Gen. 22 God tempts Abraham, Gen. 22:1; to sacrifice Isaac, Gen. 22:2. He readily goes about it, Gen. 22:3–6. Isaac’s question, Gen. 22:7. Abraham’s answer, Gen. 22:8. They come to the place; he binds Isaac; lays him on the altar; takes the knife, Gen. 22:9–10.

After the accomplishment of God’s promises made to Abraham, and especially of that promise concerning the blessed Seed, when now he seemed to be in a most prosperous and secure condition, he meets with a severe exercise from God, God did tempt Abraham.

Not a word here but might pierce a heart of stone, much more so tender a father as Abraham was. Take now, without demurring or delay, I allow thee no time for thy consideration, own proper son; not a beast, not an enemy, not a stranger, though that had been very difficult to one so kind to all…

Abraham rose up early in the morning, that he might execute God’s command without doubt or delay; and saddled his ass, for greater expedition, not waiting for his servant to do it.

Probably on the beginning of the third day. It is true, Moriah was not three days’ journey from Beer-sheba. But it must be considered that the ass, upon which he rode, is a dull and slow creature, and that Abraham went no faster than the rest of his company, who, for aught appears, were on foot;…

Abraham said this, lest they should hinder him in the execution of his design. I and the lad will come again to you; for he knew that God both could and would for his promise sake, either preserve Isaac from being sacrificed, or afterward raise him from the dead, as it is intimated, Heb. 11:19.

Isaac, though called a lad, Gen. 22:5, was now a grown man, at least five and twenty years old, and therefore well able to bear that burden; and in this act he was an eminent type of Christ, who carried that wood upon which he was crucified.

My father; a compellation which might both wound Abraham’s heart, and admonish him how unbecoming to a father that action was which he was going about.

God will provide himself a lamb; either, 1. Literally, though I know not how; for his wisdom and power are infinite: or, 2. Mystically, as Christ, whose type Isaac was, is called a Lamb. Thus Abraham prudently reveals the matter to him by degrees, not all at once.

Abraham built an altar, made of earth slightly put together, as God afterwards prescribed, Ex. 20:24; and bound Isaac his son, partly, because burnt-offerings were to be bound to the altar; of which see Poole on “Ps. 118:27”; partly, to represent Christ, who was bound to the cross.

The angel of the Lord, i.e. Christ the Angel of the covenant, as appears from Gen. 22:12, Gen. 22:16. He repeats his name to prevent Abraham, whom he knew to be most expeditious in God’s service, and just ready to give the deadly blow.

God knew the sincerity and resolvedness of Abraham’s faith and obedience before and without this evidence, and from eternity foresaw this fact and all its circumstances; and therefore you must not think that God had now made any new discovery: but this is spoken here, as in many other places, of…

Behind him; which way he looked, either because the voice came that way, or because he heard the noise made by the motion of the ram in the thicket, which had gone astray from the rest of the flock, and whose errors were directed hither by God’s wise and powerful providence; and being young, though…

Jehovah-jireh. The same Hebrew letters differently pointed make the sense either active, the Lord will see, i.e. provide or take care of those that commit themselves and their affairs to him; or passive, the Lord will be seen, i.e.

By myself have I sworn: so the Lord swears by his name, Jer. 44:26; by his soul, in the Hebrew text, Jer. 51:14; by his holiness, Amos 4:2; which is the same with by himself here.

i.e. The city, by a usual synecdoche, as Deut. 12:15, Deut. 18:6, all the cities, and consequently the country adjacent; gate for gates. The sense is, they shall subdue their enemies. For the gates of cities were the places both of jurisdiction or judicature, Deut. 21:19, Deut.

This narration and genealogy is added for Rebekah’s sake, and to make way for the following relation.

From Buz descended, as some conceive, Elihu the Buzite, Job 32:2. Aram was so called, possibly because he dwelt among the Syrians, as Jacob, for the same reason, was called a Syrian, Deut. 26:5. But there was another more ancient Aram, from whom the Syrians descended, Gen. 10:22.

Rebekah was afterwards Isaac’s wife, Gen. 24.

A concubine was an inferior kind of wife, taken according to the common practice of those times, subject to the authority of the principal wife, and whose children had no right of inheritance, but were endowed with gifts. See Gen. 21:14, Gen. 25:6. Maachah, a name common both to man, as 2 Sam.