By Clement Harrold
June 5, 2025
One of the most famous and dramatic scenes in the entire Bible comes in Genesis 22 when God tells Abraham to take his son Isaac and sacrifice him in the land of Moriah. For Christians and non-Christians alike, the passage can feel challenging and perplexing. How could an all-loving God command a father to kill his innocent son? And what’s to stop God doing the same thing again in the future? To answer these questions, we need to look more carefully at what’s going on in the biblical text.
A Willing Victim
The first thing to notice about the sacrificing of Isaac—also known as the Aqedah, or “binding”—is that Isaac is old enough to consent to what’s going on. Jewish tradition holds that he was in his 20s or 30s at the time, and this is supported in the text of Genesis. For one thing, the same Hebrew word that’s used to describe Abraham’s servants (“young men” in the RSV) is also used to refer to Isaac (“lad” in the RSV).
Additionally, there’s the important detail in the narrative that Isaac is the one who carries the wood for the sacrifice: “And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it on Isaac his son” (Gen 22:6). Given that the quantity of wood would have been considerable, Isaac must have been a strapping young man by this point. And it makes sense that Abraham would lay the wood on his son, since Abraham was well over a hundred years-old by this point (see Gen 21:5)! Isaac could easily have resisted and overpowered his elderly father if he so chose.
These considerations help us to see that what Genesis 22 is really describing is the sacrifice of both Abraham and Isaac. Abraham is making a sacrifice insofar as he willingly offers up that which he cares about most in this world: “your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love” (Gen 22:2). (Note: Ishmael was also one of Abraham’s sons, but his mother was a concubine and he had already left Abraham by this point.) But it’s important to affirm that Isaac is also making a sacrifice by voluntarily accompanying his father up the mountain.
Trusting God’s Promises
Equally crucial to understanding the text of Genesis 22 is the absolute trust which Abraham has in God’s perfect goodness and justice. As the preceding chapters of Genesis attest, Abraham did not always possess this level of trust. It’s only in the Aqedah that we see the perfection of Abraham’s faith journey; the patriarch has come to a place of trusting completely in God’s promises, no matter how unlikely they may appear.
In Genesis 22, God’s promise to make Abraham the father of a great nation seems to face an existential threat. Recall God’s promise to Abram (later renamed Abraham) back in Genesis 12:
Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who curses you I will curse; and by you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves.” (Gen 12:1-3)
God has great plans for Abraham, and He’s already done something utterly miraculous by giving Abraham and Sarah a son, Isaac, in their old age. It’s this same Isaac, moreover, who is guaranteed to continue Abraham’s name and bloodline: “for through Isaac shall your descendants be named” (Gen 21:12). But now God now seems to be throwing all that away by telling Abraham to sacrifice his beloved son.
Yet a close reading of the text of Genesis 22 suggests that Abraham did not see things this way. On the contrary, Abraham never stopped trusting in God’s promises, and he never stopped believing that God would pull through. We find evidence of this in Abraham’s parting words to his servants: “Stay here with the ass; I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you” (Gen 22:5). Unless Abraham is telling a bald-faced lie, it seems he really believes that he and Isaac will safely return after they have offered sacrificial worship to God.
Just as significant is Abraham’s description of what the sacrifice will involve. Isaac asks, “Behold, the fire and the wood; but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” (Gen 22:7). Abraham replies, “God will provide himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son” (Gen 22:8). In Hebrew, as in English, Abraham’s response can mean one of two things. It can mean either (a) God Himself is going to find a lamb for us to sacrifice, or (b) God will provide Himself as the lamb for the sacrifice. While the first meaning is what plays out on Mount Moriah, the second meaning will be fulfilled some 2,000 years later when Jesus, the innocent Lamb of God, offers Himself up for the sins of the world (see John 1:29). But in either case, it’s clear that Abraham expects God to offer a substitute for Isaac.
