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.
And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah-jireh; as it is said at the present day, On the mount of Jehovah will be provided.
God had just stopped Abraham's hand and supplied a ram in Isaac's place. Abraham names the spot for what he was given there, and the name looks ahead as well as back.
The name is one word in Hebrew, and it holds on to what Abraham had just been given.
The Lord provided for Abraham's needs and turned his eyes to a substitute for his son (Gen. 22:13). To keep the memory of it, he called that place "The LORD will provide" (v. 14a), which is just one word in Hebrew, "Jehovah-jireh". Abraham used a compound name of the Lord, and it shows that acting this way is one of His glorious attributes: He provides the lamb for a burnt offering Himself. This wonderful name of God is the first of a series of compound names that God reveals in the Old Testament.
Jehovah is the name translated "the LORD" here. One writer explains why it keeps taking a second half, and why this one fits this moment.
God took the name Jehovah to show the relationship He would keep up by faith. It means I AM, and faith can add to that "I am — " whatever is needed. It is like a signed cheque left for the holder to fill in the amount he needs… Here the position is one of extreme need — Where is…? — and so we find JEHOVAH-JIREH, I am your provider.
The verse also names a place. Other mountains later carry the same description, and one writer shows where this one stands among them.
We are also told that it is "the mount of the LORD." Later, Mount Sinai and Mount Horeb are called "the mount of God" and "the mount of the LORD," because the phrase speaks of the height from which God deals with mankind. But this mountain speaks of the grace of God in the gift of His Son, and it is named first, because it is nearest to God's heart. The law must take a lower place.
One writer traces this place forward through Israel's later history:
Out of that came a saying that people still used when Moses wrote these things about four centuries later: "On the mount of the LORD it shall be seen," or "shall be provided." That was the language of faith. About four centuries after Moses, the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite stood on Moriah. Years later Solomon built his temple there, and so it became the place for Jewish sacrifices. What all those sacrifices pointed to happened "outside the gate," for people rejected the Lord Jesus.
The name is a promise: it shall be provided. One writer finds the answer in the Son God gave, and marks the one difference between Isaac and Christ.
Isaac was Abraham's "only son"; "God so loved the world that He gave His only Son." There was the answer to JEHOVAH-JIREH. But the picture could not show everything. We have One who was the eternal Son, God shown in the flesh, the eternal Word who "became flesh" — God and Man, one blessed Person, bearing all the wrath of God against sin. Nothing like the ram caught in the thicket by its horns was there to save Him from the judgment of death. So God's righteousness was upheld, and His love could flow out to guilty people.
The provision here is bigger than the rescue of Isaac. One writer ties this mountain to the whole purpose of God.
God's purposes could be carried out only at Moriah (2 Chron. 3:1). Without the Father's beloved Son (Mark 12:6), there could be no sacrifice for sin. So this place is named: "On the mount of the LORD it shall be provided" (Gen. 22:14)… At Moriah grace met righteousness, and there God found the way (He alone could do it) to make these two attributes of His Being, which seem impossible to reconcile, kiss each other. So triumphant grace reigns through righteousness; so God's purposes are fulfilled!
Abraham learned this name at the altar he had built for his own son.
The victim lay bound on the altar. Nearby was the substitute, the ram caught in the thicket, given to take the place of the human life… In God's sight Abraham had completed the act of worship in the presence of His name. There at the altar he learned the name of Jehovah — on the mount of the LORD it was seen. Jehovah was the great Provider, the One Who was everything to Abraham, and Abraham showed this in his act of surrender, his act of worship.
- Need names Him. "Jehovah" is the "I AM" that faith completes; extreme need drew out the answer, I am your provider.
- Provision means substitute. The name marks a ram given in place of a son — the first of the compound names of God in the Old Testament.
- The mount ranks first. Called "the mount of the LORD" before Sinai ever was, because grace in the gift of the Son stands nearer God's heart than law.
- The promise reaches to the Son. Isaac had a ram; Christ had none — no escape from judgment, so that righteousness was upheld and love could reach guilty people.
