…Isaac, that is. Today, my calendar tells me (in a fulfillment of Pipes’ prophecy about how Islamism would infiltrate American life ) is Eid Al-Adha, the Muslim holiday commemorating Abraham very nearly slitting his son and only heir’s throat on Mt Moriah.
After that experience, Isaac as patriarch doesn’t really do much. Just marries the crafty Rebecca , sires Jacob and Esau. And who could blame him?
The Sunday School version is that God was testing Abe, He had to know whether Abe really had absolute faith in Him. But that has never made sense to me. Surely God knew the outcome, he “to Whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from Whom no secrets are hid”? So why put Abraham through that? Was it to show, not God, but Abe himself, that he had that kinda faith, that he actually would kill the person upon whom all his hopes rested? There’s no going back from that kinda revelation.
Also, why is this a Muslim holiday but not a Jewish or even Christian one? Ike was the dynastic usurper of Abe’s first son Ishmael, and later, the sire of Jacob; Jews, including Jesus , wouldn’t have ever existed if Abe had slashed Ike’s throat on that horrible day. You)d think the Muz woulda been happier with that.
Mysterious ways, indeed….
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Perhaps this was God’s way of not only showing Abe he had real faith but also that God was on his side, sparing him from sacrificing his boy. God would later do just what He kept Abraham FROM doing, on Calvary.
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I get the Biblical typology, of course. But I can’t understand the explanation that “oh! God was so merciful, He didn’t make Abe go through with it! “. That would only make sense if we knew why God wanted the human sacrifice in the first place. He didn’t let Jephtha’s daughter off the hook. But that story is more of the folk-tale type about never making an open-ended promise.
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