Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology

The obedience leitmotif complements the tension centered in the sacrifice and enables the good news of Isaac's salvation to stand as a reaffirmation of the patriarchal promise.

The kingship has been integrated into the fundamental relationship between Yahweh and the people and that relationship reaffirmed. A crisis has been described and resolved in narrative and theological terms, and a new era can begin.

The primary meaning of the Song would then have to do with human sexual love—the experience of it, its delights, its fidelity, and its power.

By rasing the form-critical questions our attention will be drawn directly to the text itself, and what it communicates concerning the prophetic role, the broad question of authority and validity in religious language, and the specific issue of the authentication of prophetic words ... these are issues which refuse to be confined to the eighth century B.C. in Israel.