- Surrender is where you learn it. Abraham learned this name at an altar, in the act of giving up what he loved most.
And the Angel of Jehovah called to Abraham from the heavens a second time,
A voice from heaven has just stopped Abraham mid-sacrifice, and a ram has died in Isaac's place. Now that voice returns with a promise, and it raises two questions: who is speaking, and why did the blessing wait until after the altar?
The first voice stopped Abraham's hand; this one does something different. One writer sets the two side by side:
The first call out of heaven acknowledged that Abraham's obedience was complete. The second call announced great blessing, confirmed by an oath. Hebrews 6 points back to this moment, when God, "because He could swear by no greater," "swore by Himself." The size of the blessing might well have staggered Abraham. No wonder, then, that God backed His plain word with an oath, so that there might be "two unchangeable things" to rest on.
Scripture calls the speaker "the angel of the LORD." One writer follows this angel through Exodus and Genesis and reaches a firm conclusion:
Several passages give Him divine attributes. In Exodus God says of Him, "My name is in Him." In Exodus 14, after speaking of Him as an angel, Scripture identifies Him with Jehovah. The same is true in Genesis 22, at the sacrifice of Isaac (vv. 15, 16). So it is clear that He is divine. The conclusion is fair, and godly students of the Word have drawn it in every age: this angel is none other than the Second Person of the Trinity, God the Son, Jehovah. In His many appearings we may see foreshadowings of His incarnation.
Another writer names Him plainly. He then answers a hard question: what if Abraham had not obeyed?
Following this the angel of the Lord (that is, the Lord Jesus Himself) called to Abraham the second time from heaven... One might ask, if Abraham had not obeyed, would the promise be ineffective? The answer is that God's promise can never fail. He knew beforehand that Abraham would obey Him. In fact His own sovereign work in Abraham's heart produced this act of willing obedience.
God had made promises to Abraham before. This time He added something new:
A second time Abraham heard the angel's voice — the angel of the Lord. This time God did not only speak. He bound Himself by an oath to do what He was about to say. Never before had Scripture said that God swore. Now He did. He made His promise to Abraham, and "because He could swear by no greater He swore by Himself, saying, Surely blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply you. And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise."
The timing matters. God confirms the promise only after the altar, and one writer explains why:
The promises were not only made to Abraham (Gen. 12) and to his seed, but confirmed to the seed through resurrection (Gen. 22)... Christ takes the promises, not as on earth incarnate, but as risen from the dead. Without His death and resurrection we could have had no part in them, for God cannot bless people in sin... If the Lord Jesus had not died and become the source of a new life to the sinner, we could have had no portion with Him in these promises.
The blessing that follows in the next two verses is not one blessing but two:
The blessing is twofold. In verse 17 it is Jewish. It consists of countless offspring, who possess the gate of their enemies. Verse 18 attaches no number to "your seed." ... So the Seed, with no number or multiplicity attached to it, is Christ. Isaac pictures Him, raised again from the dead in figure. He blesses all the Gentiles, as He does now in the gospel. The many Jewish seed are different: they are to subject the nations and rule over them in the age to come.
Only two men stood on that mountain to hear it. The message reached far past them:
True, just two human beings, we may believe, heard the words of the angel. They were, however, words of worldwide importance. Of Abraham's seed — the Lord Jesus — that message from heaven spoke... God spoke that oath to encourage Abraham. Scripture recorded that history, we are taught, for our profit.
- Second call. The first voice stopped the knife and acknowledged Abraham's obedience. The second brought blessing, sealed with an oath.
- Second Person. The "angel of the LORD" has divine attributes and swears by Himself. Commentators read Him as God the Son, seen long before He came as a man.
- Sworn, not just said. Never before had Scripture said that God swore. Here He binds Himself by oath, giving two unchangeable things to rest on.
- Given in resurrection. The oath comes only after Abraham receives Isaac back as from the dead. Christ risen holds the promises, not flesh alive on earth.
