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.