Abraham’s Faith Tested
Jehovah Tested Abraham
Jehovah came to Abraham just as He usually did. It wasn’t a personal visit like Genesis 18. It wasn’t a dream, as He came to Abimelech (Gen. 21).
This sounded like it was how Jehovah usually came to Abraham. It was a voice in his spirit.
Abraham was not told that this was a test. He had no clue what was happening. Most of all, Abraham didn’t know why it was happening.
Get one thing straight. Jehovah tested Abraham. He did not tempt him to sin.
Jehovah does test us to get us to prove our faith (Jas. 1: 13). God was not looking for the evil in Abraham — unless it is to eliminate it from his life. He was looking for the good.
Do we understand the purpose here? Jehovah knew Abraham had faith. He was trying to figure out how strong that faith was. We have to judge ourselves by God’s standards.
When Jehovah said, “Hey, Abraham!”, I bet Abraham was excited to talk to his Friend again.
“… ‘Here I am’” (Gen. 22: 1 NLT) implies both obedience on Abraham’s part and provision on Jehovah’s part. Abraham knew He could depend on Jehovah to carry him through whatever of which He was asking him.
Abraham’s response showed that he was ready to obey Jehovah in whatever was asked of him.
Your Only Son
The testing Jehovah gives us usually uses that which we love most and highly value.
Abraham was to take his beloved son Isaac, the covenant child, and sacrifice him on an altar to worship Sovereign God.
Talk about having the rug pulled out from under his feet. Abraham would not have seen this one coming.
Abraham would have never thought Jehovah would ask him to sacrifice his son. The whole covenant was contingent on Isaac’s birth and having kids of his own.
Abraham would have been shocked down to the bottom of his sandals.
What Abraham was told was that he was to not only kill Isaac but also burn him on an altar. It wasn’t a stick and done. It was a slay, dismember, and burn process.
This command seems so out of character for Jehovah to ask that. Because child sacrifice was common in many countries at the time – even Abraham’s – He has several times specifically stated that children were not to be sacrificed (Lev. 18: 21).
What happened to “thou shalt not kill” period?
Could a father legally do this? Well, back in Abraham’s day, yes. The father had complete rule over his son.
So, let’s go back to the Hebrew. “… offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains …’” (Gen. 22: 2 OJB). Not sacrifice. Offer.
But if we look at how to perform a burnt offering, we see the sacrifice is killed first (Lev. 2: 4-5). Before it was offered to God, the sacrifice was killed.
Can we start a sacrifice and pull out before the smoke starts? Is it really a sacrifice then? Is it even an offering? No.
Jehovah can require one time that which He has forbidden another. Otherwise, how can He test us?
What better way of showing us what He doesn’t want by asking for it and stopping it?
Abraham didn’t ask Jehovah to repeat the command or clarify it. He didn’t even demand evidence that it was coming from Him. He didn’t rail about not being left with a way to shimmy out of it.
Abraham straight up obeyed.
Jehovah told Abraham to take his son — the one he loved — and sacrifice him. Now, last chapter we were told that Abraham was told by Him to send Ishmael away. Even though Jehovah had made it clear that he wasn’t the covenant son, Abraham might have kept in the back of his mind that Ishmael was a spare in care something happened to Isaac.
Why would God ask Abraham to sacrifice the son that he waited for so long? Just because of that?
Think about it. Abraham didn’t have a bunch of sons. He had two.
I don’t think Jehovah was saying Abraham loved Isaac more than Him. If Jehovah was doing this as punishment for the sin of putting something before Him (Ex. 20: 3), it wouldn’t be a testing. If Abraham had put Isaac before Jehovah, I would think that would have created a much bigger response than testing. God may even could have gone through with the sacrifice.
Yes, it is sometimes easy to put something before Jehovah. We can’t put things – even family – above Sovereign God.
Do we put more faith in the blessing than the God Who gave us the blessing? In other words, would Abram make Isaac his idol?
But we have to understand Jehovah can ask of us anything He wants. It is not our place to question. It is our place to obey.
Why would Jehovah make Abraham go through all of this? He was giving a representation of Him and Yeshua.
The First Step of Obedience
Once again, God sent Abraham off without giving him a specific destination. All Jehovah had given Abraham was the area but not the specific mountain. That didn’t slow Abraham down.
Even though Jehovah asked what at first hearing Abraham would have recoiled from, he immediately made plans to fulfill the request. Abraham left early the next morning. He left at the first possible time.
We aren’t told what he told Sarah — if anything. I don’t see him going to her and saying, “God told me to go make a sacrifice — and that sacrifice is Isaac. See you when I get back.”
Abraham obviously didn’t tell Isaac.
