Before we get to the question that is the title of this post, let’s review the story of Abraham and the commandment to sacrifice Isaac.

The Book of Abraham in the Pearl of Great Price teaches that Abraham was raised in a wicked setting, by men, including his father, who worshipped idols. “Their hearts were set to do evil.” They sacrificed children to their idols, and Abraham’s father even tried to sacrifice him. When Abraham was on the brink of being sacrificed to an idol, he prayed and was saved by an angel. The voice of the Lord covenanted with him to take him away from this wicked land and into a strange land, where he would be blessed. Abraham 1:1-19

Abraham journeyed to this new land, where he had revelations and made covenants with God. Abraham married Sarah. They could not have children until very late in life, when the Lord sent them a son, Isaac, long after Sarah was past the age when she could have children. This miracle son was Abraham’s second born. His firstborn was Ishmael, whose mother was Sarah’s handmaiden, Hagar. Hagar and Ishmael were driven out when Isaac was young. I’m skipping all the details, obviously.

Now we get to Abraham’s test, the Abrahamic sacrifice, the great test of obedience and faith. The Lord told Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac, in a burnt offering [FN 1]. Abraham apparently didn’t tell Isaac about the command to sacrifice him. Isaac asked where the lamb was. Abraham said that God would provide one. Technically, that was true. God had sent Isaac as a miraculous birth, and then God sent a ram in the thicket. But it was a cagey answer. The story doesn’t say Isaac cooperated. It says that Abraham “bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood.” Genesis 22:9. Isaac is passive in that verse — it’s Abraham acting on Isaac to tie him up and put him on the altar.

You’re familiar with the story so I’ll skip to the end. Once Isaac was tied to the altar, with Abraham standing over him with a raised knife, an angel showed up and said, “Just kidding! We just wanted to see what you would do. There’s actually a ram in a thicket. Untie Isaac and sacrifice the ram instead.” The Lord went on to say that because Abraham had not withheld “thy son, thine only son” (Ishmael is apparently no longer Abraham’s son?) that the Lord would multiply his seed as the stars in heaven, “and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.” Genesis 22:1-18.

The LDS Church, and most all of Christianity I assume, teaches this attempted sacrifice of Isaac as a great display of Abraham’s faith and obedience. Church lessons and Church leaders encourage us to follow Abraham’s example and sacrifice things out of obedience, even if it’s hard.

Now we get into the question I asked in the title of the post.

Whose Point of View Do We Use to Judge Whether Abraham Passed the Test?

The ideas that follow germinated after I read a mini-essay written by a Jewish person, that I didn’t bookmark or save so I can’t give proper credit. But the gist of the post was that Judaism does not teach perfect obedience to God in the way that Christianity does. Instead, the Jewish God prefers his followers to push back, argue with him, question things. Abraham did this when he bargained with God to save Sodom and Gomorrah if even five righteous people could be found (Genesis 18:16-33).

(Keep in mind that there are many different teachings in various sects of Judaism and they don’t all agree. There isn’t “one right interpretation” of the story of Abraham and Isaac in Jewish tradition and other Jews may disagree; the essay I read wasn’t the definitive statement on the Jewish interpretation of this story.)

Instead of judging that Abraham passed the test because of the Lord spoke and renewed the covenant of posterity, in the essay that I read, the author examined the events in the story that followed.

Abraham’s Point of View

The Lord never spoke to Abraham again. There are no revelations to Abraham after the voice of the Lord congratulates him for being willing to sacrifice his son. If Abraham wanted a closer relationship with God as a result of this episode, he didn’t get it.

After Sarah dies, Abraham remarries a woman named Keturah and fathers six more sons. He now has eight sons. He leaves everything to Isaac (Genesis 25:5). Abraham had even more sons from concubines. He gave them gifts and sent them away from Isaac (Genesis 25:6). Then he dies “in a good old age” (Genesis 25:8).

That’s it. After he tried to sacrifice Isaac, he never had a spiritual experience again. He procreated. He sent a servant to find a wife for his son, and he remarried and had a whole lot more sons.

The story doesn’t say Abraham ever sought out God in prayer again. The beginning of Abraham’s story contains a lot about his desire to know God; there are no more efforts after he tied Isaac to an altar. Was the silence on God’s end — was God disappointed that Abraham was willing to kill his son? Despite knowing how evil child sacrifice was?

Was the silence because of Abraham? After he had time to think things through, was Abraham horrified that he was willing to kill his own child because God told him to? And so he deliberately distanced himself in an effort to avoid all future revelations? If God wanted a closer relationship to Abraham, he didn’t get it.

Sarah’s Point of View

Sarah is completely omitted from the story about Abraham attempting to sacrifice Isaac. Did Abraham talk to her about this commandment? I’m going to guess that he didn’t. Abraham leaves with Isaac to go sacrifice him, and the next time Sarah is mentioned, it’s to say that she died. Genesis 23:1-2. Nothing suggests that they talked out what happened before she died. We have zero information about what Sarah thought about this.