The epistle to the Hebrews helps us to reflect on the deeper significance of Abraham’s trust:
By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was ready to offer up his only son, of whom it was said, “Through Isaac shall your descendants be named.” He considered that God was able to raise men even from the dead; hence he did receive him back, and this was a symbol. (Heb 11:17-19)
Here the inspired author affirms that Abraham had faith in God’s promise to give him many descendants through his son Isaac. Not only that, but Abraham even had faith in God’s power to raise men from the dead. In other words, Abraham knew that the sacrifice on Moriah would not end in Isaac’s death. He knew that his son, whose death seemed assured, would be rescued from death “on the third day” (see Gen 22:4). He knew that God would provide.
A Singular Event in Salvation History
The Aqedah has aptly been called the Calvary of the Old Testament. Indeed, we can only properly make sense of this episode in light of the Cross. Isaac, who offers himself on Moriah, is a type or symbol of Christ, who offers Himself on Calvary. Both men are described as only beloved sons; both are willing victims; both carry the wood of their own sacrifice. Even the location of the two sacrifices is roughly the same (see 2 Chron 3:1). Yet whereas Isaac is saved by a lamb caught in a thicket by its horns, Jesus is the Lamb of God who wears a crown of thorns on His head; He is the Savior who lays down His life for the sins of the world.
In their book A Catholic Introduction to the Bible: The Old Testament, John Bergsma and Brant Pitre unpack the striking parallels between Moriah and Calvary:
This typological reading provides a powerful explanation for the otherwise inexplicable and unique occurrence of the God of Israel appearing to command human sacrifice. Seen in the full light of the New Testament and living tradition, we discover that God does not desire the death of Isaac but does desire for Abraham and Isaac to enact within salvation history the kind of self-sacrificial donation that God himself, as a Trinity of persons, will carry out in order to bring about the salvation of mankind. Because Abraham the father and Isaac the son are both willing to submit to the test, they win for themselves arguably the most solemn oath of blessing from God in the entire Old Testament (Gen 22:15-18) and become models of faith even for the New Covenant. (ch 6, “The Sacrifice of Isaac and the Passion of Christ”)
Genesis 22 is not condoning human sacrifice; it’s condemning it. For while the passage underscores the value of being prepared to offer everything to God, it also emphatically affirms that God does not desire Isaac’s physical death. Nor does God desire the spiritual death of any of His children—and in this respect Genesis 22 stands as a poignant foreshadowing of the astounding lengths that God will go to at Calvary in order to save His people from their sins.
All of this helps highlight the fact that the sacrifice of Isaac is a unique event in salvation history. Of the 100+ billion human beings who have walked this planet, only one has received the kind of command given to Abraham. It was, moreover, a singular event which will never be repeated, especially now that we have been given the Scriptures and the teachings of the Church through the definitive revelation of God’s Son (see Heb 1:1-2).
We should remember, too, that the command to sacrifice Isaac was only ever given as a test (see Gen 22:1). God never had any intention of letting Isaac die, and the Old Testament as a whole offers a strong rebuke to the practice of child sacrifice which was so commonplace in the ancient world (see Dt 18:9-13; 2 Kgs 17:15-17; Ps 106:34-39; Wis 12:3-7; Ez 20:30-32).
Was it immoral for God to command Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, even when He knew the sacrifice wouldn’t be carried out? No, it wasn’t immoral, so long as God had a morally sufficient reason for giving the command. As the author of both life and history, God could give the command without violating His perfect justice or goodness.
God knew ahead of time that Isaac would be a willing victim and that Abraham would continue to trust in the promises He had received. But He gave the command so that Abraham’s faith might grow by being tested, and so that Abraham’s descendants would receive a powerful and prophetic illustration of the sacrifice which God Himself intended to make when he offered up His only beloved Son for the salvation of the world.
Further Reading
John Bergsma and Brant Pitre, A Catholic Introduction to the Bible: The Old Testament (Ignatius Press, 2018)
https://www.catholic.com/magazine/blog/god-abraham-and-human-sacrifice
About Clement Harrold
Clement Harrold earned his master’s degree in theology from the University of Notre Dame in 2024, and his bachelor’s from Franciscan University of Steubenville in 2021. His writings have appeared in First Things, Church Life Journal, Crisis Magazine, and the Washington Examiner.
