Charles Ellicott Commentary Genesis 22:13

"And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold, behind [him] a ram caught in the thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt-offering in the stead of his son." — Genesis 22:13 (ASV)

Behind. —By a slight change in the shape of a consonant, many ancient authorities read one ram instead of a ram behind (“him” is not in the Hebrew). This correction is almost certain, as nowhere else is the word translated behind used as an adverb of place. The ram was probably one with four horns, still common in the East.

A burnt offering instead of his son. —We have here the fact of substitution, and the doctrine of a vicarious sacrifice. The ram took Isaac’s place, and by its actual death completed the typical representation of the Saviour’s death on Calvary. In The Speaker’s Commentary it has been well shown that there is no difficulty in this representation being composed of two parts, so that what was lacking in Isaac was supplied by the ram.

And while it would have been most painful for Isaac to have actually died by his father’s hand, the doctrine of the possibility of a vicarious sacrifice would have been even less clearly taught in that way. He therefore rises again to life from the altar, and the ram dies in his place. By these two combined, the whole mystery is set forth: God giving His Son to die for mankind, and life springing from His death. Compare the mystery of the two birds, Leviticus 14:4; and the two goats, Leviticus 16:8.