’s time, it was revealed that this deity would pardon a city for one righteous person (Jeremiah 5:1). In the end, Sodom was destroyed, but Abraham’s nephew’s family members who cooperated with the destroying angels were rescued.
The second event in the narrative before the birth of Issac is in Genesis 20, after God had rescued Lot and his family. Abraham once more changed his residence “toward the territory of the Negeb and lived between Kadesh and Shur; and he sojourned in Gerar” (Genesis 20:1). Surprisingly, Abraham yet lied about the status of Sarah and gave her up again for sexual exploitation to save his life. This is the wife through whom God’s promises to Abraham will manifest. In fact, it is very likely that she was pregnant at this point. So, we see that some old habits die hard. Abraham yet loved himself more than the bearer of the promise and the promised child.
The Birth and Aqedah of Isaac
In the fullness of time, Sarah gave birth to Isaac when Abraham was 100 years old. Understandably, Sarah was overjoyed:
Genesis 21:6-7 ESV
[6] And Sarah said, “God has made laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh over me.” [7] And she said, “Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.”
The child grew, and Abraham threw a party when he was weaned. At some point later, God tested Abraham and asked him to present Isaac as a burnt offering:
Genesis 22:1-2 ESV
[1] After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” [2] He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.”
Just as he did when God called him to leave his homeland and people, Abraham obeyed without question (Levenson, 138). However, he did not inform Sarah about the divine instruction to sacrifice their long-awaited son. Instead, he proceeded to carry out the command. The location for the burnt offering was three days’ journey away (Genesis 22:4) from Abraham’s home, providing him with enough time to reconsider his decision. He did not. On the third day, he finally spotted the location from a distance:
Genesis 22:5-6 ESV
[5] Then Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey; I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you.” [6] And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son. And he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So they went both of them together.
How should we understand verse 5? It may help if we start with how not to understand it. The statement cannot mean that Abraham knew that he and the boy would return – that’s assuming the end of the story from the beginning. A better explanation is that Abraham told “his young men” and Isaac enough information to prevent them from standing in the way of his obedience to God. He lied to them, if you wish. Furthermore, the fact that Isaac carried the wood for the burnt offering suggests that he was not a little boy. Indeed, various Jewish traditions claim he was 24 years old or 36 years old. Whatever the case, he was not a weaned little boy. Yet, his consent was not sought or considered in the process.
In the narrative, Isaac eventually asked his father, “Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” (Genesis 22:7). Abraham responded, “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son” (Genesis 22:8). However, if we interpret this as Abraham knowing that God would provide a lamb, we undermine the divine claim that this is a test. Even the New Testament commentary that we have does not claim that Abraham believed God would provide a ram; instead, it states that Abraham was convinced God could raise Isaac from the dead (Hebrews 11:19). Therefore, it is more plausible that Abraham was not being truthful with his son. Shortly after, Abraham bound Isaac and placed him on the wood, preparing to slaughter him with a knife. At that moment, a divine voice stopped him and provided an animal as a substitute for Isaac. For his role in all of this, the heavenly voice says:
Genesis 22:15-18 ESV
[15] And the angel of the LORD called to Abraham a second time from heaven [16] and said, “By myself I have sworn, declares the LORD, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, [17] I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, [18] and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.”
Problems with the Traditional Reading
Traditionally, the Aqedah is read as a story of extraordinary obedience to divine instruction. Jon Levenson writes that Abraham had to “suppress his paternal affections” and “placing obedience to God… above his affection for Isaac” (128). There’s no doubt that the story strongly shows Abraham’s obedience to the voice of God. But, as J. R. Middleton cautions, we may not conclude that the divine test was to see if Abraham would be obedient (138). If there was one attribute Abraham had from the beginning, it was unquestioning obedience. He asked no questions when God called him out of his parents’ house and country. So, it’s unlikely that obedience was the main goal of the test in the Aqedah. Besides, Middleton further argues that unquestioning obedience in this sort of setting is not what God desires but that God was testing Abraham “for his discernment of God’s character” and love for Isaac (138). Let us revisit one of the divine messages:
Genesis 22:2 ESV
[2] He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.”
God made this statement to Abraham, but two details are inaccurate therein. First, it is not true that Isaac was Abraham’s “only son.” Isaac may be Sarah’s only son, but he was not Abraham’s only son – surely an omniscient being knew that. Abraham had an older son Ishmael. Second, though the divine voice says Abraham loves Isaac, the evidence is relatively scarce in the narrative. The narrative provides evidence that Abraham loved Ishmael, perhaps partly because Ishmael was his firstborn child.
Recall that after Abraham (and Sarah) engineered the birth of Ishmael and God showed up in Genesis 17 to tell Abraham that the promised son is yet coming and that it will be through him that the covenant will go forward, Abraham petitioned for God to alter his plans and make Ishmael the bearer of the covenant (Genesis 17:18). Also after Sarah finally gave birth to Isaac, she demanded that Abraham send Hagar and Ishmael away. The narrator says, “And the thing was very displeasing to Abraham on account of his son.” Abraham was displeased that Ishmael would be put away but showed no emotions about Isaac being killed.
