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Genesis 22:1-3
New Catholic Bible
Genesis 22:1-3
New Catholic Bible
Chapter 22
Sacrifice of the Son.[a] 1 Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham, Abraham!” He replied, “Here I am!”
2 God said, “Take your son, your only son, the one you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah[b] and offer him as a burnt offering on the mountain that I will show you.”
3 Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled a donkey, and took two servants and his son Isaac with him. He also took the wood for the burnt offering and set out toward the place about which God had spoken.
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- Genesis 22:1 This story is likewise from the Elohist tradition. After successes there is an unexpected new test. Trusting in God’s word, Abraham has left everything, reached the land promised to his descendants, and waited patiently for the birth of a son. His sole treasure to this point has been his faith; it is only because of this that God has blessed him. Now he receives the order to sacrifice his very faith and hope, but he does not allow these to waver. The inexplicable thing is not that God should ask him to sacrifice a son, even though this is a harsh blow to his fatherly heart; for the religious outlook of that country allowed this deplorable form of worship (Jdg 11:30-39; 2 Ki 3:27; 16:3; 21:6). The apparent absurdity is that he must sacrifice the very thing for which he heretofore lived, the son for whose sake God had asked him to sacrifice every other good.
God himself has supplied the victim for the sacrifice. The ram given to Abraham was only a temporary victim. Another Father really sacrificed his own Son for the sake of humankind (Rom 8:32), perhaps on the very same mountain (2 Chr 3:1); then he won him back in the resurrection. It is only in virtue of this divine sacrifice, rather than of the faith of Abraham, that the Lord can give the Patriarch his great promises.
The conclusion of the incident prepares the way for a firm condemnation of the Canaanite practice of sacrificing children (see Deut 12:29-31; 18:10-12; Jer 7:31-33; 19:1-13). Above all, however, it exemplifies the result of every true sacrifice: God restores to his faithful, as the fruit of their faith, the freely given gift that they had surrendered in order to show that the Lord came first for them. - Genesis 22:2 Moriah is also the mountain on which the Temple of Jerusalem will be built (2 Chr 3:1).
