ULDAH MINISTRY

No,62　　Dec. 2000

　【 AKEDAH -THE BINDING OF ISAAC 】

Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, "Abraham!" "Here I am," he replied. Then God said, "Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about." Early the next morning Abraham got up and saddled his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. He said to his servants, "Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you."
Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, "Father?" "Yes, my son?" Abraham replied. "The fire and wood are here," Isaac said, "but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?" Abraham answered, "God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son." And the two of them went on together. When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the LORD called out to him from heaven, "Abraham! Abraham!" "Here I am," he replied. "Do not lay a hand on the boy," he said. "Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son. Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called that place the LORD Will Provide. And to this day it is said, "On the mountains of the LORD it will be provided." [v.14, ' And Abraham called the name of that site "HASHEM Yireh," as it is said this day, on the mountain HASHEM will be seen.' in the Stone Edition of the Hebrew Bible] The angel of the LORD called to Abraham from heaven a second time and said, "I swear by myself, declares the LORD, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sｋy and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, and through your offering all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me." Then Abraham returned to his servants, and they set off together for Beersheba. And Abraham stayed in Beersheba.
Genesis 22:1~19.

This story is a very famous biblical incident of Abraham's faith in God of Israel, which occurred around four thousand years ago on Mount Moriah, which is today occupied by the Dome of the Rock, a Muslim mosque. Every line of the passage breaths the amazing obedience of Abraham even to the point of killing his only son, Isaac. Accordingly, this story is about the Sacrifice of Isaac in Christian tradition but in the Jewish tradition it is about the Binding of Isaac, 'AKEDAH' in Hebrew. Christianity takes Isaac as the prototype for the sufferings and trials of Jesus Christ and sees in the story a foreshadow of the death of Jesus as a substitute for human's sins. Illustrations of 1) Isaac climbing up the mountain, bearing the wood for the burnt offering on his shoulders and 2) a ram caught by its horns in a thicket on the Mount, are thought to typify Christ. More precisely, the former pictures Jesus, carrying His own cross, going out to the place of crucifixion, Golgotha. Roman's cross was in a shape of T and its main pole which measured around 7 feet high, was already erected on the place of crucifixion. Thus, condemned criminals had to carry a horizontal cross piece, i.e., cross-beam on his shoulder. The latter pictures how miserably and cruelly a crown of thorns that was twisted together was set on Jesus' head by mockers. Christians call Jesus "our Passover lamb," and also " the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world" as Isaac was the sheep for the burnt offering because he threw himself down before his father like a sheep that is sacrificed. Such a Typology has been supported by church fathers such as Tertullian, the second century theologian and Ireneaus. They believed that the true interpretation of the biblical story could only be understood with reference to Christ. However, it is quite significant that Judaism claims the interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in its own light without any reference to Christ and the New Testament.
There are two major similarities between the two faiths concerning the story. They seem to arise due to the influences of ancient pagan legends on Judaism over the years. In fact, neither did the Christians escape pagan influences which advocated gods who died and rose again after death to life. One of the parallels is the fact that Satan is there behind the scene. Jesus died on the cross 'so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death -that is, the devil-and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.'