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Abraham Saw a Ram Caught by Its Horns
So He Called that place The LORD Will Provide
22: 11-14

Abraham saw a ram caught by its horns so he called the place the LORD will provide DIG: What was left for Abraham to prove after this? Why does God wait until the last minute to stop Avraham? For whose benefit was this test? How did Abraham believe that God would fulfill His covenant to have his offspring be as numerous as the stars in the heavens? What is significant about the name ADONAI Yir’eh?

REFLECT: Would you give God all that you had if He gave you nothing back but Himself? How has the ADONAI Yir’eh provided for you? Have you accepted Messiah as your Lord and Savior? What is holding you back? If saved, can you give your testimony in 3 to 5 minutes? How can you best share your faith?

For all practical purposes, Isaac had been dead to Avraham for three days. But the Angel of the LORD, Yeshua Messiah, called out to him from heaven saying: Abraham, Abraham! The doubling of a person’s name makes the call emphatic. He replied: Here I am (22:11). This is the last of seven times that Abraham receives direct revelation from God (12:1-7, 13:14-17, 15:1-21, 17:1-21, 18:1-33 and 22:1-2, and here). After this supreme sacrifice, there was nothing more that ADONAI could ask of him because he had passed the test with a perfect score!

God said: Do not lay a hand on your son. Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from Me your son, your only son (22:12). At its most basic level, this was a test of Abraham’s relationship with ADONAI. Every other sacrifice God had asked Abraham to make was balanced by a promise that, in a sense, made it worthwhile; there was something to lose, but more to gain. Here, however, there was nothing to gain. No promise balances the loss. In fact, it is not only his son that he is putting on the sacrificial altar; it appears to be the covenant and its promises as well. He was willing to give up all he stood to gain, all he loved, and all he hoped for, to have an ongoing relationship with the LORD.362

The rabbis teach that when Abraham put the knife to the throat of Isaac, his soul departed from his body. The tradition goes on to say that the ram was created on the eve of the Sabbath during the six days of creation, to become the sacrifice in place of Isaac. And then when Isaac heard the words of the Angel of the LORD saying, “Do not lay a hand on your son,” his soul returned to his body. So in rabbinic tradition, there is a concept of resurrection.

The sacrifice was already accomplished in Avraham’s heart, and he had fully satisfied the requirements of God.363 We can agree that ADONAI knew ahead of time what Abraham was going to do. But there is ample evidence throughout Scripture that Elohim wants us to act out our faith and worship Him regardless of the fact that He already knows our hearts. The LORD wants us to pray even though He knows what we are going to say, and may already have the answer in motion. He wants us to praise Him even though He knows how we feel. God asks us to express our faith and love. It pleases Him for us to display those things that He knows already exist in our hearts. We all know that as much as we love our parents, spouses, children and friends, it is important to tell them and carry our feelings over into actions. That is what Abraham did when he was willing to sacrifice his one and only son.364

Therefore, by faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had received the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even though God had said to him, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death on the third day (Hebrews 11:17-19).

Yitz’chak was brought back from the dead to be the head of a great nation and to bless all the nations of the earth. Messiah was raised from the dead and set on a throne in deep heaven, in charge of running the universe, everything from galaxies to governments; no name and no power is exempt from His rule, and not just for the time being, but forever. He is in charge of it all, and has the final word on everything. At the center of all this, Christ rules the church. The Church, you see, is not peripheral to the world; the world is peripheral to the Church. The Church is Messiah’s body, in which he speaks and acts, by which He fills everything with His presence (Ephesians 1:19-23 The Message).

Avraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. This was the divine substitution. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a sin offering instead of his son (22:13). The ram died in Isaac’s place. This is the second time an animal has been substituted in the Scriptures. In the Garden of Eden, the Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and Eve and clothed them (3:21); thus, teaching them that with the shedding of innocent blood they would be covered. Here, a ram was the substitute on Mount Moriah. And in the fullness of time, God the Father would give up His one and only Son for you! If you were the only person alive on the earth, Christ would have died as a substitute for you and your sins. The penalty has been paid.

So Abraham, knowing it was prophetic, called that place, ADONAI Yir’eh, or The LORD Will Provide (22:14a). Faith waits on the LORD to provide all our needs. This name owes something of its significance to the name of ADONAI itself, which reveals Him as the Giver of blessings, the Redeemer, and the God of mercy. Most of these compound names of God arise out of some historic incident, and portray ADONAI in some aspect of His character as meeting human need, and ADONAI Yir’eh is no exception.

Yir’ehis simply the Hebrew form of the verb to see. What connection can there be between the words see and provide? Each meaning seems so different. Most of the time Yir’eh is translated to see or to appear. Then why should it be translated provide here? First, provide is simply the verb and provision the noun of seeing beforehand. Thus to ADONAI, seeing something before hand is followed by provision, for He provides for our needs. So for Him, seeing a need and providing for it are one in the same. Secondly, another form of the word from which Yir’eh is derived is translated seer or prophet (1 Chron 9:22, 26:28; 2 Samuel 15:27; 2 Chron 16:7), and a prophet is one who foresees.365 Thus, it is quite proper to translate this name ADONAI Yir’eh, because The Lord saw the great need to redeem the sin of mankind, and provided a substitute in His Son.

This led to a proverbial saying, and is said to this day, “On the Mountain of ADONAI it will be provided” (22:14b). The Mountain of the LORD is Mount Moriah. It would become the Temple Mount, the place of substitution. There Jesus Christ was pierced for our transgressions, and He was crushed for our iniquities, and He suffered the punishment that we deserved, on the cross of Mount Calvary (Isaiah 53:5).

The Bible says that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures (First Corinthians 15:3b-4). If you believe that and have never asked Yeshua to be your Lord and Savior would you pray this simple prayer today: God, I admit that I have sinned. I believe Yeshua Messiah died for my sins, and I want to trust Him to save me right now. If you prayed that prayer in faith see my commentary on The Life of Christ Bw – What God Does for Us at the Moment of Faith.

If we were convinced that we heard from the LORD, would we give Him a chance if there were nothing in it for us? Would we give Him our lives, or the lives of our loved ones if He gave us nothing back but Himself? That is what Avraham did when he built an altar on Moriah and was willing to sacrifice his one and only son.366 He asks nothing less of us!

It is amazing how much faith we can have if we simply take into account what we know about our God! When we are faced with any test or challenge from the Lord, the best thing to do is to follow Abraham’s example and take an accounting of what we know about God. We will find that every challenge from the Lord is in exact proportion to the knowledge of God we possess. Both balance each other. Without knowledge, we would have little basis for trust. Without the exercise of that trust, we would not be able to function in life the way we were intended to. We would merely be theological dictionaries!