Genesis 22:2 - Exposition

And he said, Take now—"the נַא modifies the command, and seems to express that Elohim wished to receive the sacrifice as a free-will offering" (Lange)— thy son (not a lamb, but thy child), thine only son —not ἁγαπητὸν ( LXX .), but unigenitum (Vulgate), meaning the only son of Sarah, the only legitimate offspring he possessed, the only heir of the promise, the only child that remained to him after Ishmael's departure (cf. ὁ μονογενὴς , John 1:18 )— Isaac, whom thou lovest, —or, whom thou lovest, Isaac ; the order and accumulation of the terms being calculated to excite the parental affection of the patriarch to the highest pitch, and to render compliance with the Divine demand a trial of the utmost severity— and get thee —literally, go for thyself (cf. Genesis 12:1 ; Genesis 21:16 )— into the land of Moriah . Moriah—vision (Vulgate, Symmachus, Samaritan), worship (Onkelos, Jonathan), high ( LXX .), rebellious (Murphy); but rather a compound of יה and מֹרִי , meaning God is my instructor, alluding to the temple from which the law should afterwards proceed (Kalisch), or, better, of יה and ראה , and signifying "the shown of Jehovah," i.e. the revelation or manifestation of Jehovah (Hengstenberg, Kurtz, Keil, &c.;); or "the chosen, i.e. "pointed out of God," with reference to its selection as the site of the Divine sanctuary (Gesenius), or rather because there God provided and pointed out the sacrifice which he elected to accept (Lange). And offer him there for a burnt offering —not make a spiritual surrender of him in and through a burnt offering (Hengstenberg, Lange), but actually present him as a holocaust. That Abraham did not stagger on receiving this astounding injunction may be accounted for by remembering that the practice of offering human sacrifices prevailed among the early Chaldaeans and Canaanites, and that as yet no formal prohibition, like that of the Mosaic code, had been issued against them— upon one of the mountains —not Moreh in Sicbem (Tuch, Michaelis, Stanley, Grove, et alii ) , which was too distant, but Moriah at Jerusalem (Hengstenberg, Kurtz, Keil, Kalisch), where subsequently God appeared to David ( 2 Samuel 24:16 ), and the temple of Solomon was built ( 2 Chronicles 3:1 )— which I will tell thee of — i.e. point out (probably by secret inspiration) as thou proceedest.