And Abraham stretched out his hand, and took the knife to slaughter his son.
The command had been given three days earlier, and every step since had been a step toward this one. What the raised knife proves is that Abraham held nothing back at any stage.
Verses 9 and 10 show how complete Abraham's obedience was. Nothing was missing right up to the point where the death stroke would have fallen. At the last possible moment the Angel of the Lord stepped in. God had tested his obedience to the full, and it stood the test. He had not withheld his only son.
Setting out is one thing. Getting to the place God named, and going through with it there, is another.
Abraham did not only set out to offer his son; he kept going, and reached the place God had appointed... This was real work, "a work of faith and labor of love," in the highest sense. It was no empty show — no drawing near with the lips while the heart was far away... It is easy to make a display of devotion when nothing is being asked of you.
The verse reports the act in calm words. One writer stops to weigh what that moment cost the father.
His grief must have been great. Greater still were the energy and purpose of his faith, as he took hold of his beloved son, bound him, and laid him on that altar. Think what agony filled the moment when he took the knife in his trembling hand to kill his son. As far as nature could see, he was about to put out the light of his eyes and the hope of the promise.
Isaac was the son through whom the promised descendants were to come. Abraham could still reach for the knife, because his trust did not rest on Isaac staying alive.
He showed that he could trust God for countless descendants not only while Isaac stood in front of him in health and strength, but just as fully if Isaac lay a smoking sacrifice on the altar. This was a high order of confidence in God... He counted that God was able. He never counted that Isaac was able. Isaac, without God, was nothing; God, without Isaac, was everything... Abraham could do this because his eye rested on the God of resurrection. He counted that God was able to raise him up even from the dead.
The New Testament says Abraham "offered up Isaac" — though Isaac never died. One writer traces this to the tenses of the Greek text, which distinguish a settled act from an act still in progress.
English cannot easily bring out the perfect tense used the first time of the offering. But its force is clear: it points to the settled, fixed result of that act. Morally it was done, and the effect remains. The second use of the word is in the imperfect tense, and that guards against any misuse of the first. It says that Abraham was actually in the act of offering his only son when Jehovah's angel stopped him, as Genesis tells us. The spiritual test was complete, though the act was not completed.
Abraham is not the only one to watch on this mountain. The son on the altar draws the same attention.
It is hard to say which holds our solemn gaze more: the noble, self-controlled action of Abraham, or the lamb-like submission of Isaac. It may be said that Isaac did not know at first that the sacrifice was to be himself. But even when he did know — lying on the wood of the altar, with the knife in his father's outstretched hand to kill him — we do not find that he resisted in the least.
The voice from heaven stopped the knife. Commentators point to a later hill where no voice came, and no animal was found in the bushes.
We know how, at that dreadful moment, God appeared and stopped that obedient hand. We know too how God crowned the father's faith, and Isaac was untied and left alive. So the One who did not spare His own Son told Abraham to spare his. No ram was found in the thicket in place of the blessed Lord. No Barabbas could take the place of the true Son of the Father.
- Not withheld. Abraham's obedience ran to the last possible moment. Only the stroke was missing. He had not withheld his only son.
- Not talk. Faith that only sets out proves nothing. Abraham reached the place God named and did the real work there.
- Not Isaac. He counted that God was able to raise the dead, never that Isaac was able. God without Isaac was everything.
- Not resisted. The son on the wood did not struggle. Father and son were both willing on that mountain.
- Not spared. God stopped this hand and this knife. Later He did not spare His own Son, and no ram in a thicket took His place.
And the Angel of Jehovah called to him from the heavens, and said, Abraham, Abraham! And he said, Here am I.
Abraham has the knife raised over his bound son when a voice breaks in from the sky. Three things decide the verse: who speaks, why now, and why He calls the name twice.
The verse names the speaker: the angel of the LORD. Who is this?
We have a higher thought in "the Angel of the Lord," spoken of often (Gen. 16:7-13; Gen. 22:11, 15; Ex. 3:2; Ex. 23:20; Judges 2:1, and others). In many cases He seems to be the Lord Himself appearing in this form; at other times He is the Lord's representative.
The call does not come when Abraham sets out, or builds the altar, or binds Isaac. It comes with the knife already in motion.
Verses 9 and 10 relate how full the measure of Abraham's obedience was. Nothing was lacking up to the point where the death stroke would have taken place. At the last possible moment the Angel of the Lord intervened. His obedience had been tested to the full and had stood the test. He had not withheld his only son.
Up to that moment God gave no sign that a substitute was coming. Yet the silence was not absence.
All was made ready for the sacrifice, but as yet there was no sign that God would step in and provide a substitute. The lamb Abraham had spoken of to Isaac — where was it? Isaac was now bound on the altar. The father raised his hand and was about to kill his son, when the angel of the Lord called to him out of heaven. Someone unseen had watched everything Abraham was doing. That same One could read his heart and knew all that he was suffering in his soul. … Now the trial was over, and the angel of the Lord, Jehovah Himself, stepped in.
God does not shout a command; He says a man's name, doubled. Others in Scripture gave the same short reply when God called them like this.
