Charles Ellicott Commentary Genesis 22:2

"And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest, even Isaac, and get thee into the land of Moriah. And offer him there for a burnt-offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of." — Genesis 22:2 (ASV)

Take now. — Now is not an adverb of time, but an interjection of entreaty, usually coupled with requests and intended to soften them. It thus makes the words more an exhortation than a command.

Your only son Isaac. — The words in the original are more emphatic, being, “Take, I pray, your son, your only son, whom you love, even Isaac.” If childlessness was so unendurable in old times to Abraham (Genesis 15:2), what would it be now, after so many years of enjoyment of a son, and after giving up Ishmael for his sake (Genesis 17:18)?

The land of Moriah. — Moriah may either mean Jah is teacher (see Note on Genesis 12:6) or Jah is provider. The first is supported by Isaiah 2:3, where the verb is rendered will teach; but the second agrees best with Genesis 22:8; Genesis 22:14.

If this is the meaning, the name would be derived from this event and would signify the place where “Jehovah will Himself provide the sacrifice.” It has also been suggested by many able commentators that the place meant was Moreh in Shechem, and that the site of the sacrifice was, as the Samaritans affirmed, the natural altar on the summit of Mount Gerizim.

But as Abraham and Isaac reached the spot on the third day, and evidently at an early hour, Gerizim is too remote from Beer-sheba for this to be possible.

Even Jerusalem is distant enough, as the journey from Beer-sheba takes twenty and a half hours, and travelers in those days had to cook their own food and prepare their own sleeping accommodation.

We may also notice that Moriah is described as a land, in some part of which Abraham was to be shown the special mountain intended for the sacrifice; Moreh, on the contrary, was a place where Abraham had lived and which was therefore well known to him.

Offer him there for a burnt offering. — Hengstenberg and others have argued that Abraham was not to kill Isaac, but to surrender him spiritually to God and sanctify him by a burnt offering. But this is contradicted by the narrative itself (Genesis 22:10) and by the passage in the Epistle to the Hebrews referred to above, where the victory of Abraham’s faith is described as consisting in the belief that even though Isaac were killed, nevertheless the promise would still in some divine manner be fulfilled in him.