Now it came to pass after these things that God tested Abraham, and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” Then He said, “Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.” (Gen 22,1-2)
We have already said that God wanted to test Abraham not becuase he wanted to find faults and failures in him. It reminds us of testing in school, where most teachers surely test their students with the intention of wishing them a good grade, which after all is their aim, and not to humiliate them in front of the blackboard. While there may be some exceptions among teachers, that is not the case with our God. God rejoices when He finds a man after His own heart on earth.
But Abraham certainly did not expect a test of this kind. After all, only a few years before he had gloriously achieved what God had promised him, and so far he had lived with a consciousness of great gratitude. How long he had waited for that moment! He knew that he could wish for nothing more for his life, and he had had enough. All he ever worried about were the usual risks that could hurt anyone then, even his son - sickness, injury, war. But he was learning to see Isaac from a different angle. If God, the Judge of all the earth, had a plan for this child, then He didn't give it to him only to lose him again soon. At least until that special purpose God has for him is fulfilled.
"Go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.” God did not call Abraham to add a new element to his religion by building altars on the earth for human sacrifices, as some ancient cults did. Many would understand it this way: if God asks me to do something, then surely it is a new rule that should apply to everyone. But here it was something else, a special and personal Abrahamic journey, a one-time act of obedience. Something that took place between him and God. Abraham went through a great development in his relationship with Isaac and had to wrestle with difficult questions: would he view him as a fruit of his old age, would he appropriate him and cling to him as his only offspring? In short, was Isaac his most prized possession or rather a gift from God which Abraham was merely administrating on earth?
God has now, by this strange demand, prompted Abraham to return His gift to him. The test consisted in the question whether Abraham would be willing to do so.
