What does it mean that God is Jehovah-Jireh?

Then with keen prophetic gaze he looked beyond the coming centuries and called the name of the place "JEHOVAH-JIREH" (the Lord will provide). Faith mounted up with eagle's wing, and cried aloud in exultation, "In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen." On the sad journey he had replied to Isaac, "God will provide Himself a lamb" — in other words, the Lord will provide.

Jehovah-Jireh pointed on to Christ. In Christ all the nations of the earth will be blessed.

It is the fulfilment of JEHOVAH-JIREH. It is an answer to "In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen." That Man bearing a cross to crucifixion is the grandest and greatest of Abraham's seed. He is the Seed of promise. Beyond Him there is none other. In Him shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.

Unconscious prophet of a truth too well (too little) known, Abraham anticipates exactly what God has done in the gospel, of which this very scene stands out, in some respects, the most eminent type. Guilty man, in his heart of hearts, thinks all depends on some atonement he is to make … What a contrast with "God will provide himself a lamb!" What grace on God's part! What a call for faith on man's! … Sins are thus borne and judged, and forgiven to the believer but yet to God's glory, while His grace reigns to eternal life.

Thus was Abraham fully tried, and God magnified and honoured by his simple-hearted trust in Himself. 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.

Not a lamb merely but a ram. If we desired to have the strongest and most vigorous specimen from among the sheep, we should have to select a ram. This one moreover was caught in the thicket by its horns, symbolic of its strength, and it was offered as a burnt offering "in the stead of his son." … So in this incident, which presents to us the fourth type of the death of our Saviour, we have before us salvation by a substitutionary sacrifice. And further, since the ram was detained to be the sacrifice by its horns, the strongest part of its frame, we may see how our blessed Lord was held to His sacrificial work by the strength of His love. No nail that ever was forged could have detained him on the cross. What held Him there was love to the Father, and love to us.

Abraham recognized the wonderful way in which God had provided the lamb for a burnt offering, and signalized it by naming the place Jehovah-jireh, meaning, "The Lord will provide." And out of that sprang a saying which was still current when some four centuries later Moses wrote these things: "In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen," or "shall be provided." That was the language of faith, for another four centuries, or so, after Moses, there stood on Moriah the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite, and years after that Solomon's temple was built there, and so it became the place for Jewish sacrifices. That to which all these sacrifices pointed took place "without the gate," for the Lord Jesus was the rejected One.

Abraham's prophetic answer was that God (Elohim) Himself would provide a lamb for a burnt offering. How gloriously was that seen when John the Baptist, the forerunner of Christ, beheld Jesus coming to him, and exclaimed, "Behold THE LAMB OF GOD, which takes away the sin of the world" (John 1:29). … Thus is seen how the word, JIREH, added to the word JEHOVAH, presents to us what is wrapped up in the mind of God for the blessing of poor fallen man, even the whole story of how a covenant-making God would implement His approach to men at the cost of the death of His only begotten Son.

Appropriately, Abraham named that place "Jehovah Jireh," meaning "the Lord will provide." Added to this we are told 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," for the expression speaks of the height from which God deals with mankind. But this mountain, speaking of the grace of God in the gift of His Son, is the first mentioned, for it is nearest to God's heart. The law must take a lower place.

And yet hundreds buy the text, JEHOVAH-JIREH, hang it on their parlour wall, and think it means the Lord will provide for their needs, the rent, food, clothing, etc. How selfish are our hearts, and how we naturally drag things down to suit our mean horizon. We have plenty of scripture to assure us on that line. For instance, "My God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus." This is grand indeed, meeting our need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus. But let JEHOVAH-JIREH stand in all its matchless majesty and sublime simplicity.