TL;DR: 1) the test was for Hagar (https://www.tumblr.com/forsakenbythenarrative/745856861318823937/it-was-for-hagar) 2) the test is about Abraham's faith in God's love for him, not his personal love of God.
I actually have many thoughts on this story which is that the way many people approach it is wrong. Here's why:
A lot of people approach it saying that the test is “Do you love Yahweh God more than your son?” The problem with this is that this is a stupid question. The Scriptures are literature. No, I don’t believe it’s fiction, but it is undeniably literature with characters and plots and arcs. Abraham’s arc has nothing to do with love; it has to do with faith.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it till I die: never read a bible verse. You read something out of context and you can make it mean anything (see for reference: Transatlantic Slave Trade). If you want to understand a narrative or a story within a narrative you must first understand the narratives and stories around that one.
Abraham’s story starts with great faith and trust in God: Yahweh says to Abram (in great poetry btw) “Leave your family and I will bless you and save the world thru you” and Abraham goes. He’s told to go to the land of Canaan and he will be made into a great nation through a child of him and his wife even though they are old. And Abraham trusts Yahweh to fulfill this promise. He takes his wife (and some other unimportant people) and goes to Canaan.
But there’s a famine. This is supposed to be a land of promise where they can be fruitful and multiply but there’s nothing. So, what will Abraham do: will he trust God to bring food out of famine (life out of death)? No. He leaves for Egypt. Where he then hands off his wife to the pharaoh in order to save his life; again, not trusting God’s power over life. Meanwhile, while Sarah is being held by the pharaoh (who, despite Sarah’s beauty, doesn’t touch her at all), Abraham is enjoying riches. Thankfully, God saves Sarah by sending plagues and warning the pharaoh of Abraham’s deceit. Then Abe and his wife leave Egypt with lots of wealth and notably a slave.
Later, he and Sarah still are without child. And without a child how will they become the great family that will save the world? Well the could trust Yahweh, have faith in he who has power over life. But they don’t. Instead Sarah says “Sleep with Hagar (whose name means something like “dragged off” or “immigrant”) the slave girl and by her produce a child.” Hagar being an immigrant slave has no say in this so… yeah. Instead of having faith in God, they abuse the immigrant slave. (And somehow Abraham is one of the most likable of Genesis’ characters!!!). It backfired tho because now that Hagar is pregnant she is (by a warped and sick logic) better than Sarah and thus begins to humiliate her. Sarah’s response: abuse her some more until she runs away.
Pregnant immigrant slave woman out in the desert. But Yahweh will not abandon the oppressed and so he visits her, comforts her, and has her return to her mistress. But, he promises to bless her and her child and make him into a great people, even if it isn’t the people of The Prophecy. Her response? Show her faith in Yahweh by giving him a new name: El Roi. The God Who Sees.
Forgetting all that though, Yahweh still must deal with Abraham. Yahweh has sworn himself to Abraham (who, btw is actually a pretty great guy; a defender of the weak and powerless and a fighter of justice. He just also happens to be a faithless coward sometimes.) so he can’t just abandon him. Instead Yahweh says “I am El Shaddhai — God Almighty” and calls Abraham to have a trusting relationship with him and to have integrity with others. God once again affirms his covenant with Abraham (to make his family into a great nation that will save the world). But then adds a new rule: you and all of your sons will have to cut their dicks.
By which I mean circumcision not castration lol. To new comers to the faith this is confusing? Why was circumcision such a big deal? But the answer is Hagar. Abraham’s lack of faith led to him using his penis to abuse his slave. Who then ran away and almost died. All of that could’ve been avoided if he would’ve had faith in Yahweh’s authority over life. He wouldn’t have slept with Hagar and he wouldn’t have went to Egypt. Now Yahweh says: I. Am. Faithful. I have blessed you even when you lied. I have reaffirmed my covenant even when you committed horrors. Why? Because I a faithful. So have faith in me.” So, circumcision. As a reminder that this family only exists because of God. Is only blessed because of God.
Moving on, next we actually have a rare scene of Abraham being having faith! It’s the infamous Sodom story lol. Sodom is evil: they oppress the poor and the widow, the take food from the hungry, they rape guests. To put it lightly, they were an abomination. So Yahweh says, “Abraham, I am a just God; I must destroy Sodom.” But Abraham has a nephew in Sodom. So Abraham tests to see how far Yahweh’s mercy would go: he asks if God would spare the city for 50 righteous people. Yahweh says he would. Then he keeps getting smaller — 45, 40, 30, 20, 10 — and Yahweh says he will spare the city for 10 righteous people.
Spoiler: there were not 10 righteous people a Yahweh smote the city so hard it made the Dead Sea dead. Really. Look it up.
My interest though is in this line: “Let not Yahweh be angry, and I will speak but once more: Suppose ten be found there?”
