The Binding of Isaac
about 2050 BC, traditional dateTraditional date
In Genesis God tests Abraham by telling him to offer his son Isaac as a burnt offering in the land of Moriah. Abraham obeys, an angel stops his hand, and a ram is offered in the boy’s place. The promise is confirmed with an oath.
Isaac had been born to Abraham and Sarah in their old age, and Abraham was living at Beersheba in the south (Genesis 21:1–5) (Genesis 21:33–34). Then, Genesis says, “God tested Abraham”. He was to take “your son, your only son, whom you love, even Isaac”, go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on a mountain that God would show him (Genesis 22:1–2).
Abraham rose early, split wood, and set out with Isaac and two servants. On the third day he saw the place and left the servants behind. Isaac carried the wood; Abraham carried the fire and the knife (Genesis 22:3–6). Isaac asked where the lamb for the offering was. Abraham answered, “God will provide himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son” (Genesis 22:7–8). At the place he built an altar, bound Isaac, laid him on the wood and took the knife (Genesis 22:9–10).
The angel of the Lord called to him from heaven: “Don’t lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him. For now I know that you fear God” (Genesis 22:11–12). Abraham saw a ram caught by its horns in a thicket and offered it instead of his son (Genesis 22:13–14). The angel called a second time. Because Abraham had not withheld his son, God swore by himself to bless him, to make his offspring as many as the stars and the sand, and through his offspring to bless all the nations of the earth (Genesis 22:15–18). Abraham returned to Beersheba (Genesis 22:19).
Genesis does not say where in Moriah the mountain was. Chronicles states that Solomon built the temple “at Jerusalem on Mount Moriah” (2 Chronicles 3:1), and Josephus, in the first century AD, says outright that the mountain of the sacrifice was the one on which the temple later stood (Josephus, Antiquities 1.226–227).
Hebrews says that Abraham offered Isaac by faith, reckoning that God could raise the dead, and that in a figure he did receive him back from death (Hebrews 11:17–19). James cites the act as the work that completed Abraham’s faith (James 2:21–22). Christian writers from the second century read the story as a foreshadowing of the cross. Irenaeus, about AD 180, compares Isaac carrying the wood with the taking up of the cross, and writes that Abraham gave up his only and beloved son so that God might be pleased to offer his own beloved Son for all Abraham’s offspring (Irenaeus, Against Heresies 4.5.4).
How this is dated
Traditional date. From later tradition or from internal biblical chronology, with no outside anchor.
Genesis gives no date and does not state Isaac’s age. It calls him a boy, old enough to carry the wood and to question his father (Genesis 22:5–7). The event falls between his birth, when Abraham was 100 (Genesis 21:5), and the death of Sarah at 127, when Isaac was 37 (Genesis 17:17) (Genesis 23:1).
On the chronology explained at the Call of Abraham, which adds up the Bible’s own figures and has no outside anchor, those limits are about 2066 and 2029 BC. Josephus says that Isaac was twenty-five (Josephus, Antiquities 1.226–227), which would be about 2041 BC. The year shown, about 2050 BC, is a round figure inside that range and no more exact than that.
Primary sources
Scripture
Jewish Antiquities
- Josephus, Antiquities 1.226–227lexundria.com
Against Heresies
- Irenaeus, Against Heresies 4.5.4newadvent.org
In context
Grows out of
- about 2080 BC to 2067 BC, traditional date
Leads to
- about 1929 BC to 1909 BC, traditional date
- AD 30 or 33, estimated date