Losing His First Born

At the feast for Laughter, its darker side, mockery, emerges.

We normally forget the fact that Ismael was Abraham’s firstborn son. In Sarah’s zealous clutching at her own idols comes the first demand for the death of Abraham’s son. “Drive out this slave woman and her son, for the son of this slave woman (notice the chiastic sequence) will not be heir with my son, with Isaac.” 

Nowhere is Abraham, the father, or his relationship with Ishmael acknowledged by Sarah except in the negative declaration that it must be severed. Nowhere by Sarah is there any acknowledgment of her part in bringing Ishmael into the world. She demands that Ishmael and his relationship to Abraham be undone, as if it never happened, and in the process “this slave woman” erased, as if she were never claimed as property or used as a surrogate.

Hagar, Sons and Seeing

You may remember the role seeing played in the story of Hagar and Sarah.  When Hagar saw she was pregnant Sarah was diminished in her sight. Sarah couldn’t tolerate seeing herself as diminished in the eyes of a slave girl, someone who by virtue of status ought to be small in her sight but was now swollen with the child Sarah herself had solicited. Sarah abused Hagar to the point of Hagar running back to Egypt.

Now Sarah’s demand appears evil in Abraham’s eyes. Sarah’s previous demand, to impregnate Hagar, ought also to have appeared evil in his sight, but not sufficiently evil as to not have done it.

Now the LORD intervenes, but once again in a strange way. Wasn’t it Abraham who asked “Will not the judge of all the earth do justice?” Now this LORD suggests to Abraham “Let it not seem evil in your eyes on account of the lad and on account of the slave girl. Whatever Sarah says to you, listen to her voice for through Isaac your seed will be acclaimed. But the slavegirl’s son, too, I will make a nation, for he is your seed.”

God tells him “Let it not seem evil in your eyes” even though it is.

Sarah has moved to take Abraham’s firstborn son away from him, and the LORD has backed her. The LORD has consented that Abraham lose son #1.

God Makes Hagar See Again

Hagar will be exiled. Early the next morning (remember this detail) Abraham takes bread and a skin of water and places it on Hagar’s shoulder (remember this detail too). Then he gave her the child (no name) and sent her away. Abraham has now sent his first son off possibly to his death.

They wander in the desert and the water runs out. Things are grim and now Hagar, the one that saw herself pregnant, and saw her mistress diminished in her sight through her pregnancy, now wishes she no longer had use of her eyes. She throws wilting Ishmael under a bush (remember this detail too) so that she will not see his death. Hagar does not wish to see the sacrifice Sarah demands.

She sat at a distance, raised her voice and cries out.

Readers of the Bible know that God has good ears. It’s interesting that the text notes Hagar’s cries but that the angel of God responds to Ishmael’s.

Once again, as before, the LORD speaks to Hagar about her son, that he will be a nation. He will not die under a tree. Hagar has not grasped onto the previous word of promise from God in faith, and the word is repeated.

Once again Hagar is given new eyes to see with, and this time she sees exactly what she needs when she needs it, water. The boy is saved, a spouse is secured for him from Egypt, and the promise moves forward.

We know these good things, but all Abraham knows at this point, he is already guilty of filicide.

The Second Filicide

“Abraham”

“Here I am”

“Take your son, your only one (now that Ishmael is gone), whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him up as a burned offering on one of the mountains which I shall say to you.”

Abraham left home, family, and country in obedience to this God. After long years, and at longer odds, this god had given Abraham not just one son but two. This god accented in the loss of his first born, and now demands the second son, the only one left. Sarah demanded the death of his first son, now Yhwh demands the death of his second.

Once again, as with Hagar, Abraham is up early to follow the LORD’s ghastly directive. Instead of bread saddled upon his wife’s slave, the donkey is saddled, slave lads are assembled, wood is split and the journey is begun. On the third day Abraham now sees the place from afar, parks the slaves and the animal and now saddles his son Isaac with the wood, securely carrying the butchering blade and the fire himself.

Witnesses

Sarah has often been in the shadows of the Abraham stories. The threat of her beauty was on his mind as a sojourner. She eves dropped on Abraham’s conversation with the three visitors. Where was she when the four headed out to offer sacrifice? What did she know? Did she in that moment feel as powerless as Hagar hiding her dying son in a bush from her sight? She was silent when bartered in Egypt for slaves and livestock. She is silent as her only son is taken by her husband, she who took her husband’s first born son from him.

Isaac too is a witness. These are his first words in the story.