- Reaching everyone. Through the one Seed the blessing runs past Abraham's family to all nations. Two men heard those words on a mountain, and Scripture keeps them for our profit.
and said, By myself I swear, saith Jehovah, that, because thou hast done this, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only [son],
Abraham has just shown that he would give up his son. Now the angel of the LORD calls to him a second time — not with a command, but with an oath. Two things stand out. God binds Himself to His own promise. And He does it in the very words for the son Abraham was willing to lose.
God had promised Abraham before. Here He adds something new. He stakes His own existence on the promise, because there is nothing greater to swear by.
In view of that obedience of faith, God declares with an oath. He steps in as mediator and gives His oath. He could swear by none greater. Men always call on a greater one as witness. So God swears by His own great self. He will bless this man of faith, who owns nothing at present, and He will fulfil every word He has promised. It is as though God had said that His promise stands as long as He is God. He would have to cease to exist before faith that counted on Him could be disappointed.
Abraham never killed his son. Yet God speaks as though he had done it, and the New Testament speaks the same way.
Notice the gracious way in which God gives Abraham credit for having done the act he had shown himself so fully ready to do... This fits beautifully with what the Spirit says of Abraham's action in Hebrews 11 and also in James 2. In both places Scripture views him as having offered his son Isaac on the altar. The great principle in the whole matter is this: Abraham proved he was ready to have the scene cleared of all but God... Faith can do without everyone and everything but God. It has the full sense of His sufficiency, and can therefore let go of everything else.
The chapter keeps repeating that Isaac is the only son. That repetition points beyond Abraham.
The word to Abraham is "take your son," telling us that God "did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all" (Romans 8:32). Then God tells Abraham to take his "only son." The chapter emphasizes three times that Isaac is his "only" son (vv. 2, 12, 16). Again this speaks of the love of God by which "He gave His only Son" (John 3:16). Abraham is also reminded that the son he must offer is one "whom you love," pointing to Christ, of whom it is said, "The Father loves the Son" (John 3:35). It is significant that this, the first mention of love in the Bible, comes in a scene that speaks of the love of God, the Father, for the Son.
The picture stops where the real sacrifice went on.
The One who did not spare His own Son told Abraham to spare his son. No ram in the thicket took the place of the blessed Lord. No Barabbas might take the place of the true Son of the Father.
What follows the oath is pure gift. Nothing in it depends on Abraham keeping his side.
Notice that this is a promise — a covenant — between God and Abraham. Notice that it is, as Paul says, "freely given in grace." There are no conditions attached to it, by which Abraham might lose the blessings God promised to him. There was no "IF" in the covenant, to raise a doubt. It was certain... Notice, too, that it came at once on the basis of the death and resurrection (in type) of Abraham's only son whom he loved.
The verses after the oath speak of descendants beyond counting — and then of one. Older translations use "seed" where the ESV says "offspring."
The blessing is twofold. In verse 17 it is Jewish, and consists in a countless progeny, which possess the gate of their enemies. In verse 18 no number is attached to "your seed"... "He does not say, 'And to seeds,' meaning many, but meaning one, 'And to your seed,' who is Christ." So the Seed, with no number or plural attached to it, is shown to be Christ, pictured by Isaac, risen again from the dead in figure, who blesses all the Gentiles.
The oath on that mountain did not stop with Abraham. It is why a believer today can be certain.
God wishes us to have absolute certainty, sure and steadfast. He therefore gave us two things, in which it was impossible for Him to lie — His promise and His oath... Yes, as with Abraham, God confirmed the promise of Genesis 12 when Abraham received Isaac back from the dead in figure, in chapter 22. So the promise is fulfilled to us in the actual death and resurrection of Jesus from the dead. What certainty! What "strong consolation"!
- Sworn — God had nothing greater to swear by, so He staked Himself; the promise now fails only if God ceases to be God.
- Credited — Abraham did not complete the act, yet God, and later Hebrews and James, treat it as done.
- Only — the chapter calls Isaac the "only" son three times, pointing to the Father who did not spare His own Son.
- Unconditional — the oath comes after Abraham receives Isaac back as from the dead, and carries no "if" he could break.
