Genesis 22:1–19

 Find a quiet place, alone and apart from distractions. Be comfortably alert, still, and at peace. Recite the Lord’s Prayer. Sing or cant the Jesus Prayer. Pray for family, friends, neighbors, and yourself. Slowly and carefully read the passage of Scripture. Also read: Isaiah 6:1–13, 2 Chronicles 3:1, Galatians 2:15–18, Hebrews 11:17–19, and James 2:18–24.

           1.              Here now is one of the most important passages in all the Bible. It is often referred to as The Akkida, the sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham, his father, and through whom must come the Messiah.

           2.              The passage then is very prophetic; it is a looking forward to the great sacrificial substitute, which lay more than two millennia away.             

           3.              God (Elohim in the Hebrew text) tests, not tempts, Abraham. He calls out to him and Abraham’s reply is “Here I am.” (Heneni in the Hebrew, and which is the corporate name for Jews for Jesus.)

           4.              Abraham is to take his young son Isaac to the land of Moriah  which means, the place of provision. This place is associated with Jerusalem. It would be here that Elohim would provide a substitute.

           5.              Two days travel from Beersheba, where Abraham was living at the time, just north of Egypt, the company arrives at Moriah.

           6.              Abraham and Isaac move off together, build an altar, but Isaac asks where the sacrificial animal is. His father replies, “God will provide.”

           7.              Then Isaac is bound (the Akkida) and laid atop the wood on the altar. Abraham raises the knife to kill his son when a messenger of the LORD (Yahweh) stops him. Abraham replies, “Here I am.”

           8.              There a ram, whose horns are caught in a thicket, is provided as the sacrifice, a substitutionary atonement as theologians like to refer to this event.

           9.              Abraham referred to this place as “The LORD will provide.” Mount Moriah, at Jerusalem, and where the temple would be built is the place where the LORD did provide.

           10.           Here is a prophetic event that looked forward to the day when Jesus Himself, the sacrificial Lamb, would be crucified. He would die rather than the Chosen of God.