God Speaks
22 Some time later, God tested Abraham’s faith. “Abraham!” God called.
“Yes,” he replied. “Here I am.”
2 “Take your son, your only son—yes, Isaac, whom you love so much—and go to the land of Moriah. Go and sacrifice him as a burnt offering on one of the mountains, which I will show you.”
3 The next morning Abraham got up early. He saddled his donkey and took two of his servants with him, along with his son, Isaac. Then he chopped wood for a fire for a burnt offering and set out for the place God had told him about. 4 On the third day of their journey, Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. 5 “Stay here with the donkey,” Abraham told the servants. “The boy and I will travel a little farther. We will worship there, and then we will come right back.”
6 So Abraham placed the wood for the burnt offering on Isaac’s shoulders, while he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them walked on together, 7 Isaac turned to Abraham and said, “Father?”
“Yes, my son?” Abraham replied.
“We have the fire and the wood,” the boy said, “but where is the sheep for the burnt offering?”
8 “God will provide a sheep for the burnt offering, my son,” Abraham answered. And they both walked on together.
9 When they arrived at the place where God had told him to go, Abraham built an altar and arranged the wood on it. Then he tied his son, Isaac, and laid him on the altar on top of the wood. 10 And Abraham picked up the knife to kill his son as a sacrifice. 11 At that moment the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!”
“Yes,” Abraham replied. “Here I am!”
12 “Don’t lay a hand on the boy!” the angel said. “Do not hurt him in any way, for now I know that you truly fear God. You have not withheld from me even your son, your only son.”
13 Then Abraham looked up and saw a ram caught by its horns in a thicket. So he took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering in place of his son. 14 Abraham named the place Yahweh-Yireh (which means “the Lord will provide”). To this day, people still use that name as a proverb: “On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.”
15 Then the angel of the Lord called again to Abraham from heaven. 16 “This is what the Lord says: Because you have obeyed me and have not withheld even your son, your only son, I swear by my own name that 17 I will certainly bless you. I will multiply your descendants beyond number, like the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will conquer the cities of their enemies. 18 And through your descendants all the nations of the earth will be blessed—all because you have obeyed me.”
19 Then they returned to the servants and traveled back to Beersheba, where Abraham continued to live.
20 Soon after this, Abraham heard that Milcah, his brother Nahor’s wife, had borne Nahor eight sons. 21 The oldest was named Uz, the next oldest was Buz, followed by Kemuel (the ancestor of the Arameans), 22 Kesed, Hazo, Pildash, Jidlaph, and Bethuel. 23 (Bethuel became the father of Rebekah.) In addition to these eight sons from Milcah, 24 Nahor had four other children from his concubine Reumah. Their names were Tebah, Gaham, Tahash, and Maacah.
23 When Sarah was 127 years old, 2 she died at Kiriath-arba (now called Hebron) in the land of Canaan. There Abraham mourned and wept for her.
3 Then, leaving her body, he said to the Hittite elders, 4 “Here I am, a stranger and a foreigner among you. Please sell me a piece of land so I can give my wife a proper burial.”
5 The Hittites replied to Abraham, 6 “Listen, my lord, you are an honored prince among us. Choose the finest of our tombs and bury her there. No one here will refuse to help you in this way.”
7 Then Abraham bowed low before the Hittites 8 and said, “Since you are willing to help me in this way, be so kind as to ask Ephron son of Zohar 9 to let me buy his cave at Machpelah, down at the end of his field. I will pay the full price in the presence of witnesses, so I will have a permanent burial place for my family.”
10 Ephron was sitting there among the others, and he answered Abraham as the others listened, speaking publicly before all the Hittite elders of the town. 11 “No, my lord,” he said to Abraham, “please listen to me. I will give you the field and the cave. Here in the presence of my people, I give it to you. Go and bury your dead.”
12 Abraham again bowed low before the citizens of the land, 13 and he replied to Ephron as everyone listened. “No, listen to me. I will buy it from you. Let me pay the full price for the field so I can bury my dead there.”
