What did Abraham think to himself? (Genesis 22)

Sunday, December 6, 2009, 6:09 PM

Abraham and Isaac on Mount Moriah (Gustave Doré)

¹ After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here am I.” ² He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.” ³ So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac. And he cut the wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. ⁴ On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar. ⁵ Then Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey; I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you.” ⁶ And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son. And he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So they went both of them together. ⁷ And Isaac said to his father Abraham, “My father!” And he said, “Here am I, my son.” He said, “Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” ⁸ Abraham said, “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” So they went both of them together. (Genesis 22:1-8)

What did Abraham think to himself? We can only speculate, because the Bible says absolutely nothing. At most we can see some hints at Gen 22:5 and Gen 22:8.

To attribute Abraham some kind of "rational ethical thought", as though he was a Greek philosopher like Aristotle, or even a post-Illuminist philosopher like Kant, is rather anachronistic. At most we can imagine that Abraham's "ethical thinking" may have been something like this:

“I did not know You, and You have revealed Yourself to me. You are great and all-powerful, and nevertheless You have made me the object of Your favour, and do me the incomparable privilege of treating me as Your friend. But how could You be my friend if You are demanding from me to give back to you the most precious thing that You have given to me, my beloved son Isaac, who impersonates the promise that You have made to me, that in him (and nobody else), I will be the "the father of a multitude"?

Still I treasure Your friendship and our covenant, and therefore I am going to have faith in You, that You are not going to break the covenant that You have taken the initiative of establishing with me, a mere humble human being. Out of the love that I still believe You have for me, I will obey your demand and do what You are asking, even if I am puzzled and horrified. If you really intend to carry Your demand to the ultimate conclusion, I will have lost my son, that I owe entirely to You, but I will have also lost You, because our covenant will be broken, and, if You would not consider it broken, I would, anyway.

I can only hope that this is, on Your part, a test of my faith in You, and love/obedience for You, and that You are not deeming the gift that You have given me, my son Isaac, so worthless that you can ask it back, without giving any reason, other than you want me to offer him to You in sacrifice. If I am wrong, nothing would matter to me any more, anyway. You are all-powerful: all I have left, beside my faith in you and love for you, for my son Isaac and for my wife Sarah, is my hope that you are not a tyrant, playing with people's lives, for whom human life is so expendable as the life of any ram.”
[Abraham's thoughts, freely but truthfully attributed by Miguel de Servet]

To claim, as some do, that God did speak to Abraham, but that it was some sort of 'playful' demand, that God never seriously meant to put Abraham to the test, and that Abraham understood the 'playful' nature of the demand, seems like a (bad) joke to me.

How could Abraham know, anyway? Where would Genesis 22 suggest anything of the kind?

If one really wants to see Abraham's Trial under the category of "game", all I can say is that one has obviously not understood that this was, for Abraham, a mortal game, in which he was putting at stake all he had.