Abraham Tested
22: 1-19
Approximately 38 years had passed since ADONAI first made promises to Abraham when he was 75 years old. This chapter brings us to the mountaintop of Genesis. It, along with Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53, describe the significance of Calvary, or the Skull, maybe more clearly than any passage in the B’rit Chadashah: When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified Him there (Luke 23:33a). It is the only type in the TaNaKh that revealed the necessity for a human sacrifice to pay the price for sin. Because man had sinned, a man, not an animal, must be sacrificed, that divine justice would be satisfied. This could hardly be any man; God’s own Son was the only One.351 The names of God are important in this section. When the chapter starts out, it is Elohim, the God of righteousness, who speaks when He asks Avraham to take Isaac (Hebrew: Yitz’chak) and sacrifice him as a sin offering on Mount Moriah (22:2). However, when God provides a substitute for Isaac, it is ADONAI, the God of mercy and redemption who speaks.
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