Early Judaism- A Comprehensive Overview

the knife to kill his son. But an angel of the Lordcalled to him from

heaven, and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” He

said, “Do not harm the boy or do anything to him. For now I know that

you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from

me.” And Abraham looked up and saw a ram caught in a thicket by its

horns. Abraham went and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt of-

fering instead of his son. (Gen. 22:1-13)

Ancient interpreters were no doubt troubled by a number of elements in

this story. Did not the very fact of divine omniscience seem to make this

divine “test” of Abraham unnecessary? Surely God knew how it would

turn out before it took place — He knew, as the angel says at the end of the

story, that Abraham was one who “fears God.” So why put Abraham

through this awful test? Equally disturbing was Abraham’s apparent con-

duct vis-à-vis his son. He never tells Isaac what God has told him to do; in

fact, when Isaac asks his father the obvious question — “I see fire and the

wood for the sacrifice, but where is the sacrificial animal?” — Abraham

gives him an evasive answer: “God Himself will provide the lamb for the

burnt offering, my son.” This actually turns out to be true; God does pro-

vide a ram at the last minute — but Abraham had no way of knowing this

at the time. Along with this is Abraham’s problematic coldness. God orders

him to sacrifice his son, who, God reminds him, is “your son, your only

son Isaac, whom you love,” and Abraham does not utter a word of protest;

in fact, the text says explicitly that Abraham “got up early in the morning,”

as if eager to carry out the deed.

Such problems were clearly on the minds of ancient interpreters when

they commented on this story, and they did their best to find a solution to

them. It is important to stress that ancient interpreters generally were not

out to arrive at a modern-style critical or objective reading of Scripture’s

words. In keeping with Assumption 2, they began with the belief that

Scripture had some important lesson to teachthem,and in the case of this

story, it had to be a positive lesson about all concerned — not only Abra-

ham and Isaac, but about God as well. If that lesson was not immediately

apparent, then it had to be searched for through a careful weighing of ev-

ery word, since, in keeping with Assumption 1, the meaning of any biblical

text could be hidden: it might say A when it really meant B.

With regard to the first question mentioned above — why should God

need to test anyone if He is omniscient? — interpreters set their eye on an

apparently insignificant detail, the opening clause of the passage: “And it

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Early Jewish Biblical Interpretation

EERDMANS -- Early Judaism (Collins and Harlow) final text
Tuesday, October 09, 2012 12:04:00 PM