Isaac begins with the intimate “my father”, which according to Robert Alter has the force of the postbiblical Hebrew “abba”.

Abraham replies to his only son left with the same words he responded to the LORD “Here I am” + “my son”.

“here is the fire and the wood (no mention of the knife) but where is the sheep for the offering?”

“God will see” is the response.

Sarah saw the departure of her son. Isaac saw the wood and the fire but did not see the sheep. The LORD will see the sheep, even if Abraham, Sarah, and Isaac do not.

“Abraham, Abraham” 

Only in chapter 22 do we have a record of God directly addressing Abraham by the name he gave him. “Abraham” “here am I”

The text that can be so hurried now slows to torturous speed. Abraham builds the altar. Abraham places the wood. Abraham binds his son Isaac. Abraham lays him on the altar on top of the wood (always the wood is named). Abraham reaches out his hand and takes the butcher knife to slaughter his son, but the angel of the LORD calls from heaven “Abraham, Abraham”

“Here I am”

There he is, standing above his son, his only son, ready to butcher him like an animal. Ready to kill all of his dreams. Ready to throw away everything he wanted for his life.

“Do not reach your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him, for now I know that you fear God and ou have not held back your son, your only one, from Me.”

Abraham raised his eyes and saw and look!, a ram was caught in the thicket. Hagar didn’t want to see her son so she hid him in a bush, now Abraham sees the replacement for his son caught in a thicket.

Hagar named the LORD “The God Who Sees” and now Abraham names the Place “Yhwh Will See” because “on this mountain, it shall be seen.”

The Promise Revised

The passage now goes onto have the LORD swear by himself that he will surely accomplish what he had promised to Abraham except with one significant addition.

The relationship began with the election of Abraham not based on Abraham’s faith or moral performance. God comes out of the blue to pronounce the promise. Now the LORD says “I will surely do this BECAUSE you have not withheld your son, your only one from me.”

Abraham’s faith is retroactively introduced into a promise given without condition. Abraham’s faith now participates in the promise which was given to him, apart from him, in a whole new way. Abraham, in a strange way, now owns the gift that was given, being invited into the authorship of the gift.

What does this mean? Abraham’s faith and Abraham’s future is now his in a way it was not before.

On This Mountain The Lord Will See

Just as the LORD asks nothing of Hagar that he is unwilling to do himself, so also the LORD asks nothing of Abraham he is unwilling to do himself.

2 Chronicles 3:1 asserts that Solomon built his temple upon Mt. Moriah.  Scholars of course debate whether the GPS coordinates were the same, but in terms of Biblical imagery the seeing that is done by Hagar, Abraham and the LORD is connected with the temple and for Christians that seeing is connected to the son who was slain.

Election Into Righteousness

Abraham was not chosen because he was righteous, but through the promise and through his obedience his election came to fruition.

The knowing of God is a mysterious thing. He places promises upon a man whose future looks far from secure. The man wanders and fails but in time, initiated by the electing relationship of God, he begins to trust God, even when God seems anything but trustworthy.

By faith Abraham left his country, his father’s house and his family to a land that the LORD would show him. By faith Abraham believed he would become a nation, even though in faithlessness numerous times he seemed to defeat himself. By faith surrendered his first born to the desert, into the hands of God not knowing if he would live or die. By faith he arose early to follow the call to sacrifice what seemed to be the only chance of receiving what he most desperately wanted. By faith he laid to rest the progeny idol that gripped his household and received Isaac seemingly back from the dead. By faith Abraham’s obedience is grafted onto the promise, the promise given before any obedience existed.

The Insecure Religion

Religions that appeal to our strength appeal to our fears. The message asserts that if we are strong then we will be rewarded. If we can marshal our strength and courage we can hold our future in our own hands. This LORD asks Abraham to do the opposite. Once he has Isaac within his grasp he is asked to release him, to return to the space when he had no son. He knew God was serious because he had had him release Ishmael. Why would God bluff him with Isaac?

God and Abraham both learn. Like a village atheist question God creates a question so hard even he can’t answer it. God relies on Abraham to extend him a gift. Abraham relies on God to see the provision he requires.

In the end as with Hagar Abraham is invited into the relational economy of the Trinity. God in a sense surrenders the future to the obedience of Abraham, and Abraham surrenders his future to the trustworthiness of the word of God. Each is dependent upon the other for their joy.

Perhaps the cost of entry into the communion of God is to know His suffering. To know what it is like to lose a son, to kill a son.

Perhaps the joy of entry into the communion of god is to know his joy. To know what it is like to have a son come back from the dead.