Journal: Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
Volume: JETS 55:3 (Sep 2012)
Article: The "Aqedah" (Genesis 22): What Is The Author "Doing" With What He Is "Saying"?
Author: Abraham Kuruvilla

JETS 55:3 (September 2012) p. 489

The Aqedah (Genesis 22): What Is The Author Doing With What He Is Saying?

Abraham Kuruvilla

Abraham Kuruvilla is associate professor of pastoral ministries at Dallas Theological Seminary, 3909 Swiss Avenue, Dallas, TX 75204.

For millennia, Bible scholars, both Jewish and Christian, have exerted themselves at the task of interpreting Genesis 22, the Aqedah.1 This article will revisit these interpretations and then proceed to answer the question: What was the author doing with what he was saying in Genesis 22? The goal here is to provide the preacher with an interpretation of the account that may be fruitfully employed in the pulpit to change lives in the pews for the glory of God.

I. Traditional Views

The perplexities of this narrative are many. Elie Wiesel, the holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize-winning author, called this story “terrifying in content.”2 How could God test/tempt someone in so gruesome a fashion, seemingly contradicting his own promises? How could Abraham agree to this gory transaction? What did Sarah—and for that matter, Isaac—think about the whole deal? And, of course, the question of how Christ fits into the scheme has kept Christian interpreters busy.

1. God’s joke? The account is so unimaginable as it stands that some have thought God must have been joking! Woody Allen thinks it happened this way3:

And Abraham awoke in the middle of the night and said to his only son, Isaac, “I have had a dream where the voice of the Lord sayeth that I must sacrifice my only son, so put your pants on.”

And Isaac trembled and said, “So what did you say? I mean when He brought this whole thing up?”

“What am I going to say?” Abraham said. “I’m standing there at two a.m. in my underwear with the Creator of the Universe. Should I argue? …

And Sarah, who heard Abraham’s plan, grew vexed and said, “How doth thou know it was the Lord and not, say, thy friend who loveth practical jokes …?”

And Abraham answered, “Because … [i]t was a deep, resonant voice, well-modulated, and nobody in the desert can get a rumble in it like that.”

…

JETS 55:3 (September 2012) p. 490

And so he took Isaac to a certain place and prepared to sacrifice him, but at the last minute the Lord stayed Abraham’s hand and said, “How cou...