(Heb.2:14~15) The Jews also understood the Evil Impulse, and regarded the angel of death as Satan and also that Satan was cunning to prevent and undo the 'AKEDAH', in that Isaac was presented as a self-sacrifice and self-offering of an adult hero rather than a mere small child. The other parallel in the line of the story is that both faiths have the idea of the Resurrection of the Dead in common. Christians believe that by Christ's resurrection, having disarmed the powers and authorities, Satan lost dominion over the believers, which is bringing about a substantial hope for the believers to be able to live a new eternal life. Among countless Christian references concerning this subject, there are little hints in Hosea 6:2, 'after two days he will revive us, on the third day he will restore us, that we may live in his presence.' The Jewish logic thinks that by merit of the Torah (The first five books of the Hebrew Bible) being given on the third day as recorded in Exodus19 and also by merit of Abraham offering Isaac in the third day after the journey to Mount Moriah, the resurrection of the dead is to take place as Abraham himself announced beforehand to his servant that both would return in peace. The Midrash, a Jewish exposition of the Bible explains "By virtue of Isaac who offered himself as a sacrifice on top of the altar, the Holy One, blessed be He, will quicken the dead in the future, as it is said (Ps.102:21).' (Pesikta Kahana 200b). As implied in this Jewish exposition, it was one of the rabbinic characteristics to interpret the story of Isaac as if he actually died either by burning fire or shedding a quarter of blood on the altar. This kind of peculiar interpretation might have been a result of the 'searching' process or the so-called Midrashic exposition, in order to find an explanation as to why it was Abraham alone that returned to his servant after the incident of 'AKEDAH'.
As to the phrase, 'the third day of Resurrection,' though it is used predominantly in Christian circles, its usage actually goes back to times far before Christianity as well as Judaism, as early as the eighth century BCE. In the ancient Near East, the idea of the death and resurrection of the gods such as the Babylonian Tammuz and the Egyptian Osiris, on the third day was well respected among the nations. It was said that the period of three days after death, when the facial features of corpses began to decompose and become unrecognisable, was also a time in which miracles and wonders could still take place to reverse the process of decay and death. However, if this was the case, interestingly enough, would not Jesus' uniqueness in the account of Lazarus' resuscitation (John11) attract our attention once again, in which Jesus' beloved brother Lazarus had already been dead for good four days? It almost appears as if the account had to be there to demonstrate God's utter omnipotence far beyond pagan beliefs.
Returning to the difference in understanding of the story between the two faiths, one can observe that beliefs and interpretations floated from one religion to another. Such interrelation is not surprising if we think that one line of interpretation starts off at first to act as the influential agent and eventually ends up being influenced itself. In other words, a forgotten tradition can sometimes be re-found through contact with other faiths. Whereas Christians focus on Abraham's faith and take Isaac as a sacrifice and even victim, Jews focus on Isaac's willing, self-offering actions and take him as a biblical hero by whose merit the other Jewish people benefit. On the one hand, the church fathers regarded Isaac as a child, on the other hand, the rabbis suggested that Isaac was a mature adult, 37 years old. Indeed, if Sarah died soon after the incident, from Genesis 23 which says that Sarah died at age of 127, at that point Isaac would have been 37 years old. It is also reasonable to think that the incident occurred toward the end rather than at the beginning of the period between Ge. 21 and 23, because a considerable passage of time is implied such that long after Abraham stayed in the land of the Philistines, God tested him.
The main purpose of the rabbinic discussion over Isaac's age was to highlight his willingness to give up his life as a self-offering but not as martyrdom, which in return suggested that Jesus Christ was not especially significant to give up his life among the many patriarchs and the prophets who offered their lives on behalf of Isaac. In turn, the church fathers emphasised the fact that since Isaac had actually neither suffered nor been harmed, he was merely a shadow of Jesus and that Jesus had been the first and only one who truly died and yet defeated death, thus achieving atonement and forgiveness once and for all. Accordingly, such pressure from the Christian interpretation might have been another reason why the rabbis had to interpret the text, in such direct contradiction, telling the story as if Isaac had died. At other times, in light of the reality of persecutions under the Roman Empire in the second-century, esteem for the awesome story of the 'AKEDAH' seemed diminished among the Jews because it appeared irrelevant and too ideal for them to care about someone of ancient time who was merely thought of as a possible sacrifice but who was miraculously delivered out of the crisis.