God's greatness and majesty produced a striking response when He spoke in grace to saints of old. When He called, "Abraham, Abraham," at once the answer came, "Here I am." When He said, "Jacob, Jacob," the reply came at once, "Here I am." He spoke to Moses, "Moses, Moses!" and Moses answered at once, "Here I am." … Later the same One speaks in the same way, but now He has come down in lowly grace: "Martha, Martha!" and "Simon, Simon!" Once again, after His ascension, "Saul, Saul!"
God stopped one father's hand. He did not stop His own.
God did not allow him to strike the blow. He had gone to the very furthest limit; he had come up to the line beyond which God could not let him go. The Blessed One spared the father's heart the pang which He did not spare His own heart, even that of smiting His Son. He, blessed be His name, went beyond the furthest limit, for "he did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all."
Why could Abraham go this far? He was counting on something beyond death.
To man death is the end of hope. To God it is only the occasion to use the power of resurrection. Abraham trusted without a waver, certain of God's power on Isaac's behalf. … Faith then could go no further. Abraham counted on God completely to make good in resurrection the seed given up to die at His word — and with that seed, the promises. What fresh gain for Abraham! And what gain for all who do His will, give up what is dearest to them, and receive it all back better than ever in resurrection!
Abraham passed the test. Did that give him a claim on God?
He had done what was right in surrendering Isaac, for God had commanded him to do it. Could he then claim anything from God because of this display of obedience? Clearly not. He had only done what it was his duty to do when God commanded it. … We can claim no merit on the ground of obedience to God. Yet how often a thought lurks in a corner of the heart, even when it is never said out loud: the thought of pressing a claim on God to be rewarded for the obedience we have given Him. If God rewards obedience He is free to do so, though we could never demand it.
- Tested fully — Abraham held nothing back. He went to the very line beyond which God would not let him go.
- Stopped in time — The voice came at the last possible moment, from One who had watched every step unseen.
- Named twice — God interrupts not with a command but with a name, and the ready heart answers, "Here I am."
- Not spared — God held Abraham's hand back. He did not hold back His own Son.
- Received back — Death ends man's hope. For God it is the moment for resurrection power. What we give up at His word comes back better.
And he said, Stretch not out thy hand against the lad, neither do anything to him; for now I know that thou fearest God, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only [son], from me.
Abraham has bound his son on the altar and raised the knife. Then a voice from heaven stops him, and God explains what the test has proved.
God says He now knows something, yet nothing about Abraham was hidden from Him before:
Abraham's devotedness was fully proved, and fully accepted. Notice, it is "now I know." It had never been proved before. It was there, no doubt, and if it was there, God knew it. But the valuable point here is this: God bases His knowledge of it on the plain evidence given at the altar on Mount Moriah. Faith is always proved by action, and the fear of God by the fruits that flow from it. "Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar?" (James 2:21). Who could think of calling his faith in question? Take away faith, and Abraham appears on Moriah as a murderer and a madman. Take faith into account, and he appears as a devoted worshipper — a God-fearing, justified man.
The fear of God moved Abraham to act, while the fear of man would have stopped him:
Then the angel of the Lord intervenes. Abraham's hand was held back from plunging the knife into his son. Abraham's faith has answered the test. God says, "Now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me." Acting in the fear of God, he overcame the fear of man by doing what man would have utterly condemned.
God's words go past the deed to the person:
What was it that so raised the value of Abraham's surrender to God? The patriarch gave up his only-begotten son (Heb. 11:17). Isaac was the son before they went up Mount Moriah together, and before he was laid on the altar. In the eyes of Jehovah, the moral value of Abraham's act of faith was measured by the one he gave at His bidding. It was not Ishmael, but his son, his "only son," Isaac, whom he loved. In Isaac all Jehovah's promises to him were centred.
The interruption comes after everything, not before:
Verses 9 and 10 tell how complete Abraham's obedience was. Nothing was lacking up to the point where the death stroke would have fallen. At the last possible moment the Angel of the Lord stepped in. His obedience had been tested to the full and had stood the test. He had not withheld his only son.
The angel of the Lord speaks, yet He calls the son withheld "from Me":
So you see the angel of the Lord here is the same as God Himself. God sometimes veils Himself under the title of angel; so the angel of the Lord is often Jehovah Himself.
God asked Abraham to trust Him past the point where a man can see any way forward:
Nowhere in the Old Testament do we find such complete trust in God. Here the father was willing to sacrifice his only son. All God's promises and his own hopes were bound up in that son. To man, death is the end of hope; to God it is only the occasion to exercise the power of resurrection... The proof was complete. Faith could go no farther. God was fully counted on to make good in resurrection the seed — and the promises in the seed — given up at His word to die. What fresh gain for Abraham! The same gain belongs to all who do His will and give up what is dearest to them naturally. They receive everything back better than before, in resurrection.
