Binding of Isaac - A Different Kind of Test 1

Paul Nuechterlein of the Girardian Reflections on the Lectionary has a transcript of a sermon that he preached about the binding of Isaac called Binding and Releasing. His web site is excellent and looks at all the Lectionary readings from a Girardian/Peace Church perspective. He, too, sees it as a test...but a test of an entirely different kind. In his view, the test was to discern the true voice of God who spared Isaac (at the end of the story) from the god of this world who ordered him sacrificed (at the beginning of the story) As I mentioned in my first post in this series, child sacrifice was no big deal in Abraham's day and age. In spite of Biblical prohibitions against it, the Israelites continued to do it throughout much of their history. The prophets vehemently spoke against it. The Lord called it detestable.

He begins by saying:

What I want to suggest to you this morning is that, well over two thousand years later, we are in a position to see that the story-teller in Genesis simply had this wrong: God does not, and never has, asked us to do anything so terrible as to sacrifice our children. The true God didn't ask Abraham, either. No, the voice of the true God is the one telling Abraham to stop!

He goes on to explain what he sees as a clue in the text.

In verses one and twelve, for example, the verses where God has asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, the Hebrew name for God is Elohim. In verses eleven and fourteen, however, the Hebrew name for God is that name, Yahweh, which became so special that Jewish people won't even say it aloud. Instead, they will say, "Lord," Adonai in Hebrew. What's significant about this? Let me briefly explain. Yahweh is the name that Moses receives before the burning bush. He is trying to make every excuse in the book not be the one to go to Pharoah and say, "Let my people go!" So among other excuses, Moses tells God, "I don't know what name to call you when I go to Pharoah." So God tells him, "Yahweh!" This is the special name for God that Hebrew people have in telling the world of the one true God.

Elohim, on the other hand, is the earliest Hebrew word for "God." Its simplest form is El, which you find in many Hebrew names, such as Beth-el, "House of God." Most significantly, Elohim is the word used to talk about all gods, even the other false gods. When the First Commandment says, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me," elohim is the word for gods.

So by providing that all important clue (the two different names for God/god in the original language) Paul N believes that it enables us.....

to see that Abraham first followed the voice of the tribal gods of the cultures surrounding him. We know from anthropology that it was common to sacrifice children in the Canaanite cultures of those days. Abraham thought he heard the voice of the God who had called him out of all that, but was now telling him to do the same thing. Then, at the last second, Abraham passed the test by finally hearing the voice of Yahweh, the voice of the one true God, telling him to stop.