The Binding of Isaac

To my mind, one of the most enigmatic stories in the Hebrew bible is the Akkedah or the “Binding of Issac,” often erroneously called the Sacrifice of Isaac. It becomes an enigma when you ask the question “Why [in God’s name] would God ever ask Abraham to sacrifice his son?” It has been argued that the story is really a biblical polemic against child sacrifice at a time and in a world where child sacrifice was far too common. But I see no justification for that within the context of the story itself. Actually, that argument seems more to me as a way to somehow justify a story that at face value is rather embarrassing.Amongst Christians, at least, one popular approach to the Akkedah sees it as either typologically related to the Crucifixion, or as a prophecy of Christ, depending on the theological bent of the exegete. At one level, a number of superficial details do indeed correspond. Like Isaac, Jesus sat silently before his accusers. Isaac carried the wood upon which his corpse would later be consumed as a holocaust offering; Jesus bore upon his back the cross of the Crucifixion. Isaac, too, was an innocent victim. But even for Christians, to approach the binding of Isaac as only or even primarily a typology of the Crucifixion misses the story’s main point. The story is just what it claims to be, a test of Abraham’s faith, not of Isaac’s. But to take the story at face value is to fail to understand both Abraham and God, and to fail to understand what is really transpiring in the text. It clearly is a test of Abraham’s faith, but not a test just to see if he would really go through with it.To understand the story we need to dig a bit deeper beneath the surface and we need to understand it on its own terms. First, let’s examine the role of Isaac. He is the son of Abraham and Sarah and it is Isaac that Abraham has been commanded by God to offer to as a holocaust offering. Isaac is not so much an actor here as he is one who is being acted upon. We also do not have a clear sense of Isaac’s age except that he was old enough and sturdy enough to carry on his shoulders the wood for the sacrifice. Realizing that in a holocaust offering, that which is offered is entirely burned, it requires more than just a couple pieces of timber. I would guess the boy to be in his mid teens, fifteen or sixteen years old, big enough and sturdy enough to carry the requisite quantity of wood, and also big enough to question what was going on. Yet, he is completely passive and never questions nor do we read that he resisted his father when Abraham bound him with rope and placed him on the makeshift altar. This, in itself, is rather bizarre. One might argue that Abraham perhaps drugged Isaac before hand and it was for that reason that Isaac never resisted. The problem is that there is nothing in the story indicating that and while you can draw some conclusions by inference, others you simply can’t.Also, the person of Isaac (that is his humanity) appears to be only of secondary interest. In fact, in the story Isaac appears to be more of a prop than a person. Now, according to the Torah, the first-born male belongs to God. A first-born son is always redeemed through a payment of five shekels while the first-born of cattle, sheep or goats are to be offered up. But this surely can’t explain what’s happening. Moreover, what about Ishmael who is, in fact, the eldest son though it is Isaac who is Sarah’s first-born. Should not Ishmael, Hagar’s first-born suffer the same fate? Ishmael is only out of the picture because Sarah demanded that Abraham banish him and in the story, Abraham appeared to be far more distressed about banishing Ishmael than he is about offering up Isaac.The crux of the matter, I believe, falls not on Isaac as a person (or even as Abraham’s son per se) but rather on Isaac as a symbol and that’s also something that differentiates him from Ishmael. Abraham was made a promise by God, and that promise was immortality. Not immortality in the sense of his own body but rather through his progeny. He is promised that his descendents will be like the stars in the sky or the sand at the sea shore. In other words, beyond measure. His immortality is by way of sons and grandsons and great-grandsons until the end of time. Now, while that might seem a little strange to modern ears, is it really? Throughout history, men have built empires just so they would be remembered. The wealthy endow chairs in their names at major universities, and they build hospitals, museums, concert halls and opera houses all in their name so that their name will live on. Abraham is not so unusual after all.So, here we come to what I think the story is all about. It is Isaac through whom the promise is to be fulfilled. That’s why it’s important not to let Isaac’s humanity distract us from the real story. It is not merely that Abraham is being asked to slaughter his own son and offer him up – as horrendous as that idea is – what God is asking Abraham to do is much more. The test is really a question, and the question is this: Is your love for me so strong that out of that love you would willing destroy the very promise that binds us together?Abraham, the man who argued with God face to face when God revealed his intention to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, is now silent before that same God. What stills Abraham’s tongue on this occasion where we would naturally expect him to oppose God’s decision is that the ultimate reward of living in relationship with God is that relationship itself. Any perception of immortality Abraham might otherwise receive through Isaac must remain secondary and that is the principal point of the story. His passion for God is all consuming, and the Akkedah makes it clear that this all consuming passion is not founded on the hope of any future reward. Abraham’s all consuming passion arises out of his personal communion with God, that communion itself being of ultimate value and compared to which all else, even the promise itself, pales.