Genesis 22:1-3
He rose up early in the morning
The command names the son three ways before the destination: thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest. The response is a list of actions with no speech in it.
Places of the Bible
Mount Moriah
Three days’ walk to a hill whose name was only given at the end of the journey.
The instruction is deliberately vague about the destination: get thee into the land of Moriah, upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of. So the three days are spent walking towards a place not yet identified, carrying wood that has already been cut. The account gives almost nothing of what Abraham thought, and everything of what he did, in a sequence of plain verbs: rose up early, saddled, clave the wood, took two young men and Isaac, and went.
Scroll down to the storyThe movements, in the order the text gives them.
The story of Mount Moriah
- 01
- 02
Genesis 22:4-6
On the third day
He sees the place afar off and leaves the young men with the ass, saying we will come again to you. The wood is laid on Isaac.
- 03
Genesis 22:7-8
Where is the lamb
The only conversation between father and son in the chapter is a question and an answer, and they went both of them together is repeated on either side of it.
- 04
Genesis 22:9-14
A ram caught in a thicket by his horns
The voice calls his name twice and the hand stops. What is provided is behind him and was there before he looked.
- 05
2 Chronicles 3:1
In mount Moriah
Solomon builds the temple on the same named mountain, which puts every later sacrifice on that hill in line with this one.
Why it matters
The dialogue on the last stretch is four lines long and does all the work. My father, behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering. God will provide himself a lamb. Then the altar, the wood, the binding, the knife, and the voice out of heaven calling his name twice. The ram is caught in a thicket behind him, and he calls the name of that place Jehovahjireh, the LORD will see to it, and the text adds that it is said to this day, in the mount of the LORD it shall be seen.
2 songs
The music
Every song in the catalogue whose passage falls inside these chapters.