Whatever Abraham was feeling, he started the next morning. This is the best indication of his faith.
We’ve talked about Abraham being disinterested before when he and Lot separated. Disinterestedness means a willingness to give up something for a greater good.
This is the type of faith and obedience Abraham showed. He was willing to give up his beloved son’s life for whatever greater good Jehovah was working.
It was smart to take wood with him because wood could be scarce around there.
I’m sure it wasn’t like throwing a couple of clothes in the suitcase and going. But still with each step he took, Abraham’s mind was probably racing, and his heart was trying to sink.
With all that, it doesn’t sound like Abraham let Isaac see his despair. He let him see his unwavering faith in a Sovereign God. He knew Jehovah would make clear to him exactly what He wanted him to do – without breaking the covenant they had together.
Not once in the journey did he turn around or even get lost on purpose. Think about the self-control that took.
Journey to the Mountain
On the Third Day
Abraham and Isaac made it to where they could see the mountain in the distance.
We have to clear up something. The New Living Translation says, “On the third day of their journey …” (Gen. 22: 4 NLT). If we go back to the Hebrew, it says, “Then on Yom HaShlishi …” (Gen. 22: 7 OJB).
Yom HaShlishi does mean the third day. But it means the third day of the week — our Tuesday – not the number of days in the journey.
Only Shabbat is the only day of the week given a name. Sunday is the first day, Monday is the second day, and Tuesday is the third day.
In other words, we don’t know how long the journey took.
All we know is that Abraham took the journey to worship Jehovah (Gen. 22: 5).
Stay Here with the Donkey
Abraham asked his servants to stay back, partially because he didn’t want them to try and stop him. He probably didn’t want any of the three to know yet who the sacrifice was going to be.
But I can also see this as being a very private act of worship for Jehovah’s glory. It was between Abraham and his God.
I think another reason is that Abraham wanted that time alone with Isaac.
In the Hebrew, Isaac is called “… the young man …” (Gen. 22: 5 OJB). He could have been anywhere from 15 up to 30 years old. A teenager isn’t necessarily a young man but a youth. To me that is more a young adult. Fifteen seems too young to me and thirty too old to me.
Abraham was convinced that it would turn out okay (Gen. 22: 4-5).
Heading toward the Altar
Abraham and Isaac carried what they needed to make the sacrifice. Isaac carried the wood, and Abraham carried the fire and knife. But that made something very obvious to Isaac.
Where was the animal to be sacrificed?
Did Abraham not answer Isaac’s question fully because he didn’t want to scare the boy? Or was he wanting to help grow Isaac’s faith? Probably a bit of both.
Because of Abraham’s strong faith, he knew that God would provide a sacrifice, or His promise would be null and void.
What has always amazed me is how calm on the outside Abraham was. His thoughts had to be racing because Satan had to be working on him.
Remember, this was “Some time later …” (Gen. 22: 1 NLT) after Abraham had sent Ishmael away. Talk about insult to injury.
Not one time did Abraham so much as even murmur against Jehovah. He always said, “Sir, yes Sir.”
Abraham’s obedience — and his faith — never wavered because of grace.
Built an Altar
The first thing that Abraham did when they arrived at the place for the sacrifice was to build an altar. Building altars was Abraham’s way to worship God.
It wasn’t something novel for God to ask Abraham to make a sacrifice. In fact, he had sacrificed enough that Isaac knew something was missing.
It was a novel experience that God asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, the son for whom he had waited so long.
Picked Up the Knife
Obedience isn’t complete without an inward transformation.
I bet there were tears running down his face as he bound Isaac. He had to be feeling a variety of thoughts.
The faith shown was that Abraham believed — even if he had to go through with the sacrifice — Jehovah was Sovereign God above all. The covenant promise would be kept in some way.
Abraham didn’t have to understand how that would play out. He just had to believe it would.
But Abraham also had to be willing to go the entire way if it didn’t play out the way he thought it should.
If we worship Jehovah with an expectation of some blessing, it really isn’t the kind of worship He requires.
If we worship because of receiving something in return, that isn’t true worship. We must worship Jehovah because He is Sovereign God.
Some of us are probably asking why Jehovah had to let it go this far. That is easy.
It didn’t mean anything until Abraham showed Jehovah that he would go all the way. Saying he would and not meaning anything proved nothing. It was just a lie.
Abraham had to pick up the knife. He more than likely had to lift it over his head.
Performance equals action. But not just any action — it has to be what Jehovah requires and performed through faith.
Kill His Son for a Sacrifice
The purpose of the burnt offering was not to wipe clean the person’s sin but is a gift of ransom to alter Jehovah’s attuned toward that person.
