The Offering 1 - Genesis 22:1-2

22:1-2 - Now we get into the well-known account of Abraham being commanded to sacrifice Isaac, which is something that I’ve always struggled to understand. There are some interesting insights into this that helps clarify some of it, so we’ll see how it goes. Verse 1 says that God “did tempt Abraham,” but the IM notes that the word used to translate into “tempt” could also be translated to “tested” or “proved.” The temptation, or test, was the command to “take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.” There is a lot to unpack in this statement. Let’s start with the word “tempted” or “tested.” When this was written, the end result of Isaac being spared was already known, so it could be accurately referred to as a test, whereas when it was originally told to Abraham, he could only assume that the end result would be Isaac’s death. Secondly, human sacrifice was not what God accepted as the form of worship from his people. Even in D&C 132:36, the Lord says “Abraham was commanded to offer his son Isaac; nevertheless, it was written: Thou shalt not kill. Abraham, however, did not refuse, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.” I wonder if these examples are some of the reasons why people are so concerned with being deceived by thoughts they have and mistaking them for promptings from God. The IM points out the greatest issue Abraham probably had with God’s command to sacrifice his son was “the question of the integrity of God. Abraham himself had nearly lost his life on an idolatrous altar and had been saved by the direct intervention of the Lord.” I wonder if this previous miraculous deliverance on his behalf wasn’t a way for Abraham to reference later that God can provide. Honestly, I think the Egyptian priest being crushed to death by the idol he was sacrificing to at the moment he was about to sacrifice Abraham is more significant than “oh look, there’s a ram in those bushes over there.” Maybe that’s why Abraham was able to see the end game, even if subconsciously, because he’s seen it before. But I guess this raises the question, the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” wasn’t given until Moses, and surely during Abraham’s time he had seen death and violence, etc. Maybe the issue wasn’t so much going against the “Thou shalt not kill” commandment, but the association with human sacrifice and idolatry. The article on this chapter from gospeldoctrine.com says, “One of the great themes of non-biblical stories about Abraham is how ardently he fought against the principle of idolatry.” The author points to Abraham 1:5 to demonstrate the significance of idolatry in Abraham’s understanding of the gospel, which says, “My fathers, having turned from their righteousness, and form the holy commandments which the Lord their God had given unto them, unto the worshipping of the gods of the heathen utterly refused to hearken to my voice.” Even from a young age, Abraham understood the wickedness that was idol worship, and as he had personally experienced, the connection of idolatry and human sacrifice. The article speculates on what some of Abraham’s thoughts might have been, saying, “His God required animal sacrifice but never human sacrifice. That may have been one of the big distinctions in Abram’s young mind! He may have thought that idols might require human sacrifice but his God would never command a life to be taken in the form of a sacrificial offering. Only heathens would offer “up their children unto these dumb idols.’ Never before had men been commanded to sacrifice his own son. There was no historical precedent for what God was asking of Abraham, and God was asking for that which was most abhorrent to the prophet- to kill his own son like the pagan offerings to idol gods.” It might have been the association between idolatry and human sacrifice that most bothered Abraham, but then again, there was the fact that Isaac was the son that was supposed to be a great nation and carry the priesthood covenant forward to the world. How would God’s promises be fulfilled is Isaac dies before the opportunity to fulfill his destiny? There’s a lot of things going on here that would cause me to think long and hard about what God was asking before I would be able to do it. Lastly, there is the significance of mount Moriah, which I had no idea where exactly this was. It just so happens that this mount Moriah is referenced as being the site of significant events throughout scriptural history. The IM notes that “today Mount Moriah is a major hill of Jerusalem. The site known traditionally as the place where Abraham offered Isaac is not the site of the Dome of the Rock, a beautiful Moslem mosque.” The IM further notes that just a few hundred yards away from there is Golgotha, “not only did Abraham perform the similitude, but he performed it in the same area in which the Father would make the sacrifice of His Son.”