- Ours — God's promise and God's oath are two things in which He cannot lie, and they give strong consolation to everyone who believes now.
I will richly bless thee, and greatly multiply thy seed, as the stars of heaven, and as the sand that is on the sea-shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies;
God speaks these words from heaven after Abraham has laid Isaac on the altar and received him back alive. He binds them with an oath sworn on Himself. The promise points two ways at once: a countless family, and one Seed.
This is a confirmation, not a new promise. Its sheer size is why God adds an oath to His word.
The first call from heaven had acknowledged that Abraham's obedience was complete. The second call announced great blessing, confirmed by an oath... The extent of the blessing might well have staggered Abraham. His offspring was to be multiplied (1) "as the stars of heaven," (2) "as the sand that is on the seashore." That offspring was (3) to "possess the gate of his enemies," and in it (4) "shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." No wonder God backed up His plain word with His oath, so that there might be "two unchangeable things" to rest on.
God did not give that oath to a man at ease. It came at the hardest moment of Abraham's life, and it still speaks to anyone who finds obedience hard.
When conscience is in earnest, we feel our own weakness, and the way of Christ seems difficult, dangerous, and repulsive. So the gracious wisdom of God gave His oath as well as His promise, as we may read in Gen. 22:17-18. It was a precious encouragement to the man who at that very time received his son back as from the dead, in a picture.
The timing matters. This promise comes after the altar, so everything in it rests on resurrection ground.
Abraham has given up the promises as they belong to life here, and taken them in resurrection. He was "accounting that God was able to raise him up even from the dead, from where also he received him in a figure," Heb. 11. All was taken up in resurrection, founded on sacrifice to God.
The verse uses two pictures. Many writers see two lines of blessing here: one heavenly, one earthly.
The promise has a double aspect (Gen. 15:5; Gen. 22:17). His children were to be as the stars — that is, the heavenly family, those who inherit his faith, as Rom. 4:16 shows, which includes every believer. They were also to be as the sand on the seashore — that is, the earthly descendants. The sea (the Gentile world) may beat on them, "cast up mire and dirt" on them, and cover them for a time, but it can never dissolve them or absorb them.
Not everyone accepts that split. One writer answers it from other passages that use the same image:
Do not Gen. 22:17; Deut. 1:10; Deut. 10:22 show that the comparison of "the stars of heaven" applies equally with "the sand of the sea" to the earthly people?
The last clause of the verse fixes the character of this part of the promise.
The blessing of many descendants comes first. Here, where number is attached to the seed, the blessing is clearly Jewish in character, down to possessing the gate of their enemies. In time God will certainly make this good... And when His people are brought down to the lowest, then will be God's opportunity. He will lift them up, and set them at the head of all earth's blessing and glory.
Israel's history has not yet matched those words:
Israel did not possess the gates of her enemies, except for a short time late in David's reign and early in Solomon's. Nor were other nations blessed or cursed according to how they blessed or cursed her. On the contrary, her history is one of failure, servitude and defeat, ending in complete overthrow and captivity.
Paul builds an argument about one seed on this passage. That looks odd beside a promise of countless descendants.
At first sight this seems very strange, if the apostle pointed to such a Scripture to prove the importance of one seed. If anything lies on the surface of the passage, it is the great number of the seed — a seed said in so many words to be beyond all counting. So this is not what the apostle Paul has in view; he sets one seed in contrast with it... When God speaks of the seed as many as the sand or the stars, He gives them a Jewish character of blessing. "Your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies." God promises the final power and glory of Israel in the earth, putting down their foes.
(These writers quote an older translation using "seed"; the ESV reads "offspring.")
- Cost. God gives this promise to a man who has just given up his only son.
- Confirmation. God adds an oath to a word already sure, so that the tried believer rests on "two unchangeable things" rather than one.
- Resurrection. Abraham received the promises back on the other side of death. Every blessing named here stands on that ground.
- Reach. Stars, sand and gates: one promise carries a heavenly family, an earthly people, and the nations beyond them.
