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.