The fact that there is a surprising and controversial factor in this story, should not be overlooked, when examining God's unusual command to Abraham. His command to sacrifice a person is without doubt unusual because it apparently contradicts the sixth law of Moses, 'You shall not murder.' Abraham might be exempt from being accused of not weighing His command in line with the law, because the Written Law had not yet been given to Israel in his day. However, the Noahic Covenant had already been addressed to all the nations, a part of which taught the preciousness of man, 'Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man.' Clearly then, Abraham should have categorically forbidden any action to kill Isaac. While we may struggle to understand this enigma, there might be a clue in the consideration of the circumstantial background of his days. As already briefly referred to before, paganism was rampant among the Jews, in which it was not an unusual custom at all to offer to gods a share of their first-born animal or human, lest the rest of the tribes and livestock should be destroyed at the night of the full moon, in the first month of the Spring season. Idol worshipers believed that slaying the first-born was an atonement for sin. They sometimes substituted such physical sufferings of death with a slight incision in one's neck and a few drops of blood. Under this environment it is highly possible that Abraham, without any doubt against God's request, just genuinely obeyed what He had ordered him to do. Surprisingly, far beyond anyone's imagination, Abraham's completely obedient action triggered off a new era, in which animal sacrifice revolutionarily turned out to be substituted for human sacrifice. It was a clear reminder to Israel that human sacrifice had been abolished and instead, animals provided. In the story, what God instituted was animal sacrifice in place of human, as expressed in the v.14, 'on the mountain HASHEM will be seen,' in Hebrew Bible, more concretely, "the LORD will see to the appropriate ransom of His choice for His offering." Since then, the place has been acknowledged as the sanctuary where the Lord made Himself available to those who call upon His name for salvation, further in a broadened sense, where the pilgrims would see the presence of the Lord who will see to their relief and deliverance from troubles. All the fountains of salvation would be there on the Temple Mount forever.
As examined above, the merit of the 'AKEDAH' was to endure for ever as a divine confirmation of a new way of worship, that is, abolition of pagan practices of human sacrifice and idolatry that had deeply seeped into Israel and the instigation of appropriate animal sacrifice. However again, there are other unavoidable polemical arguments arising among the Jews against Christians that the heart of Christian faith, the event of crucified Jesus at Golgotha is a continuation and a return to ancient pagan beliefs which were strictly forbidden by the Lord in the story. Christianity has without hesitation identified the 'AKEDAH' with the foreshadow of Jesus' crucifixion, clearly fixing His death on the identical date of Nisan 14, when the Passover lamb was instituted to be offered in the Written Law of Moses. How can Christians refute the argument? Is it really backsliding to paganism to accept and to believe in Jesus' death on the cross as our substitute? Has Christianity retrieved the pagan inheritance, i.e.,what has for long been completely forgotten and cleansed out of generations of Israel by exile?
The search for these answers seems to be an on-going process. However, as for me, on contemplating over the meaning of 'the matured sacrifice of God's choice,' a thought hit me. Christ was literally, 'mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations,' as Apostle Paul illustrated in the letter to the Colossians. God indeed abolished the pagan practice of human sacrifice through the 'AKEDAH' and will never accept any of them. At the same time he is the only One who has the right to choose His best offering. Consequently, paradoxically, God the Father chose His only begotten Son in place of animal sacrifice. To put it another way, God sent Jesus Christ, who was and is and to be the only appropriate sacrifice of His choice this time once and for all among all animal and human sacrifices, to die on the cross as our atonement in the same place where Isaac was almost sacrificed 2000years ago. Since the day of Jesus' crucifixion it is unthinkable that God will again command us to offer any sacrifice to Him, because all the fountains of salvation have already been gushing out by the blood of Jesus

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This month a money gift has been sent to MARY JANE's ministry to the impoverished children in the Philippines, who are at this moment are under the care of her mother and also to support her course to be a qualified child-care teacher. Pray for the Lord's wisdom and guidance upon her and also for her future ministry.

We hope all the blessings and peace of this special Season
Will light up your life with Faith, Hope and Love.
Wherever and Whoever we are,
JESUS CHRIST is God's Gift for us!

Thank you for your sincere prayers for us all and for your generous contributions to support other's ministries for the disadvantaged and oppressed in the world throughout this closing year. May the Lord bless you all.

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