The Lord Tells Abraham To Offer Isaac as a Sacrifice

22 ^(A) Some years later God decided to test Abraham, so he spoke to him.

Abraham answered, “Here I am, Lord.”

^2 (B) The Lord said, “Go get Isaac, your only son, the one you dearly love! Take him to the land of Moriah, and I will show you a mountain where you must sacrifice him to me on the fires of an altar.” ³ So Abraham got up early the next morning and chopped wood for the fire. He put a saddle on his donkey and set out with Isaac and two servants for the place where God had told him to go.

⁴ Three days later Abraham looked off in the distance and saw the place. ⁵ He told his servants, “Stay here with the donkey, while my son and I go over there to worship. We will come back.”

⁶ Abraham put the wood on Isaac's shoulder, but he carried the hot coals and the knife. As the two of them walked along, ^7-8 Isaac said, “Father, we have the coals and the wood, but where is the lamb for the sacrifice?”

“My son,” Abraham answered, “God will provide the lamb.”

The two of them walked on, and ^9 (C) when they reached the place that God had told him about, Abraham built an altar and placed the wood on it. Next, he tied up his son and put him on the wood. ^10 (D) He then took the knife and got ready to kill his son. ¹¹ But the Lord's angel shouted from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!”

“Here I am!” he answered.

¹² “Don't hurt the boy or harm him in any way!” the angel said. “Now I know that you truly obey God, because you were willing to offer him your only son.”

¹³ Abraham looked up and saw a ram caught by its horns in the bushes. So he took the ram and sacrificed it instead of his son.

¹⁴ Abraham named that place “The Lord Will Provide.” And even now people say, “On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.”^[a]

¹⁵ The Lord's angel called out from heaven a second time:

^16 (E) You were willing to offer your only son to the Lord, and so he makes you this solemn promise, ^17 (F) “I will bless you and give you such a large family, that someday your descendants will be more numerous than the stars in the sky or the grains of sand along the seashore. They will defeat their enemies and take over the cities where their enemies live. ^18 (G) You have obeyed me, and so you and your descendants will be a blessing to all nations on earth.”

¹⁹ Abraham and Isaac went back to the servants who had come with him, and they returned to Abraham's home in Beersheba.

The Children of Nahor

^20-23 Abraham's brother Nahor had married Milcah, and Abraham was later told that they had eight sons. Uz was their first-born; Buz was next, and then there was Kemuel the father of Aram; their other five sons were: Chesed, Hazo, Pildash, Jidlaph, and Bethuel the father of Rebekah. ²⁴ Nahor also had another wife.^[b] Her name was Reumah, and she had four sons: Tebah, Gaham, Tahash, and Maacah.

Sarah's Death and Burial

23 ^1-2 When Sarah was 127 years old, she died in Kiriath-Arba, better known as Hebron, in the land of Canaan. After Abraham had mourned for her, ³ he went to the Hittites and said, ^4 (A) “I live as a foreigner in your land, and I don't own any property where I can bury my wife. Please let me buy a piece of land.”

^5-6 “Sir,” they answered, “you are an important man. Choose the best place to bury your wife. None of us would refuse you a resting place for your dead.”

⁷ Abraham bowed down ⁸ and replied, “If you are willing to let me bury my wife here, please ask Zohar's son Ephron ⁹ to sell me Machpelah Cave at the end of his field. I'll pay what it's worth, and all of you can be witnesses.”

¹⁰ Ephron was sitting there near the city gate, when Abraham made this request, and he answered, ¹¹ “Sir, the whole field, including the cave, is yours. With my own people as witnesses, I freely give it to you as a burial place for your dead.”

¹² Once again, Abraham bowed down ¹³ and said to Ephron, “In front of these witnesses, I offer you the full price, so I can bury my wife. Please accept my offer.”

^14-15 “But sir,” the man replied, “the property is worth only 400 pieces of silver. Why should we haggle over such a small amount? Take the land. It's yours.”

^16-18 Abraham accepted Ephron's offer and paid him the 400 pieces of silver in front of everyone at the city gate. That's how Abraham came to own Ephron's property east of Mamre,^[a] which included the field with all of its trees, as well as Machpelah Cave at the end of the field. ¹⁹ So Abraham buried his wife Sarah in Machpelah Cave that was in the field ²⁰ he had bought from the Hittites.

(A psalm by David for the music leader. Use flutes.)

A Prayer for Help

(A psalm by David for the music leader. Use stringed instruments.^[a])

A Prayer in Time of Trouble