- Result. The promise about enemies still waits for its day. The blessing that comes through Abraham's faith already reaches every believer.
and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth bless themselves, because thou hast hearkened to my voice.
Genesis 22:18 closes God's oath from heaven, spoken after Abraham raised the knife over Isaac and heard the call to stop. It ties the blessing of every nation on earth to one thing: Abraham's "offspring". Then it adds a reason that has puzzled readers ever since — because you have obeyed my voice.
(Older translations say "seed" where the ESV says "offspring". The two words mean the same thing here, and the whole argument turns on them.)
The promise of worldwide blessing was not new. What is new is when God speaks it, and to whom — after Abraham has laid Isaac on the altar and received him back.
Paul, in Galatians 3:17, speaks of the confirmation of the promise, made to Christ, and what he says agrees perfectly with what we have just been saying. Moreover, the apostle is quoting Genesis 22:18. In these words we find the promise God made to Abraham in chapter 12, the promise about the blessing of the nations. God now confirms it to the offspring of the patriarch, after that offspring had been given back to him as a picture of resurrection; Heb. 11:19.
Verse 17 and verse 18 promise two different things, and the difference is in the counting. Verse 17 speaks of offspring beyond number; verse 18 attaches no number at all.
The point here is this. Wherever God promises Gentile blessing (as in Gen. 12:3 and 22:18), He always ties it to the offspring in an individual sense. He does not tie it to the offspring meaning the Jews, who were to be as many as the sand or the stars. The Jewish blessing is in Gen. 22:17, which speaks of many offspring. But verse 18 carefully leaves that out. There Christ is meant — the true offspring pictured by Isaac raised up in a figure. On that one sole offspring the Gentile blessing depends.
Why should a promise given to one family reach every nation on earth? The answer turns on death and resurrection.
Christ is the true offspring of Abraham, and this not only of promise but as dead and risen. This is how the promises are secured. This is also how they open out to all the nations, or Gentiles, as it is written: in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. The offspring dead and risen is as free to bless the Gentile as the Jew. Both were lost in rejecting Him. But He is risen from the dead, and God is pleased to bless in Him not only the Jew but all the Gentiles... And the blessing is unconditional grace, independent of the law which came in long after the promise and for a wholly different end.
So did the blessing of the world depend on whether Abraham obeyed?
One might ask, if Abraham had not obeyed, would the promise be ineffective? The answer is simple. God's promise can never fail. He also knew beforehand that Abraham would obey Him. In fact it was His own sovereign work in Abraham's heart that produced this act of willing obedience. In other words, God's promise was vitally bound up with the faith He had given to Abraham.
Abraham's life shows a pattern. Each time he gave something up, he received something greater.
If he gave up earthly prospects in Ur, he became an inheritor of blessing that should finally spread out to "all families of the earth"... If in the end he gave up not only Ishmael but Isaac, he got that great promise about THE SEED, in whom all the nations of the earth are to be blessed.
God did not simply promise here — He swore an oath. Why would a promise that cannot fail need one?
It was not for Abraham's sake only that God gave this twofold guarantee, His Word and His oath... In His gracious kindness God wanted the heirs of the promise to be sure that His Word never changes. So He confirmed His promise with an oath, just as people do in their dealings with one another. As He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself. So there are two unchangeable things here: His Word and His oath. In neither of them was it possible for God to lie. By them He gives strong encouragement to all those who have fled to Christ for refuge from judgment. They can lay hold of the hope set before them, instead of turning back because of the difficulties on the way.
- Occasion — God repeats the promise of Genesis 12 here. He confirms it to the offspring only after Abraham receives Isaac back as from the dead.
- One — verse 17 counts the offspring like the stars and the sand. Verse 18 gives no number at all: the nations are blessed in one Seed, Christ.
- Risen — the offspring who has died and risen blesses Gentile as freely as Jew — God is pleased to bless all the nations in Him.
- Grace — the blessing rests on promise, not law. It stands on God alone, and He backed His Word with an oath.
- Reach — one man's obedience on a mountain ends in blessing for every nation, and in strong encouragement for anyone who has fled to Christ for refuge.