We do not only have positive evidence of Abraham’s love for Ishmael, but we also have evidence of an indirect negative disposition towards Isaac. Again, Recall that Abraham prioritized his well-being over Sarah’s once in Egypt. In Genesis 20, God reiterated to Abraham and Sarah that Isaac would be born within a year. Shortly afterward, in Gerar, at a time when Sarah might have been pregnant, Abraham again gave up Sarah for possible sexual exploitation to save himself.
So, given all of that, what might the all-knowing God have intended by the test in the Aqedah and his choice of words in Genesis 22:2? Middleton suggests that God may have wanted Abraham to demonstrate his love for his son Isaac by arguing against the burnt offering instruction, much like he did on behalf of Sodom (137). This is a very plausible, even probable, idea.
Scripture contains evidence of people passionately arguing with God whenever they thought God was unjust, and God welcomed them; he did not strike anyone dead for arguing with him. By the time of Moses in the wilderness, when the Israelites malfunctioned badly and worshipped the golden calf, God was prepared to destroy them all except a few. Moses boldly stepped up and appeased God. Also, the example of Job readily presents itself. When Job felt like Yahweh was unfair in his dealings, he argued with God passionately. Yes, Job would later learn that Yahweh had not wronged him in the ways he imagined, but he found that out only after arguing with God. We have several examples in the lament Psalms and the writings of the Prophets. Finally, let us consider the example of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. When Jesus prayed that the cup pass him by, if possible, he practically argued with God for an alternative path forward. He was not reprimanded for arguing. On the contrary, he was strengthened for the task. Recall that even Abraham argued with God to save his nephew in Sodom. However, as mentioned above, even this account shows that Abraham had not fully grasped the breadth of God’s mercy when he prematurely stopped the negotiations.
By not arguing with God over the Aqedah, Abraham reveals that he thinks Yahweh is like the gods of the nations who commanded and accepted human sacrifices. It is unlikely that the divine commendation to Abraham would have been any less had Abraham argued with God and demonstrated his love for Isaac.
Things Fall Apart
The consequences are easily predictable. First, it appears that Isaac was so traumatized that he never spoke with his father again. Whereas Abraham had told his servants in Genesis 22:5 to “Stay here with the donkey; I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you”, Isaac did not return with his father from the mountain where the burnt offering was offered. This is how the narrator wraps up that story, “So Abraham returned to his young men, and they arose and went together to Beersheba. And Abraham lived at Beersheba” (Genesis 22:19 ESV). Isaac did not even live afterwards in Beersheba but in the Negeb (Genesis 24:62). The next time Isaac and Abraham would be in the same vicinity was at Abraham’s funeral.
Second, the following story after the Aqedah was the death of Sarah, where we learned that she had been living in Hebron (Genesis 23:2) away from Abraham, who lived in Beersheba. While the text does not say, it is hard to imagine how a woman who had waited until she was ninety before she had a baby would want to remain with a man who took the son away for a sacrifice without the consent of either the son or the mother.
What Did Isaac Learn?
Genesis 18:19 ESV
[19] For I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice, so that the LORD may bring to Abraham what he has promised him.”
God says he chose Abraham so that he may command his children to keep the way of God. We may ask, what did Isaac learn from his father in all these things?
First, that his father does not love him enough. Abraham would give all his possessions to Isaac, but those things can hardly make up for his trauma. Second, Isaac learned that he could call on Yahweh to help with his wife’s barrenness (Genesis 25:21). Third, as Middleton points out (146), Isaac is a diminished story in Genesis. Whereas the world over, people know that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are the ancestors of ancient Israelites, Isaac is narrativally a diminished ancestor. He only has one chapter of his own in Genesis 26. Joseph has a more significant portion in Genesis.
Perhaps the most surprising lesson Isaac learned from Abraham and passed on to his children was that God was to be feared. When Jacob complained about his uncle’s business dishonesty in Genesis 31, he had this to say:
Genesis 31:42 ESV
If the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac, had not been on my side, surely now you would have sent me away empty-handed. God saw my affliction and the labor of my hands and rebuked you last night.”
Jacob introduces the deity of his ancestors as “the God of Abraham” but “the Fear of Isaac.” When it was time to cut a new business deal with his uncle, “Jacob swore by the Fear of his father Isaac” (Genesis 31:53). Middleton says it well: a “contextual reading of the Aqedah suggests that this use of the term ‘fear’ does not have a positive connotation” (147).
Works Cited
Levenson, Jon D. “Isaac Unbound.” The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son: The Transformation of Child Sacrifice in Judaism and Christianity, Yale University Press, 1993, pp. 125–42. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt32bjf9.17. Accessed 24 Nov. 2024.
Middleton, J. R. “Did Abraham Pass the Test? Unbinding the Aqedah from the Straitjacket of Tradition.” Global Perspectives on Bible and Violence, edited by Helen Paynter and Michael Spalione, Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2023, pp. 133 – 148.
