God and Abraham in the Binding of Isaac

Abstract

This article offers a heterodox interpretation of the Binding of Isaac. It makes no claim to decisiveness but rather, in the tradition of the Rabbis, searches within the story to say, ‘This is what the story can mean’. God had commanded that Abraham sacrifice his son, and Abraham had obeyed without hesitation. This article contends that Abraham’s previous history suggests a lack of courage: that as he had surrendered Sarah, first to the Pharaoh of Egypt and then to King Abimelech because he feared he would be killed, so he surrendered Isaac because he feared divine retribution. And God, for his part, imposed his cruel test because he came to doubt Abraham. Ironically, however, the test that demanded the slaughter of the beloved son proved inconclusive, since it was a test of obedience and not of devotion; as such, it failed to address the question of whether Abraham remained in the covenant because of who God is or because of what God had promised. The story ends in a kind of mutual estrangement insofar as God never again speaks to Abraham or Abraham to God; each speaks only about the other and then almost impersonally.