Genesis 22 Essay

At The Mercy of the Author

Narratives are very common throughout the Old Testament and hold great value and are helpful tools for teaching. A narrative is a creation that forms to the will of the author. The author decides what he wants to be portrayed by forming the plot, choosing the characters, selecting the time, and recounting the dialogue. The process is slightly different when conveying the stories from the Bible since they are true and the author must remain true to the facts, but how the narrative is written is important to determining the intended message of the author; the reader is at the mercy of the author and only sees what he permits them to Genesis 22 depicts the account of God’s test of Abraham. In this passage Abraham is

Because of this fact the only logical explanation that God’s command for Abraham to sacrifice Isaac was a test; test of faith. “Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son” (Genesis 22:12). Since God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent He knew how Abraham was going to respond before the command was even given, but if God knew his heart, what was the objective of testing Abraham. Since the event was even recorded, there must be significance to the passage and there must be a message the author wanted to communicate to the audience. There are two main message in Genesis 22. The first message is faithful obedience. God commanded Abraham and he obeyed. It did not matter that Abraham doubted or that he was afraid or emotional at the coming loss of his only son. What shined brighter than all of that was God. When the world was crashing down the one thing that stood firm was his faith in God. Abraham learned from his past doubt (Genesis 17:17) and knew God would remain above