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NASB | Genesis 22:2 He said, "Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you." |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Genesis 22:2 God said, "Take now your son, your only son [of promise], whom you love, Isaac, and go to the region of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you." |
Subject: Why did God tell Abraham to kill his son |
Bible Note: Hello bibleman12, You have been given several reasons. You just do not like them. Here are more. Barnes' Notes: "Abraham must have felt the outward inconsistency between the sacrifice of his son, and the promise that in him should his seed be called. But in the triumph of faith he accounted that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead. On no other principle can the prompt, mute, unquestioning obedience of Abraham be explained. Human sacrifice may have been not unknown; but this in no way met the special difficulty of the promise. The existence of such a custom might seem to have smoothed away the difficulty of a parent offering the sacrifice of a son. But the moral difficulty of human sacrifice is not so removed. The only solution of this, is what the ease itself actually presents; namely, the divine command. It is evident that the absolute Creator has by right entire control over his creatures. He is no doubt bound by his eternal rectitude to do no wrong to his moral creatures. But the creature in the present case has forfeited the life that was given, by sin. And, moreover, we cannot deny that the Almighty may, for a fit moral purpose, direct the sacrifice of a holy being, who should eventually receive a due recompense for such a degree of voluntary obedience. This takes away the moral difficulty, either as to God who commands, or Abraham who obeys. Without the divine command, it is needless to say that it was not lawful for Abraham to slay his son." Lawrence O. Richards, The Bible Readers Companion "God did not intend for Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. The command was a test: a test of how far Abraham would trust the Lord with his most precious possession." James Montgomery Boice, Genesis "How could this problem be resolved? There were only two ways. Abraham could have concluded that God was erratic, wavering from one plan to another because he did not know his own mind. This had not been Abraham’s experience of God. The long wait for the son had taught him better than that. Or Abraham could have concluded that, although he—being finite and sinful—was unable to see the resolution of the difficulty, God could nevertheless be trusted to have a resolution, which he himself would certainly disclose in due time. This was the harder of the two solutions to accept, but Abraham’s experience of God led in this direction. Abraham acted in a manner consistent with his knowledge of God. That is, he trusted him, concluding that whatever God’s purposes may or may not have been in this situation, God had at least shown that he could not be his enemy. God was his friend. When the command to sacrifice Isaac was first given, Abraham did not understand how, if the command were carried out, the promise could be fulfilled. But that was all right. Abraham left the difficulty with God, which is the essence of true faith. What is faith? Faith is believing God and acting upon it. This is what Abraham did. God had shown that he could be trusted, so Abraham believed God and acted, even though he could not understand the solution to the difficulty." Steve |