How old was Isaac when Abraham almost sacrificed him?

We must bear in mind that "the lad" had at least reached his majority, as we say; Josephus (Antiquities 1:13, 2) makes him 25 years old. His entire submissiveness to his father indeed, but also to the will of God, is exactly in keeping with his piety. If it was beautiful in the type, how much more in that which it shadowed! For it was unsought and infinite love in both Father and Son.

"Every one can master a grief but he that has it." It is remarkable how we can philosophize about the necessity for resignation, and the value of trials — in the cases of others; we are not generally so ready to exercise this resignation and recognise this value if our own nests are threatened. "I never knew any man in my life who could not bear another's misfortunes perfectly like a Christian." Nevertheless some time or another sorrow knocks — loudly or gently — at everyone's door: good will it be if we can rise to meet it with the placid dignity and strength that characterises both Abraham and his son. It is important to remember that Isaac was at this time a young man and Abraham a very aged one; and unless Isaac were willing to be bound and slain, the thing would have been impossible. This is the pre-eminent feature wherein he was a type of Christ: he was not only an innocent victim, but a submissive one — obedient unto death. [ Pope. Josephus Ant. i., says 25 years old.]

Some thirty-four years after Isaac's marriage.

But this faith, in which he had been thus educated through no small space of time, had yet, to receive its final test. Accordingly, when Isaac had fully supplanted Ishmael, when the affections of the old man for his long expected child had developed and matured by years of exercise, when Isaac was grown into a goodly youth, the joy and support of his father's declining years, then the well-known voice from on high demanded, without a word of explanation, that the promised seed should be sacrificed upon one of the mountains in the land of Moriah.

Next note how responsive Abraham is. God calls, and at once comes the reply, "Here am I." Then consider how all that would make the demand still more terrible to nature is emphasised, not minimised: "Thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest." Such minute traces have we of the Divine knowledge, and the Divine interest. Nor is anything left to Abraham's choice in the matter of locality. The sacrifice was to be on one of the mountains that God would tell him of. So must it ever be. In the service of the Lord all must be ordered by Himself, and in accordance with His will. Accordingly Abraham goes to the place of which God had told him. He did not, like Jonah, go west when told to go east, though the task laid upon him, being so personal, must have been far harder. Nor was it a brief trial — a matter of moments or even minutes. It was not till the third day that Abraham saw the place afar off. Imagine the deep exercise of the father's spirit during those solemn days. Yet we note the serene confidence with which he answers Isaac, who naturally wondered where the lamb for the sacrifice was to come from, and won the response, "My son, God will provide Himself a lamb for a burnt-offering" — prophetic words indeed, and that doubly so, with far off pathetic promise of Calvary. How much Abraham saw of hidden meaning in his own words we know not — perhaps nothing — but it is surely there, even if he thought only of an immediate succour.

"And it came to pass after these things that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham; and he said, Behold, here I am. And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt-offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of." It was the greatest trial to which God had ever put the heart of a saint. It was not tempting with evils any more than God is tempted with them. It was, on the contrary, His own good that was before God, who would make His friend the witness of it, while testing his confidence in Himself and His word to the uttermost. Isaac was loved as only a child so promised, born and reserved for a wondrous destiny, could be — to say nothing of personal qualities that must endear him to his parents. How the father's heart must have pondered on God's covenant with "thee, and thy seed after thee in their generations, for an everlasting covenant," and the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession; especially after Hagar and Ishmael were expelled, and the word of promise came, "In Isaac shall thy seed be called!" The father was assured therefore that this son, and no other, was that of the promises. God could not lie; but He might and does try, and those most whom He loves best. So with Abraham now. God demands that the father shall offer up his only son for a burnt-offering on Mount Moriah. It was the shadow of His own incomparable and infinite gift, but only the shadow; for Christ really did suffer and die, and God the Father sent Him, in divine love, to be thus a propitiation for our sins.

Through all this trial of Abraham's we must not miss the fact that the faith of resurrection cheers the father's heart. The promises of God were assured in him, of whom He had said, "In Isaac shall thy seed be called." If therefore God called for him to be offered up, resurrection must restore him from the very flames of the altar; and "in a figure," as the apostle says, from the dead he was received. The figure of resurrection here it is very important to keep in mind, for it is to Christ in resurrection that the events following typically refer.

Though the typical and spiritual import of this chapter may have its place here - and I believe historically it has been doubted of old time - not only was Sarah very old, but chapters 17:24 and 21:5, show that it was within the year she bore Isaac (if the chapter be according to date), but it may be early in it; if not, chapter 12, between verses 8 and 9, may be the place.