Genesis 22-23

What’s Happening?

After decades of waiting, the promised son has finally been born. Isaac is Abraham’s only son, the child through whom all God’s promises are supposed to come (22:2). Then, in one of the most shocking moments in Scripture, God commands Abraham to take Isaac to Mount Moriah and offer him as a whole burnt offering.

This seems unthinkable. God consistently condemns child sacrifice throughout the Bible (Leviticus 18:21; Jeremiah 7:31). He never intended for Abraham to harm Isaac. The point of the test was not death — it was trust. Would Abraham trust that God would bring life to the world through Isaac, even when death seemed to make it impossible?

Abraham’s trust shows in the details. When leaving for the mountain, he tells his servants: “We will worship and then we will come back to you” (22:5). Abraham fully believed that both he and Isaac would return. When Isaac asks where the lamb for the offering is, Abraham answers: “God himself will provide the lamb” (22:8). Abraham trusted that God would provide life even if his son died, because God had promised that life would come through Isaac.

It is also important to see what kind of sacrifice God asked for. It was a whole burnt offering, where something of greatest value is given entirely to God, with nothing kept back for oneself. It was a sign of total devotion and love for God. Abraham’s test was about devotion and trust, not about whether God actually desired a child’s death.

At the very last moment, God stops Abraham. A ram is caught in the thicket, and Abraham offers it instead. Abraham’s words prove true: God provides.

The rest of the story shows what this test accomplished. At the end of chapter 22, Abraham’s relatives suddenly begin having children in great numbers (22:20–24). It is the first visible fulfillment of God’s promise to make Abraham’s family fruitful. But chapter 23 confronts us again with death. Sarah, the woman whose womb God once filled with life, now dies (23:2). Abraham insists on buying a piece of land from the Hittites as her burial place. Though they try to give it to him, Abraham pays full price. Even in death, Abraham plants a flag of trust: this is the land God promised his family, and God will bring life out of death again.

Where is the Gospel?

This story points us to Jesus, the true Son of promise. Like Isaac, he is the beloved Son through whom life and blessing come to the world. But unlike Isaac, Jesus was not spared. He willingly gave himself as a whole offering of love and devotion to the Father (John 10:17–18).

What Abraham could not do, God did. God provided not just a ram but his own Son, who offered himself entirely. In Jesus, God proves his covenant faithfulness — life will come through Abraham’s family, even if it means going through death itself.

And just as life burst forth in Abraham’s family after the test, so life bursts forth from Jesus’ resurrection. The death of Sarah is not the end of the story, just as the death of Jesus is not the end. Both point forward to God’s power to bring life out of death and to fill the earth with a people who trust him.

For us, this means hope. Like Abraham, we live in the tension between God’s promises and the reality of death. But in Jesus, we see that God provides. He will not fail to raise up life, to give his people an inheritance, and to fill the world with his blessing.

See for Yourself

I pray that the Holy Spirit opens your eyes to see the God who provides life even when death seems to win. And may you see Jesus as the beloved Son, fully given in love, through whom God brings life out of death and fulfills his promises for the whole world.