We don’t know what Abraham’s understanding of the coming Messiah was. This is a perfect example of what was coming.
When Jehovah gave the Levitical Sacrificial System to Moses, he would have understood the concepts behind it better because of this sacrifice. We better understand the concept of Yeshua being the sacrifice because of the substitution of the ram for Isaac.
A Wife for Isaac
The Charge
We aren’t told how old Abraham was, but he was between 137 and 140. Yes, that would make Abraham old. However, he lived another 35 years after that.
God had blessed Abraham in everything. That was because he had believed and been obedient. He had become a righteous man (Gen. 15: 6).
Now it was time for Abraham to take action for the next phase of the covenant.
One Day
Abraham sent his trusted servant to find a wife for Isaac.
Was Abraham taking things into his own hands again in trying to find Isaac a wife? I don’t think so. Jehovah doesn’t want us to just sit around waiting for Him to take care of us.
We just have to make sure we are listening to Jehovah’s voice. That is what Abraham – and Isaac – were doing: trusting in God.
So, if Isaac was pushing 40, why was Abraham the one arranging his marriage? Well, that was the custom in Abraham’s society.
Abraham and Isaac both knew that it would be Jehovah providing the wife. They had seen Him follow through on His promises before. Both men also knew that they must follow Sovereign God in all things – especially those covenant related.
His Oldest Servant
Abraham asked his trusted servant to accomplish the mission. Here, we aren’t given the name of the servant.
But we are given enough to give his name a good guess. It was “… his eved zekan of his bais, hamoshel …” (Gen. 24: 2 OJB). Eved was the term for slave, and zekan meant beard, which represented maturity.
Let’s see who that would be. “… the Ben Meshek of my Bais [son of possession, steward of my house] is this Eliezer of Dameshek (Damascus)?” (Gen. 15: 2 OJB).
The servant entrusted with the mission is probably Eliezer, the one who would have inherited if Abraham didn’t have an heir. He would have been Abraham’s oldest servant.
Ooo, baby. That took gumption for Abraham to ask Eliezer to find a wife for Isaac when he had already lost the wealth that would have come to him when Isaac was born!
Eliezer, though, had long proven his trustworthiness. He wouldn’t be in the position he was if he hadn’t. He certainly wouldn’t have been given this important mission.
Take an Oath
Abraham and Eliezer both knew the importance of a continuation of the covenant and showed their support by making an oath.
Abraham asked Eliezer to swear an oath, which was allowed in Judaism. Now, the way he swore sounds kind of yuck to us, but it is logical when we put it in Jewish culture.
Both men would have been circumcised on the same day (Gen. 17: 23). We know Eliezer was already in Abraham’s household (Gen. 15: 2).
Eliezer putting a hand under Abraham’s thigh would have been putting it close to the circumcised part. It is like our putting our hand over our heart to show our sincerity of our promise.
Abraham was asking Eliezer to perform a mission to keep his end of the covenant – have descendants.
Maybe that was Abraham’s way of saying, “You have been a faithful servant lo these many years, and you would have been a worthy heir. But God had different plans. We both want to be obedient to God.”
Think about this. Abraham was giving Eliezer permission to choose Isaac’s bride.
True, it probably was because he was sending him on a long journey that he didn’t feel he could make himself. Otherwise, I think he would have gone himself.
But Abraham also didn’t know how long this journey would take or if it would be successful. He was giving Eliezer this mission until it had a successful ending – even if Abraham was no longer alive.
So, Abraham sent his most trust servant – with very specific instructions.
You Will not Allow My Son to Marry a Canaanite Woman
The choice of Isaac’s wife was important for covenant purposes.
Abraham knew God didn’t want Isaac to take a wife from the local women. There was a couple of considerations for this.
Abraham knew of their idol worship. Their lifestyle was full of sin and depravity.
There was no way that Abraham wanted a woman of Canaanite religions raising the covenant sons.
Does that make a contradiction to what we saw in Genesis 23? I think not.
Remember, we have to be in the world but not of the world. In means it is okay to buy a field for burial, but not of, which means compromising with their belief system and taking their daughters in marriage. Compromise has to happen a lot in a marriage.
If Jehovah wants the eventual overthrow of idolatry, He would not allow it in His covenant line. Plus, He would not dilute the purity in that way.
Another consideration was that Abraham had been promised the land of Canaan for his descendants. He knew Jehovah was not going to have him make alliances with the current occupants to get it.
What that meant was the land would be taken from the current inhabitants. Abraham just didn’t know when or how. But he probably knew that they would have a hard-fought battle at the least or the Canaanites destroyed at the worst.
