Abram's Son Isaac

God later gave Abram a special son through his wife Sarai, but then tested Abram's faith by telling him to offer Isaac back to Himself.

A year later when Abraham was 100 and Sarah was 90 years old, their miracle baby was born. How excited they must have been! I’m sure they had great times bringing up their boy.

A few years later God put Abraham through a test. “Abraham!” He called.

“Here I am.”

“Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to Moriah. I want you to sacrifice him as a burnt offering to Me there on a mountain I will show you.”

Wow! What a difficult request! The Bible tells us Abraham obeyed immediately by starting on the journey the next morning. But he must have thought about it all night. In fact, another book in the Bible tells how Abraham reasoned that “God could raise the dead.” Maybe such reasoning was a little comfort to him, but this still would be a difficult task.

Early the next morning Abraham got up, saddled the donkey, got two servants, and his son, Isaac. He chopped wood for the burnt offering, and they started on their way to the place God had told him about. On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place. He turned to his servants. “Wait here with the donkey. I and the boy will go on. We will worship and we will return to you.”

Then he arranged the wood on Isaac’s back, but he carried the hot coals and the knife as they set off together for the mountain God had shown him. As they walked, Isaac said, “Father?”

Abraham answered, “Here I am.”

Isaac said, “I have the wood here, and I see you have the knife and the coals . . . but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”

“God Himself will provide a lamb for the offering.” And the two of them went on together.

When they reached the indicated place, they stopped. Abraham gathered stones, built an altar, and arranged the wood on the altar. Then he tied up his son and laid him on the altar. He unsheathed his knife.

“Abraham! Abraham!”

“Here I am.”

“Don’t harm the boy. Now I know that you fear God because you have not kept back your son, your only son.”

Abraham looked up and saw a ram caught in a bush by its horns. He took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering to the Lord in the place of his son. Then he called the place “The Lord will provide.”

The angel of the Lord called to him again. “The Lord said, ‘I swear by Myself, because you have not withheld your only son, beyond a doubt I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sand on the beach. Your descendant will rule over his enemies, and through him I will bless all the nations.’”

After they worshiped together, Abraham and Isaac went down the mountain, met the servants with the donkey, and went home.