Of all the trials of Abraham's faith which came to him over a long period of years, none was more searching than the one recorded in the twenty-second chapter of Genesis. His eager desire to have an heir by his wife Sarah had now been fulfilled, and he was assured that his descendants through Isaac would be innumerable; but before the lad was old enough to have children of his own, the thought came to Abraham that he himself must sacrifice this only and dearly loved son.
To the patriarch's imperfect understanding, this came as a direct command from God. Strange and now almost unbelievable as might appear to be the parts played both by Abraham and by his God in the vivid drama as the Bible records it, a careful study of its context and of the thought and practice of Abraham's contemporaries casts some light upon the harrowing ordeal so bravely faced by the father and by his son.
For one thing, it is important to realize that in the King James Version of Genesis 22:1 the Hebrew phrase rendered "God did tempt Abraham" does not refer to temptation in the modern sense of enticement toward evil, for the verb has the fundamental meanings of "test, try, prove, assay"—much as we test or assay precious metals to discover their basic purity and consequent value. Moreover, may it not be that such testing indicated an implicit recognition of the patriarch's ability to withstand even such a stringent trial as this?
