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 22,2)

Never before had Abraham been put to such a strange test. He had already experienced the test when God seemed to be silent not fulfilling His promise. It had lasted very, very long but in those years he learned that God does not lie and that in the end He can do the impossible.

But now God had gone much further. If at first He did not give him what Abraham longed for, now He wants to take away what he has and loves. God never asked him to make human sacrifices, and even when Abraham was victorious in battle, he did not resort to such practices. But he did not yet have the Torah and the Prophets in his hand and no teachers around who he could ask and verify that this was an abomination in God's eyes. He suspected, but could not know for sure, whether God condemned such things or not. When God told him what he was to do, Abraham had to take it as he was told and decide whether to obey.

We are all familiar with the test when God does not seem to act. Even Jesus refers to it as a normal spiritual experience when the door is closed and the friend is unwilling to listen to requests (Luke 11:5-8). As if he wanted to say that this is how God will appear to us at times, but we must continue, persevere, not giving up.

But the call to sacrifice a son was quite a "new level" for Abraham. God is acting, but against his revealed will, against his plan, literally against his people.

Unlike Abraham, we know how the story turned out. But he did not have that advantage. His head was spinning and he was breathing heavily, swallowing empty. For twenty-five years he has been climbing the heights of faith until he believed in life from death. Now he understood that another peak was still ahead of him. His name was Moriah. It was just dawn and he began to prepare for his journey.