And Isaac spoke to Abraham his father, and said, My father! And he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood; but where is the sheep for a burnt-offering?
Isaac speaks only once on the road to Moriah. What he says exposes the gap at the centre of the scene: everything for a sacrifice is there except the victim. His question is innocent. Yet it cuts his father, and it stays open for the rest of the Bible.
The boy is not asking about a detail. He is naming the one thing no one on that hill could supply, and commentators read his words as the cry of every worshipper who ever brought an offering.
Here are the tools of judgment, but where is the Victim? Here is the need, but where is the supply? Here is the sinner, but where is the Saviour? Here is the worshipper, but where is the means of approach? Here are the instruments of suffering, but where is the Sufferer? Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the Lamb? For four thousand years every devout man asked this question, more or less silently and imperfectly. And only one answer was possible: "My son, God will provide Himself a lamb."
The question also fixes the animal. Isaac does not ask for any offering. He asks for a lamb.
In the very dawn of the world's history the lamb was clearly marked out by God as the animal of sacrifice. The "firstling" of Abel's flock is witness to this, and so is the question asked by Isaac in Genesis 22.
Isaac asks because he does not know. That ignorance marks the limit of what this scene can show about Christ.
The offering up of Isaac is a beautiful picture, and it shows the meek submission of the Son to the will of His Father. But this offering expresses the Father giving His Son, rather than the Son giving Himself. Isaac did not know about the offering, for he asked, "Where is the lamb for a burnt offering?" But the blessed Son of God knew from eternity what lay before Him. He willingly offered Himself to carry out all that was in the heart and counsels of His God and Father.
Abraham answers "Here I am, my son" before he even hears the question. Then it comes, from a son who has no idea what is coming.
As Abraham and Isaac travelled along, Isaac asked his father a question. He was clearly unaware of the fate that lay before him. The question was like a poisoned dagger driven into his father's heart: "My father! … Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?" What a staggering question! How it must have caused him intense anguish of spirit!
Abraham's reply is calm, and it says more than he knew.
Abraham calmly answered, "My son, God will provide Himself a lamb for a burnt offering." Without knowing it, he may have been speaking a prophecy that reached far beyond the matter in hand.
Nothing Abraham owns can answer the question. That is the point of his reply.
Abel tells us there must be a lamb for a burnt offering. Isaac raises the question: "WHERE IS THE LAMB?" And Abraham gives the only possible answer: "GOD WILL PROVIDE HIMSELF A LAMB FOR A BURNT OFFERING." No lamb of man's providing could meet the holiness of God or the sin of man. God must provide the Lamb, and, says Abraham, "God will provide Himself a Lamb."
Isaac's words stayed open long after that day on Moriah. Every later sacrifice pointed forward rather than closing the matter.
Every lamb that ever died on any altar was temporary, whether in the days of the patriarchs or under the law of Israel. Each one looked on to what was still to come. The question, "Where is the lamb?", went unanswered until John the Baptist could declare, "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!"
God has now given that answer, so no one has to stand where Isaac stood.
Isaac, on the way to Mount Moriah, innocently asked, "Where is the lamb for a burnt offering?" (Genesis 22:7). Thank God, no such question needs to be asked now. The Lamb is the Son, and His sacrifice is God's gracious provision for a ruined world.
- The gap. Fire and wood are there. The victim is missing. The question names what every sinner and every worshipper needs.
- The ignorance. Isaac asks because he does not know what is coming. The Son of God knew from eternity, and He offered Himself.
- The wound. Isaac's gentle "my father" made his innocent question cut all the deeper.
- The provision. No lamb that man provides could answer the question. God must provide the Lamb, and Abraham says He will.
- The answer. Every altar before Christ was temporary. The question stood open for centuries. Then John the Baptist pointed at Jesus and called Him the Lamb of God.
And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself with the sheep for a burnt-offering. And they went both of them together.
Isaac carries the wood up the mountain. He asks his father where the lamb is, and the answer he gets reaches far beyond that morning.
Isaac's question is not only his. The scene has everything ready except the victim.
Here are the tools of judgment, but where is the Victim? Here is the need, but where is the supply? Here is the sinner, but where is the Saviour? Here is the worshipper, but where is the means of approach?... For four thousand years this was the question of every devout man, expressed more or less quietly and imperfectly. Only one answer could be given: "My son, God will provide Himself a lamb." Faith gave that answer with calm assurance — not doubting, not questioning, and not understanding. And faith received it in silent submission.
Abraham does not say a lamb will be found. He says God will provide one, and there is a reason it has to be God.
Abel tells us there must be a lamb for a burnt offering. Isaac raises the question, "Where is the lamb?" And Abraham gives the only possible answer: "God will provide Himself a lamb for a burnt offering." No lamb that man provides could meet the holiness of God or the sin of man. God must provide the Lamb, and, says Abraham, "God will provide Himself a Lamb."
The phrase says more than that God does the providing. It says who the lamb is for.
Notice the form of the answer, "God will provide Himself a lamb," not "God will Himself provide a lamb." In one sense God needed the Lamb as much as the offerer did. The emphasis does not fall on God providing the lamb, but on His needing the lamb for Himself — just as, on the other side, the sinner needed it.
(Pollock quotes an older translation. The ESV keeps the same sense: "God will provide for himself the lamb.")
The answer was not a guess. But did Abraham mean that Isaac would escape death?
Did he mean that Isaac would not be killed? He knew that even if Isaac was killed, God could raise him up. He counted on the God of resurrection, and he received him back in that way, as a figure, from the dead.
Abraham's words said more than he knew.
Abraham may not have known it, but his answer was a prophecy of something far beyond his own days: "God will provide Himself a lamb for a burnt offering." No lamb that ever died on any altar, in the days of the patriarchs or later in Israel, was anything more than a stand-in, pointing forward to what was still to come. The question, "Where is the lamb?" stayed unanswered. Then John the Baptist could declare, "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!"
The verse closes with the same phrase used two verses earlier. That repetition points to a greater Father and Son.
Verse 6 and verse 8 both say, "they went both of them together." How much more wonderful to think of God the Father and His well beloved Son going together to the cross of Calvary. For the sacrifice of the Father was just as great as that of the Son. The Son gave Himself; the Father gave His only begotten Son.
Abraham's sentence rules out one whole approach to God — the instinct to bring a lamb of our own.
Deep down, guilty man thinks everything depends on some atonement he must make. He may confess our Lord Jesus as Saviour in a completely orthodox way. But he confesses that for all the world. For himself, to get the benefit, he really trusts a kind of settlement for his sins. He hopes to give up his sins, above all, and that God will be merciful... What a contrast with "God will provide himself a lamb!" What grace on God's part! What a call for faith on man's! "Therefore it is of faith, that it might be of grace."
- The question — "Where is the lamb?" was not just a boy's curiosity. For four thousand years the need was clear and the supply was missing.
- The Provider — no lamb that man supplies could meet God's holiness or man's sin. Only God could provide it.
- For Himself — the wording puts the lamb on God's side first. He needed it for Himself as much as the sinner needed it.
- The faith — Abraham walked on because he counted on the God of resurrection. He received his son back as a figure from the dead.
- The answer — every later altar was only a stand-in. The question stayed open until John the Baptist declared, "Behold, the Lamb of God."
And they came to the place of which God had told him. And Abraham built the altar there, and piled the wood; and he bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.