Soren Kierkegaard

and made himself into a nursing mother who, precisel ybecause she cares
for her child, blackens her breast andwithdraws her love.
In thesecondversion, the tempo of the situation is sharpl yreduced, and
everything takes place in a sort of slow motion. Abraham performs his ac-
tions with mechanical resignation. He binds Isaac, draws the knife, but then
sees the ram, which he sacrifices in Isaac’s stead: “From that da yforth,
Abraham was old. He could not forget that God had required this of him.
Isaac continued to grow and prosper, but Abraham’s eye was darkened and
he saw jo yno more.”
In thethirdversion, the field of vision is filled with an Abraham who
rides alone out to Mount Moriah, more and more disturbed and amazed at
the fact that he had once been “willing to sacrifice to God the best he
possessed.” When he reaches the foot of the mountain he prostrates himself
on the ground and asks God to forgive him, Abraham, for having forgotten
his dut yto his son, “for what sin could be more terrible?”
In thefourthand final version, the focus shifts decisivel yfrom Abraham
to Isaac. The old man and the bo yhave reached the mountain, and the
situation is almost idyllic: “Abraham made everything ready for the sacrifice,
calml yand gentl y, but as he turned aside and drew the knife, Isaac saw that
Abraham’s left hand was clenched in despair and that a shudder went
through his body.—But Abraham drew the knife.
“Then the yreturned home again, and Sarah hurried out to meet them,
but Isaac had lost the faith. Not a word is mentioned about this in the world.
Isaac never told anyone what he had seen, and Abraham never suspected
that anyone had seen it.”
Whereas in the first version Abraham pretends to be cruel so that Isaac
could seek refuge with his heavenl yfather, in the fourth version he reveals
himself inadvertently. Isaac sees what he was never to have seen: Abraham’s
left hand is clenched in despair and a shudder goes through his body. Even
though Isaac’s gaze onl ycatches sight of a hurried grimace, it obtains fateful
intelligence about Abraham’s weakness and doubt. Under the reader’s gaze,
fear and trembling, the two words in the book’s title, are simultaneously
sent off in different directions but are soon reunited, enriching each other:
Tremblingis not just another word forfear; trembling is a physical action
or an external manifestation through which fear, an inner, psychological
phenomenon, becomes outwardl yvisible. There is ver ylittle phonetic or
phenomenological distance from “trembling” [Danish: Bæven] to the
“shudder” [Danish:Skjælven] that goes through Abraham’s bod yright be-
fore the terrified Isaac’s eyes. Trembling is the very act of the emotion
becoming visible, it is inwardness giving itself away, and when Isaac loses
the faith it is because in Abraham’s trembling he is suddenl yable tosuspect