Angel’s Voice Saves A Boy’s Life

Stories From The Hebrew Bible
AN ANGEL’S VOICE SAVES A BOY’S LIFE

In the time of our stories, when men worshiped God, they built an altar and laid an offering upon it, as a gift to God. The offering was generally some animal that was used for food. Such an offering was called “a sacrifice.”

But the people who worshiped idols often did what seems to us very strange. They thought that it would please their gods if they would offer as a sacrifice their most precious living thing; and they would sometimes take their own children and kill them upon their altars as offerings to the gods of wood and stone, that were not real gods, but only images.

But our loving heavenly Father wished to see how faithful and obedient Abraham would be to His commands; how faithfully Abraham would trust in God, or as we might say, how great was Abraham’s faith in God.

So God gave to Abraham a command. He said:

Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love so greatly, and go to the land of Moriah; and there, on a mountain that I will show you, offer him for a burnt offering to Me.

God called Isaac Abraham’s only son, because he was the son of his wife Sarah; and also because Ishmael, the son of Hagar, had gone away and Isaac was now the only son at home with Abraham.

Though this command filled Abraham’s heart with pain, yet he would not be as surprised to receive it as a father would in our day; for such offerings were very common among unbelievers in the land where Abraham lived. Abraham never for one moment doubted or disobeyed God’s Word. He knew that Isaac was the child whom God had promised, and that God had promised, too, that Isaac would have children, and that those coming from Isaac would be a great nation.

Abraham always trusted God. Even when God commanded the offering of Isaac, Abraham never doubted!

Early in the morning, “Abraham got up and saddled his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering he sat out for the place God told him about.” For two days they traveled. And on the third day, Abraham saw the mountain far away. As they came near the mountain Abraham said to the young men: “Stay here with the donkey, while I go up to the mountain with Isaac to worship; and we will come back to you.”

Then Abraham placed the wood on Isaac, and the two walked up the mountain together. As they were walking, Isaac said, “Father, here is the wood, but where is the lamb for the offering?” And Abraham said, “My son, God will provide the lamb.”

And they came to the place on the top of the mountain. There Abraham built an altar, and on it he placed the wood. Then he tied the hands and feet of Isaac, and laid him on the wood on the altar. And Abraham lifted up his hand, holding a knife to kill his son. A moment longer and Isaac would be slain by his own father’s hand. But just at that moment the angel of the Lord out of heaven called to Abraham, and said, “Abraham! Abraham!” And Abraham answered, “Here am I, Lord.”

Then the angel of the Lord said: “Do not lay your hand upon your son. Do no harm to him. Now I know that you love God more than you love your only son, and that you are obedient to God, since you are ready to give up your son, your only son, to God.”

Do you think these words from heaven gave the heart of Abraham relief and great joy? How glad he was to know that it was not God’s will for him to kill his son! Then Abraham looked around, and there in the thicket was a ram caught by his horns. And Abraham took the ram and offered him up for a burnt offering in place of his son. So Abraham’s words came true when he said that God would provide for Himself a lamb.

And Abraham called the name of the place, The-Lord-Will-Provide; as it is said to this day, “In the Mount of the Lord it shall be provided.”

Abraham’s obedience, which seems so strange, did much good. It allowed God to bless Abraham; bless his decedents and all nations on earth. And it looked onward to a time when, just as Abraham gave his son as an offering, God would give His Son, Jesus Christ, to die for the sins of the whole world. All this we learn from Abraham’s obedience to God on the mountain.

At this time Abraham was living at a place called Beersheba, on the border of the desert, south of the land of Canaan. From Beersheba he took his journey to Mount Moriah, and to Beersheba Abraham returned after the offering on the mountain. Beersheba was the home of Abraham for several years. After a time, Sarah, the wife of Abraham, and the mother of Isaac, died, being one hundred and twenty-seven years old. And Abraham bought a cave from the people of Hebron, called Machpelah; and there he buried Sarah his wife.