14 Ephron answered Abraham, 15 “My lord, please listen to me. The land is worth 400 pieces of silver, but what is that between friends? Go ahead and bury your dead.”
16 So Abraham agreed to Ephron’s price and paid the amount he had suggested—400 pieces of silver, weighed according to the market standard. The Hittite elders witnessed the transaction.
17 So Abraham bought the plot of land belonging to Ephron at Machpelah, near Mamre. This included the field itself, the cave that was in it, and all the surrounding trees. 18 It was transferred to Abraham as his permanent possession in the presence of the Hittite elders at the city gate. 19 Then Abraham buried his wife, Sarah, there in Canaan, in the cave of Machpelah, near Mamre (also called Hebron). 20 So the field and the cave were transferred from the Hittites to Abraham for use as a permanent burial place.
Source: New Living Translation: BibleGateway.com
We Respond
Reflection: Both chapters 22 and 23 of Genesis will be addressed in this session. Genesis 22: God tested Abraham’s faith. God told Abraham to go to an unspecified place and offer his long-awaited son of promise and his only heir as a burnt sacrifice. He went to the place directed and prepared the offering as prescribed and was proceeding as directed when God stopped him and provided a substitute. The angel of the LORD called from heaven and rewarded Abraham’s obedience with a further expansion of His earlier promises of blessing and innumerable descendants. [Genesis 22:19-24 will be considered when chapter 24 is discussed.] Making it personal: Have you, the reader of this blog, ever had God test your faith? The Lord once asked this author, “Whom do you love more, your fiancé or Me?” I had come to realize that the man I planned to marry was not a true believer in Jesus Christ. God was challenging me to break up with him. As difficult as it was on my heart, I obeyed God. To keep me to my promise, God used some remarkable circumstances to move me a three-hour drive away and gave me a good job and an excellent ministry with which to be involved. Genesis 23: From this point on, it appears from comparing Genesis 22:19 and 23:2 that Abraham and Sarah lived separately, possibly because of this incident. This chapter tells of Sarah’s death. According to The Rational Bible: Genesis by Dennis Prager, Sarah is the only woman for whom the Torah gives her age when she died (127 years). The rest of the chapter tells how Abraham purchased land with a cave for her burial. It was very important to Abraham that he buy the place, not just be given it. He insisted that he actually own the land for a permanent burial place. Now, more than three thousand years later, that land is still in dispute, but historical evidence proves that it belongs to Abraham and his descendants.
Prayer: Dear LORD God who both tests and rewards Your followers, thank You for Your presence during tests, trials, troubles, and tribulations. God, just as You tested Abraham’s faith, You test the faith of every believer at some time and in some way. LORD make me willing to obey You by going to an unspecified place and offer back to You even a long-awaited promise that You have fulfilled as a sacrifice. Help me to obey You regardless of the consequences. Father, You have already provided the required payment–death. Jesus was my substitute that paid for my sins. I have been blessed by His obedience. Please reward Him with a further expansion of the kingdom of God as You promised in Isaiah 53:11,12. Holy Spirit, help me to remain faithful amid strained family (or work or social) relationships. Please give me the wisdom that has pure motives and is peaceable, gentle, easy to get along with, full of mercy and good deeds, impartial, trustworthy, righteous, and leading to peace of heart, mind, and body. Only You know the ultimate results of my daily decisions, both big and small. May they bring You glory, AMEN
Action: (Ask God, the Holy Spirit, if He wants you to work on the suggestions below or something else more personal that He points out.)
- I will thank God that He is with me even as He is testing my faith. Because of that, I know I can pass the test.
- I will ask a mature believer to relate how God has tested their faith and whether they passed the test.
- I will help a younger believer to know that a test from God is coming, to prepare for it, to assist them in the midst of it, and to support them whether they pass or fall the test.
- I will seek God’s direction in making decisions, because only He knows the lasting impact and consequences of my decisions.
Share: I plan to share what I’ve learned with __________.