barren. Aware that it was no longer possible for her to have babies naturally, Sarai suggested that her husband father a child by her servant, Hagar.2
Soon a boy was born, and they named him Ishmael. However, he was the result of man’s faithlessness, not God’s promise, and problems were to come.3
Through Abram, we are reminded that God designed marriage and its blessings for one man and one woman; no other combination.4 The son of God’s promise would come through Abram’s covenant wife Sarai, not the extramarital relationship with Hagar, regardless of how well intentioned it had been.
Fourteen years later, after Abram was circumcised and renamed Abraham, Sarah miraculously bore Isaac, the son of promise!5
But Hagar despised her mistress6 and the teenaged Ishmael began to mock his young half-brother, Isaac.7 “You must send Ishmael and his mother away,” said Sarah. But Abraham was distressed because the youth was his son.8
The Lord, however, told Abraham to do what Sarah asked and assured him that a great nation would come from Ishmael, also.9
Though it must have grieved him deeply, Abraham obeyed. The Creator provided for Ishmael and his mother, and eventually all the Arab people of today descended from Ishmael.10
Years passed and the toddler Isaac grew into a strong youth, and his father loved him greatly.11 God again spoke to Abraham, but this time demanded the inconceivable.
Early the next morning Abraham arose and set out to make a burnt offering to God. He loaded his donkey and took two servants . . . and Isaac. On the journey’s third day, Abraham told his servants to wait with the donkey while he and Isaac continued up a mountain.12
Isaac asked, “Where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” Abraham assured his son, “God will provide the lamb.”
It is hard to imagine how intensely Abraham’s heart must have ached, or how hard it was to finally tell Isaac what soon became obvious — he was the sacrifice God required!13
It had been years since Abraham sent Ishmael away, possibly more than two decades. Now, God instructed him to kill Isaac, the only son of promise. Abraham’s faith had become great, and though he did not understand God’s ways, he knew the Creator could raise his son back to life.
The trust shown by Isaac was great as well. Just as Christ would carry a wooden cross on His back many years later, Isaac carried on his back the wood for the sacrifice. He was surely strong enough to escape from his elderly father.14 Instead, Isaac submitted. Abraham bound him, then placed him on the wood of the altar.
At the last possible moment, as Abraham was about to slay the youth15 with a knife, God called out from Heaven, “Abraham! Stop! Do not sacrifice Isaac, for now I see that you do not love your son more than me.”16
Then Abraham looked up and saw a ram caught by its horns in the brush. Yes, God provided the sacrifice! It was faith in God’s power over death that made Abraham willing to offer his beloved son. But God blessed that faith and provided a substitute.
Likewise, God lovingly sent His only begotten Son, Jesus. And Jesus allowed Himself to be killed, the substitute sacrifice for all who receive Him as Savior!17
PRIMARY PASSAGES
Gen. 18:9–15, Gen. 20–22
KEY VERSE
“By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, ‘In Isaac your seed shall be called,’ concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead.” Heb. 11:17–19
WRAP UP
“Heavenly Father, Abraham showed incredible faith! He was willing to offer Isaac on that altar. He was willing to arrange the stones and the wood and get the fire ready. But he didn’t stop there. He tied Isaac, the only son who could fulfill Your promise, and he laid him across the kindling. He had to be willing to obey You, no matter what! He had faith that You could bring his son back to life again, so he raised his sharp knife. . . . Lord, help me to see what my ‘Isaac’ is. What do I love more than You?”
1 Genesis 15:1–6.
2 Genesis 16:1–4.
3 Genesis 16:10–12.
4 God created marriage on day 6 of creation week when He brought Adam and Eve together to be the father and mother of all mankind. See the chapter entitled “God Creates Marriage” earlier in this book.
5 Genesis 21:5. Note Isaac’s complex family heritage —Beginning with God’s dreadful fiery judgment of the Sodomites a year prior to Isaac’s birth, fear and doubt led to faithlessness by Abraham and his relatives. The wife of Isaac’s uncle Lot was dead — standing as a pillar of salt — and Lot was afraid to again live in a city (Gen. 19:30). Therefore, Lot and his daughters dwelt in a cave in the hills above the smoldering ashes that had been Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 19:30). But because the fiancés of Lot’s daughters were both dead and both girls were afraid there would be no men to have children by, they repeatedly got their father thoroughly drunk and became pregnant by him (Gen. 19:31–38). Even Isaac’s godly father Abraham was so afraid for his own life that he again allowed Sarah, now 90 years old, to be taken into the harem of a king (Gen. 20), as he had when she was 65 (Gen. 12). It was into this complex, “dysfunctional” family situation that Isaac, the only son of God’s promise, was born.
6 Genesis 16:4.
7 Genesis 21:9. If Isaac was weaned at around age 2, Ishmael was about 16. If Isaac was weaned at age 5, as supported by Dr. Floyd Jones, Ishmael was about 19. See Dr. Floyd Jones, The Chronology of the Old Testament (Green Forest, AR: New Leaf Press, 2005), p. 57–60. This view is also supported by James Ussher in his Annals of the World: “Based on these verses (Gal. 4:29–31; Gen. 15:13; Acts 7:6), we conclude that this persecution started at this time when Isaac was five years old and Abraham made this feast. This was thirty years after Abraham left Haran.”
8 Genesis 21:10–11.
9 Genesis 21:12–13.
10 Genesis 21:14–20.
11 Genesis 22:2, 5 describes Isaac as a “youth” in Young’s Literal Translation (YLT).
12 Genesis 22:5, the mountains of Moriah.
13 https://answersingenesis.org/contradictions-in-the-bible/unacceptable-offering/.
