Table of Contents
English Translation
- And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am.
- And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.
- And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him.
- Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off.
- And Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the ass; and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you,
- And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife; and they went both of them together.
- And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?
- And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together.
- And they came to the place which God had told him of; and Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood.
- And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son.
- And the angel of the LORD called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I.
- And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me.
- And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son.
- And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah-jireh: as it is said to this day, In the mount of the LORD it shall be seen.
- And the angel of the LORD called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time,
- And said, By myself have I sworn, saith the LORD, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son:
- That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies;
- And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice.
- So Abraham returned unto his young men, and they rose up and went together to Beer-sheba; and Abraham dwelt at Beer-sheba.
- And it came to pass after these things, that it was told Abraham, saying, Behold, Milcah, she hath also born children unto thy brother Nahor;
- Huz his firstborn, and Buz his brother, and Kemuel the father of Aram,
- And Chesed, and Hazo, and Pildash, and Jidlaph, and Bethuel.
- And Bethuel begat Rebekah: these eight Milcah did bear to Nahor, Abraham’s brother.
- And his concubine, whose name was Reumah, she bare also Tebah, and Gaham, and Thahash, and Maachah.
Genesis 22 (King James Version, KJV)
Notes
Genesis 22 is the story Jews call the Akedah, the binding of Isaac. Abraham is told to burn his son Isaac on a mountain in the land of Moriah. He walks three days, builds the altar and lifts the knife. A voice from the sky stops him, and a ram takes Isaac’s place.
When I read it again in 2026, I stopped following Abraham and started asking who is actually talking to him.
Two Voices on the Mountain
Verse 1 says “God did tempt Abraham”. In the Hebrew, the word for God here is ha-Elohim, “the Elohim”. Elohim is a plural word.
The voice that stops the knife in verse 11 is a different one. The KJV says “the angel of the LORD”. In Hebrew that is the malakh of YHWH, the messenger of Yahweh.
That is the detail I cannot let go of. The order to kill Isaac comes from the Elohim. The order to stop comes from YHWH’s messenger.
Paul Wallis showed me how to read Noah this way. He says that in the flood story the conflict between Enki and Enlil has “all been rolled into the internal thoughts of Yahweh or God.” With that in my head, Genesis 22 looks familiar. Someone on that mountain wants the firstborn, and someone else will not take the blood and hands Abraham a ram instead.
Mainstream scholars see two hands here too. Wikipedia sums up the documentary hypothesis this way:
Modern biblical critics operating under the framework of the documentary hypothesis have ascribed the binding's narrative to the biblical source Elohist, on the grounds that it generally uses the specific term Elohim
Wikipedia, Binding of Isaac
On that view, verses 14 to 18, where YHWH swears a blessing, are a later addition by the Yahwist writer. Some scholars think the angel in verses 11 and 12 was added later as well.
Where Is Isaac?
Verse 19 says “So Abraham returned unto his young men”. Isaac is not mentioned.
Wojciech Kosior noticed the same thing:
v. 19 ... conveys no trace of the patriarch's son ... The story ends with the issue of Isaac completely unresolved.
Wojciech Kosior, ‘You have not withheld your son, your only one, from Me’ (2013)
The biblical scholar Richard Elliott Friedman thinks the oldest version may have ended in blood. Wikipedia reports it like this:
R. E. Friedman stated that in the original E story, Abraham may have carried out the sacrifice of Isaac, but that later repugnance at the idea of a human sacrifice led the redactor of JE to add the lines in which a ram is substituted for Isaac.
Wikipedia, Binding of Isaac
Francesca Stavrakopoulou says the story may contain “traces of a tradition in which Abraham does sacrifice Isaac”.
Later prophets have YHWH deny he ever wanted child sacrifice. Jeremiah 7:31 says “which I commanded them not, neither came it into my heart.” I wrote more on this in Jeremiah 7 and Ezekiel 20.
Isaac in Oahspe
Oahspe tells this story with a twist that fits the two voices above. In the First Book of God, the one who asks for Isaac is not God. It is one of the evil angels that followed Abraham back from Sodom and Gomorrah, dressed in light and a crown, who calls himself God.
And the spirit said: Thou shalt take thine only son, Isaac, and thy hosts who were with thee at Sodom and Gomorrah, and go with me whither I will lead thee, for I have a great work for thee.
Oahspe, God's First Book, chapter IX, verse 12
Then spake the spirit, saying: What shall a man love above all things in the world? And Abraham said: God. And the spirit said: For which reason thou shalt offer thine only son, Isaac, as a burnt offering. And it shall be testimony before thy people that thou wilt obey God even to the sacrifice of thine own flesh and kin.
Abraham said: Show me that thou art God, that I may not err, for I have been commanded not to kill.
And the spirit departed away from Abraham, perceiving that he knew the higher law.
Oahspe, God's First Book, chapter IX, verses 17 to 19
Here Abraham passes the test by refusing. The people then catch a ram and give the roasted meat to the poor, and Abraham names the place Jehovih-Jireh. The whole chapter is on First Book of God.