Isaac came down the mountain alive. That is where the picture stops being a picture:
I need not enlarge on what is so precious to us — how this is a type of God giving up His only begotten Son. God would not ask Abraham to do what He Himself later had to do. The wood was laid on Isaac, just as Jesus carried the cross. Isaac was bound to the altar, just as our Lord was nailed to the cross. But when divine justice lifted up its hand, there was no voice to stay it. The Son was given up to death. That is where God's love goes beyond every other love — where He is infinitely beyond the type.
- Tested — The command came first. Abraham obeyed to the last possible moment, and only then did the voice from heaven stop him.
- Proved — "Now I know" points to evidence, not new information: faith is proved by action, and the fear of God by its fruits.
- Measured — What God names is not the deed but the cost: the son, the only son, the one loved, the one holding all the promises.
- Restored — Abraham trusted a God of resurrection. Everything he gave up at God's word came back better than before.
- Surpassed — A voice stopped the knife on Moriah. At the cross no voice stopped the hand, and God's love went beyond the picture.
And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold, behind was a ram caught in the thicket by its horns; and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered it up for a burnt-offering instead of his son.
Abraham's hand is stopped, and his eyes are turned to something God has already placed within reach. The animal is offered up in place of the boy who was bound on the altar, and that small phrase carries a truth the Bible never names with a single word.
The voice from heaven stopped the death stroke that was to have fallen on Isaac. Now God directed Abraham's eyes to His immediate provision — not a lamb merely, but a ram. If we wanted the strongest and most vigorous animal from among the sheep, we would have to choose a ram. This one, too, was caught in the thicket by its horns, a symbol of its strength. Abraham offered it as a burnt offering "in the stead of his son." The words substitute and substitution do not occur in our English Bible. But here we have exactly what those words mean. A substitute is one who stands in the stead of another.
(The ESV reads "instead of his son"; older translations, "in the stead of his son.")
Isaac walks away alive, so the picture needs a second figure — one to be spared, one to die.
In fact, Isaac is spared; and here we meet one of those double figures by which the Spirit of God would remedy the necessary defect of all figures when they set forth Christ and His work. Isaac is spared; but there is substituted for him "a ram caught in a thicket by his horns." A picture of devoted self-surrender, as we have seen the ram to be elsewhere; he is "caught by his horns" — the sign (as others have noticed) of his power. Grace recognises our helplessness as a claim upon His might: as He says, "I looked, and there was none to help, and I wondered that there was none to uphold; therefore My own arm brought salvation to Me."
The very thing that made the ram strong also held it fast. One writer sees in that a picture of what held Christ to the altar.
The strength of a ram lies in its horns. By its horns the ram was held, and by its horns it was brought to its substitutionary death as an offering to God... we now look at Isaac as he was, a sinful lad, and see him spared from death by the offering of a substitute. Psalm 118:27 speaks of cords that bind the sacrifice to the altar. For our Lord those cords were the strong cords of His unconquerable LOVE. That strength brought Him to the place of sacrifice. There, as the Substitute, He died, "the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God" (1 Peter 3:18).
Earlier Abraham had told Isaac that God would provide the lamb. What appears is a ram — and commentators take that gap as a sign that no picture can hold the whole reality.
The surrender was proved complete, the hand stretched out, the knife ready to kill the son. Then the father's hand is stopped, and a ram, caught by his horns in the thicket, takes the son's place. So God provided for Himself a lamb for a burnt offering. No type can reach up to the height or go down into the depth of the truth: God's Son is God's Lamb.
Nothing in the verse explains how the animal arrived. That silence is itself the lesson.
But the Lord also has a substitute for Isaac ready at that very spot. He caused Abraham to look behind him, where a ram was caught in a thicket by his horns (v. 13). How a domesticated animal came to be there we do not know, except that God led it there. At least Abraham recognised it as an acceptable offering and offered it to God as a burnt offering instead of his son. Isaac would surely be thankful for such a substitute. Believers today thank God in the same way for the Lord Jesus and His great substitutionary work at Calvary for our sakes.
A voice from heaven saved Isaac. At the cross the story runs differently.
And so Isaac is spared. The ram caught in a thicket by his horns is his substitute — surely a beautiful type of Him who offered Himself in all the energy of divine love. His obedience was devoted and unswerving, carrying out the Father's will, even to death... The voice of God stopped Abraham's hand and preserved Isaac's life. But no voice from heaven stopped the rod of divine judgment. It fell in all its crushing power on the blessed head of our sinless Substitute.
Kelly draws the same contrast from Abraham's side of it:
So Abraham was fully tested, and God was magnified and honoured by his simple-hearted trust in Him. Yet not a drop of Isaac's blood was shed. God remains God. He spared not His own Son, but gave Him up freely for us all. In all things Christ has the pre-eminence.
- Provided — the ram was already at the spot, caught and waiting; God led it there.
- Substituted — the Bible never uses the word substitute, but "instead of his son" is exactly what it means.
- Strong — held by its horns, the sign of its power; Christ was held to the altar by the strength of His love.
- Spared — Isaac walks away alive, because the ram caught in the thicket died in his place.
- Surpassed — no type reaches the height or depth of the truth: God's Son is God's Lamb, and no voice from heaven stopped the judgment that fell on Him.