What we witness here is both faith in God’s grace, but also a lack of faith in God’s grace. Because here’s the thing: we learn from Jesus that God would have spared the city for the 1, if someone would’ve asked. David, the man after God’s own heart? He would’ve asked for the one. Moses, the first man to have a truly intimate relationship with Yahweh? He would’ve asked for the one. But Abraham is the first person in generations to follow Yahweh and call on his name. And as such (and as with all his descendants until Joseph) he does not really know Yahweh’s character. He has yet to learn Yahweh is a God of his word. But he will.
And he’ll also learn something else: don’t test Yahweh.
You see, because following this story are 3 more stories: Abe and Abimelek, the birth of Isaac, and the flight of Hagar and her son Ishmael.
With the first narrative we see Abraham repeat the mistakes in Egypt. He lies to a king and hands off his wife to him. This time, Yahweh’s like “I’m not sending plagues again for this crap.” And just visits the king in a dream, warns him about the deception, and promises not to hurt him. Now, Abraham claims to have lied because “I thought the people here had no fear of God, so you would kill before my wife.” But that’s just it: why the heck wouldn’t he have prayed to God about it!?
Like “Hey, yo, Yahweh, I’m scared these people will kill me for my hot sister-wife.
Yahweh: “No problem dude; I’m the God of covenants and faithful promises: no harm will come to you or your wife. In fact you’ll leave here richer.” (Abe does leave richer btw. Again.)
The point is: Abraham once again shows he doesn’t have faith in God and specifically God’s power over life and death.
Next: Isaac is born. To a 100 year old man and a 90 year old woman. The 90 year old woman with the barren — aka dead — womb gave birth to a baby — aka life. How? Yahweh is the God of faithfulness and loyal love who brings life out of death. Maybe you catching on to a theme…
But Sarah isn’t. Ishmael is laughing either with or at Isaac (it’s unclear and quite frankly I don't trust Sarah) and Sarah is m a d. she once again wants the slave and her child out of their home. This time Abraham is uneasy with this, but he distinctly doesn’t turn to God; God must come to him. God says, “😔. It’s fine. It’ll be fine. Isaac is the chosen one, but I will not forsake Ishmael. In fact, I will make a great nation from the son of the slave woman. All because of my loyal love and faithfulness to you.”
So Hagar leaves (with nothing but a water bottle. Seriously.), almost dies, Yahweh protects her, nourishes her and her son with his life, and Ishmael gets married. All is well, right?
Why? Abraham. First: Abraham’s past sin has once again endangers this woman’s life (and we know God has a special love for 1) suffering women and 2) suffering foreigners. Hagar is both). Second: Abraham has not yet proven he trusts God or that he knows him. So what does Yahweh do? He tests him.
This is The Binding of Isaac.
Yahweh says, “Abraham! Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and offer him there as a burnt offering on the mountain.”
So what does Abraham do? Does he fight? Does he wrestle? Does he lie?
No. He does the one thing he hasn’t done all along: he trusts in Yahweh and Yahweh’s character.
Abraham takes his son and some servants to the mountain. He leaves the servants below the mountain and says “Stay here. Isaac and I will go up and worship, and we will come back to you.”
We will come back to you.
In fact (so I've heard) the Hebrew can be translated “We are determined to go, we are determined to worship, we are determined to return.”
Is he lying to the servants?
No. It is my conviction that he truly believed he and the boy would return.
Why? He heard several times that God planned to make Isaac a great nation (Genesis 12:1-7, 13:14-17, 15:1-21, 17:1-21, 18:1-15). So Abraham finally believes him. I mean, how could he not: Yahweh is the God of covenants and faithful promises. He is overflowing in loyal love. He protects Abraham even in his sin just because of some one off promise he made. And finally: Yahweh is the God with authority over life and death. Yahweh is “the Resurrection and the Life.” Abraham is the first in the Bible to believe in the resurrection of the dead.
note: we know the idea of the resurrection was not widespread early on in Israel’s religion. First people believed you died and then you were just gone. But then people like David began to meditate on Yahweh’s character and decided that if Yahweh was as overflowing in loyal love as Moses said he is, then Yahweh would not leave their bodies in the grave but would one day resurrect them back to life because he loves them. This is similar to how some Christians idea of hell has developed past “God mad. Punish sinner.” And into a more temporary condition and even autonomous choice on the individual. And these ideas are as old as the faith itself. This doesn’t mean these things are wrong or that they had a different religion, but that as our understanding of God develops, so will our understanding of our theology. Moses says "God is loving." John says "God is love." Moses says "God is like a mother." Julian of Norwich says "God is our mother." Not a contradiction, a progression.
Hagar, a polytheist immigrant slave, a stranger in a strange land far before Moses was, trusts in God so much she returns to slavery and gives him a new name because he spoke to her 1 time. Yahweh has spoken Abraham countless times and he has refused to have faith. Now, he must.
If Yahweh says “Kill the son by which I will make you a great nation.”
Abraham says “Bet. I will. And you will resurrect him. Why? Because you are the Yahweh Yirah — Yahweh the Provider.” Provider of what? A ram? No. Yahweh is the provider of life.
“By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received promises offered up his only begotten son […] concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead.” — Hebrews 11:17, 19
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