Isaac’s Point of View

Isaac was about 37 when Sarah died (he was born when Sarah was 90, and Sarah was 127 years old when she died per Genesis 23:1). He wasn’t married. At some point after Sarah’s death, Abraham sends his servant to find a wife for Isaac from among Abraham’s relatives. That’s where Rebecca comes from. Isaac marries her after the servant explains what he did (Genesis 24). Isaac was 40 years old when he married Rebecca (Genesis 25:20).

There is no interaction between Abraham and Isaac after the attempted sacrifice. Nothing. Not one word. Abraham sends his servant to find a wife for Isaac, and the servant tells Isaac when he brings Rebekah. Isaac is living “in the south country” and it’s apparently far away from Abraham (Genesis 24:62). There is no hint that Isaac ever met any of his half-brothers; there is no hint that Abraham ever met Rebekah. Isaac and Abraham are never together in the pages of the Bible again.

This is karma. Abraham left his family and went far away after his father tried to sacrifice him to an idol. Isaac apparently put a lot of distance between himself and Abraham after Abraham’s attempt to sacrifice him.

Isaac is a passive patriarch. He marries the woman his father’s servant tells him to marry. He has only a couple of interactions with God. The first recorded interaction between God and Isaac was when Isaac prayed because his wife was barren (Genesis 25:21), and the Lord sent them twins, Jacob and Esau. When Rebekah had a question about her sons, she got her own revelation (Genesis 25:22).

The Lord also sends Isaac to another land when there was a famine, and renews the Abrahamic covenant with Isaac. “I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars of heaven … Because that Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws” (Genesis 26:1-6). Isaac will be blessed because Abraham was righteous, not because of anything he did independently.

Rebekah takes charge of the birthright issue, and tricks Isaac into giving the younger son, Jacob, the birthright blessing. Isaac lets it stand (Genesis 27).

Throughout his life, Isaac mostly just lets things happen to him. Perhaps he would have been that way anyway. Abraham took action after his father tried to murder him. But what is Isaac supposed to do? Find a different God to worship? He doesn’t seek out a different God, but he also doesn’t seek out the God his father worshipped. Isaac asks God for his wife to conceive. The Lord appeared to Isaac to tell him to leave the land to get away from a famine. That’s it.

Abraham’s test of faith apparently ruined his relationship with his son, and may have traumatized his son in ways he never recovered from.

God’s Point of View

Based on what Abraham heard right after he tried to sacrifice Isaac, the Lord was pleased with Abraham’s obedience and promised him posterity and blessings. This is where we get into our own views of God, and what kind of God we are willing to worship.

If God wanted Abraham to spend the rest of his life procreating, then yay, that’s what Abraham did. If God wanted Abraham to have a close and loving relationship with Isaac, that didn’t work out so well.

The Christian God who demands absolute obedience, even if we’re commanded to do something that violates our moral code, is a frightening and costly God to worship. There is a lot of evidence in the text that God was pleased with Abraham’s willingness to kill his son. Abraham is held up as an example of a righteous man throughout the scriptures. But who would want to be Abraham? Who would want to be in a family relationship with someone like Abraham?

A more Jewish view of God would question the command to kill Isaac. Abraham knew how evil that action was. He knows how he felt about his own experience when his father tried to sacrifice him to an idol. Did God really want Abraham to repeat the sin of his father? And what kind of God gives a command like that just to see if Abraham will refuse to obey?

In Our Daily Lives …

This situation reminds me of men called into full-time Church service. Their Church work takes them away from their families. I’ve read posts from children of men who served faithfully in the Church who resent their fathers for being gone so much. They even resent the Church, and many have left. Did these men pass an Abrahamic test? Did God want all their time and attention in this life? Did God want them to spend more time with their families?

One of the lessons I take from the story of Abraham and Isaac is that you can’t have it both ways. At some point, in some situation, you’ll have to choose between God and family.


FN 1: By modern standards, this is an episode of religious psychosis. Someone tried to murder their child because God told them to, and then immediately thereafter heard the voice of the Lord praising his obedience and promising him a multitude of posterity that would bless the whole earth.

Questions:

  1. Have you had to choose between obedience to God and being a good parent/child/sibling/spouse?
  2. There are several examples of Mormons believing that they got a revelation to kill someone: the Lafferty brothers, Chad and Lori Daybell, others. Abraham is not a good example to follow. Have you ever had to teach the Sunday School lesson about Abraham and Isaac? How did you approach it?
  3. The Church’s Come Follow Me lesson compares Isaac to Christ and asks this question: What can we learn about Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ from the accounts of Abraham and Isaac and of the Crucifixion?
    1. Do you see any similarities between Isaac and Christ? Differences?