22:13 Abraham looked up 7 and saw 8 behind him 9 a ram caught in the bushes by its horns. So he 10 went over and got the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son.
1 tn Heb “he”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
2 sn Take your son…Isaac. The instructions are very clear, but the details are deliberate. With every additional description the commandment becomes more challenging.
3 sn There has been much debate over the location of Moriah; 2 Chr 3:1 suggests it may be the site where the temple was later built in Jerusalem.
4 sn A whole burnt offering signified the complete surrender of the worshiper and complete acceptance by God. The demand for a human sacrifice was certainly radical and may have seemed to Abraham out of character for God. Abraham would have to obey without fully understanding what God was about.
5 tn Heb “which I will say to.”
6 tn Heb “will see for himself.” The construction means “to look out for; to see to it; to provide.”
sn God will provide is the central theme of the passage and the turning point in the story. Note Paul’s allusion to the story in Rom 8:32 (“how shall he not freely give us all things?”) as well as H. J. Schoeps, “The Sacrifice of Isaac in Paul’s Theology,” JBL 65 (1946): 385-92.
7 tn Heb “lifted his eyes.”
8 tn Heb “and saw, and look.” The particle הִנֵּה (hinneh, “look”) draws attention to what Abraham saw and invites the audience to view the scene through his eyes.
9 tc The translation follows the reading of the MT; a number of Hebrew
10 tn Heb “Abraham”; the proper name has been replaced by the pronoun (“he”) in the translation for stylistic reasons.