But what would it have done to Isaac’s marriage – and his safety – when ownership was switched if he had married a Canaanite woman? That wouldn’t have been a happy household.
Go Instead to My Homeland, to My Relatives
So, Abraham sent Eliezer back to his family.
We know Terah, Abraham and Nahor were living in Ur. We know they worshiped false gods (Josh. 24: 2-3).
Genesis 11: 31 says only part of the family came with Terah. Even though they are not listed, many believe that Nahor and Milcah should have been included in the list.
Maybe. Maybe not.
I can see Moses not including them in the list as — at that point — they weren’t main players in the story. Moses only put what was absolutely necessary.
But a lot of things in God’s Word have to be taken literally. Maybe Nahor came later.
It would be logical to believe that, if Nahor and Milcah didn’t go in 1890, they came sometime before Terah’s death in 1885. Nahor, as some believe he was the oldest son, would have become the patriarch upon his death.
When Abraham received an update from Milcah in Genesis 22: 20-26, Moses did not include where they were living. So, either Abraham already knew where that was, or it wasn’t an item Moses included.
Whatever, Abraham knew where to send Eliezer then. More importantly, he knew that they believed in Jehovah as Sovereign God.
Marrying within the clan was acceptable in those day, even encouraged. It provided economic stability.
Family is an ongoing theme within God’s Word.
What If?
Eliezer wanted to know what would happen if his mission failed and Abraham wasn’t around to give instructions.
In Eliezer’s mind, even being family didn’t necessarily guarantee the success of the mission. He wanted to make sure he knew what to do if it was a failure.
Oaths were taken very seriously in Abraham’s culture as they were binding and sacred. It showed the importance of the integrity to fulfill one’s promise.
Eliezer didn’t want to make a promise that he couldn’t keep.
Therefore, it was a big deal to be released from the oath. In effect, it was saying Eliezer had faithfully tried to comply with the oath and was innocent of not breaking the oath.
Abraham was thinking of the covenant when he answered Eliezer. Don’t take Isaac back on any condition.
No, it wasn’t that Abraham doubted that God wouldn’t hold up his end of the bargain. It is just that – other than Sarah’s burial place – we aren’t told he had acquired any more land. He would have felt his status in the region as tenuous at best.
The Distribution of Abraham’s Estate
Everything He Owned to Isaac
As (considered) firstborn, Isaac was entitled to a double portion of Abraham’s wealth.
Rather than meaning position in the lineup of sons, firstborn signified special status, preeminence, leadership, and inheritance. (Notice worldly inheritance is last on the list.)
That is because the designation firstborn meant that son was being set apart. In general terms, being designated firstborn had to do with birthright and inheritance.
The birthright meant who was going to take over authority and leadership of the clan. Because of this distinction, he got a double portion of the inheritance. He was given the worldly status associated with his position.
But we cannot overlook the fact that the firstborn was consecrated to Jehovah (Ex. 13: 2). Yeah, it does say birth order there. “… whatsoever openeth the rechem (womb) …” (Ex. 13: 2 OJB). But we know Jehovah didn’t always – in fact, usually so far – call the first son to be born.
Let’s think this through. We know Ishmael was 13 years older than Isaac. All of Keturah’s children were probably older than Isaac.
We have to keep in mind that Abraham was not just giving Isaac all of his worldly possessions here. He was giving him all the blessings of the covenant.
Gave Gifts to the Sons of his Concubines
Abraham presented gifts to each and sent them away from Isaac. This was a common practice in Abraham’s time. It was totally up to the father whether sons from concubines got anything at all.
Why did the sons from concubines not get a portion of the inheritance and be sent away? This was so they could not contest the inheritance, eliminating family conflicts. We mentioned how Abraham didn’t like conflicts.
This practice preserved the estate for the heir. In this case, it was preserving the covenant promises.
But giving them a gift instead of a portion could have escalated any hostilities instead of eliminating them. The gifts could have been anywhere from stingy to substantial.
Whatever the case, Isaac was made a very wealthy man.
We get that Abraham sent his other sons off to secure the Promised Land for Isaac. But why east?
Abraham wanted to establish a distance among the siblings. He may have thought about Jehovah’s promise to bless all nations through him, so he was dispersing them to do just that. This also allowed them to grow independently and develop their own identities.
We also know there was probably spiritual reason. Abraham may have been sending them east to the Land of Nod (Gen. 4: 16).
The Land of Nod was where the Land of Eden was not. Nod is a Hebrew word. It means wanderer, exile, or fugitive.
We said back in Genesis 4 with Cain’s exile that his journey would bring him first into what we know today as Arab nations. Those nations were being established here.
To read devotions in the Creating Everything theme, click the button below.
Devotions in the Abraham the Patriarch series