1After these things, God tested Abraham, and said to him, “Abraham!”
He said, “Here I am.”
2He said, “Now take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go into the land of Moriah. Offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains which I will tell you of.”
3Abraham rose early in the morning, and saddled his donkey; and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son. He split the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went to the place of which God had told him. 4On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place far off. 5Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey. The boy and I will go over there. We will worship, and come back to you.” 6Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son. He took in his hand the fire and the knife. They both went together. 7Isaac spoke to Abraham his father, and said, “My father?”
He said, “Here I am, my son.”
He said, “Here is the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?”
8Abraham said, “God will provide himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” So they both went together. 9They came to the place which God had told him of. Abraham built the altar there, and laid the wood in order, bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar, on the wood. 10Abraham stretched out his hand, and took the knife to kill his son.
11Yahweh’s angel called to him out of the sky, and said, “Abraham, Abraham!”
He said, “Here I am.”
12He said, “Don’t lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him. For now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.”
13Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and saw that behind him was a ram caught in the thicket by his horns. Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering instead of his son. 14Abraham called the name of that place “Yahweh Will Provide”. As it is said to this day, “On Yahweh’s mountain, it will be provided.”
15Yahweh’s angel called to Abraham a second time out of the sky, 16and said, “‘I have sworn by myself,’ says Yahweh, ‘because you have done this thing, and have not withheld your son, your only son, 17that I will bless you greatly, and I will multiply your offspring greatly like the stars of the heavens, and like the sand which is on the seashore. Your offspring will possess the gate of his enemies. 18All the nations of the earth will be blessed by your offspring, because you have obeyed my voice.’”
19So Abraham returned to his young men, and they rose up and went together to Beersheba. Abraham lived at Beersheba.
20After these things, Abraham was told, “Behold, Milcah, she also has borne children to your brother Nahor: 21Uz his firstborn, Buz his brother, Kemuel the father of Aram, 22Chesed, Hazo, Pildash, Jidlaph, and Bethuel.” 23Bethuel became the father of Rebekah. These eight Milcah bore to Nahor, Abraham’s brother. 24His concubine, whose name was Reumah, also bore Tebah, Gaham, Tahash, and Maacah.
Moses provides an initial glance into the concern and purposes of Yahweh regarding His covenant with Abraham and his posterity who were in Egypt, something that he reiterates in Exod 3:6-10 on Mt. Horeb when Yahweh appeared as a burning bush and the mission of Moses before Pharoah was announced to him.
First of all, the author reveals the impact of the captivity on the children of Israel. Exodus 2:23 indicates that the people of Israel "sighed" because of their bondage; they "cried out"; they had a "cry for help," and "their bondage rose up to God."
For each of these words, Yahweh had a response. He "heard their groaning." He "remembered His covenant." He "saw" the people, and He "took notice" of them.
In his commentary on Exodus, Roy L. Honeycutt, Jr. explains that these are responses of God. He says that God's remembrance of the covenant is a sign of His faithfulness to it. It speaks not to the faithfulness of the Jewish people under bondage but to the faithfulness of God. That he saw the people of Israel speaks to God's more in depth sense of knowing them, since He used the word ra'ah. When the text says that God knew, the word yadah' is used, which always indicates a personal and experiential knowledge of God.1 Compare the use of this word when Yahweh speaks to Abram regarding his obedience to God regarding the sacrifice of his son Isaac (Gen 22:12). Yahweh knew from eternity what Abraham would do, but He now, in time, experienced this event.
Yahweh's words in Exod 3:7-9 to Moses give a similar account of the people's condition of slavery in Egypt, but add the commitment of Yahweh to come down to deliver His people.
What is often not realized about this period of Israel's history is that God's empathy for people's pain is central to God's nature 2. God's deliverance in Exodus is a type of God's deliverance through the pain and death of His son, Jesus the Messiah, when He comes into the world as a human to experience the sorrow of human pain because of God's love (John 3:16) and for the second person of the Triune God to understand in His humanity the struggles of humanity.