Génesis 22:2

2. He said Doubtless in some open and positive way . There is no evidence that this word came by a vision of the night . Least of all should we give countenance to the strange fancy that Abraham was imposed upon by Satan, and tempted, by observing human sacrifices among the heathen, to suppose that the sacrifice of Isaac would be acceptable to God.

If such were the fact, the sacred writer fell into a most unfortunate style of recording the truth.

Take now thy son This command is peculiarly touching. Hebrews, Take now thy son, thy only one, whom thou lovest, even Isaac. Various conjectures have been held as to Isaac’s age at this time. Josephus says twenty-five, and other numbers have been mentioned ranging from ten to thirty-seven. But all is conjecture. He was a young lad, but old and large enough to carry the wood for the burnt offering. Genesis 22:6.

Land of Moriah On the origin of this name, see on Genesis 22:14. The Samaritans read land of Moreh, and so identify this Moriah with the Moreh of Genesis 12:6, and Stanley and others argue that the place of Abraham’s sacrifice was on the summit of Mount Gerizim, which, after a journey of two days from Beer-sheba by way of the Philistine plain, can be seen “afar off.” Genesis 22:4. But the Jewish tradition identifies this Moriah with the mountain on which the Temple was afterwards builded, (2 Chronicles 3:1,) and there seems no sufficient reason to abandon this view. Thomson says, “It is almost absurd to maintain that Abraham could come on his loaded ass from Beer-sheba to Nablus in the time specified. On the third day he arrived early enough to leave the servants afar off, and walk with Isaac bearing the sacrificial wood to the mountain, which God had shown him; there build the altar, arrange the wood, bind his son, and stretch forth his hand to slay him; and there was time, too, to take and offer up the ram in Isaac’s place. That all this could have been done at Nablus on the third day of their journey is incredible. It has always appeared to me, since I first traveled over the country myself, that even Jerusalem was too far off from Beer-sheba for the tenor of the narrative, but Nablus is two days farther north.” Land and Book, vol. ii, p. 212.

Offer him there for a burnt offering There is no possibility of mistaking the plain import of these words. It is not, consecrate or dedicate him there in connexion with a burnt offering, but offer him there. Though God’s command seems to be contrary to all hope and promise and prophecy, Abraham obeys.

One of the mountains which I will tell Was there not a divine plan and purpose, in selecting the spot for this most wonderful event, to make it identical with the place where afterwards Jehovah would record his name, and set forth his son to be a propitiation for the sins of the whole world?