Genesis 22:8

22:8 “God will provide 1  for himself the lamb for the burnt offering, my son,” Abraham replied. The two of them continued on together.

Genesis 22:13

22:13 Abraham looked up 2  and saw 3  behind him 4  a ram caught in the bushes by its horns. So he 5  went over and got the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son.

1 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.

2 tn Heb “lifted his eyes.”

3 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.

4 tc The translation follows the reading of the MT; a number of Hebrew mss, the LXX, Syriac, and Samaritan Pentateuch read “one” (אֶחָד, ’ekhad) instead of “behind him” (אַחַר, ’akhar).

5 tn Heb “Abraham”; the proper name has been replaced by the pronoun (“he”) in the translation for stylistic reasons.