God Did Tempt Abraham

Reading in Gen 22.1, this morning, where the KJV reads: And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham. The Hebrew word there is better rendered "to test," or "to cause or allow hardship in a situation." So the ESV translates it (better): God tested Abraham.

It was a severe test, no matter how one translates the word, perhaps the most severe apart from Christ going to the cross for our sins. "Take your son and offer him up as a sacrifice! Yes, the one through whom I promised you a multitude of descendants, as numerous as the stars in the heavens."

One struggles to find adequate words to describe Abraham's anguish as he climbed Mt. Moriah with the boy. Hebrews 11 tells us that Abraham believed that God could raise Isaac from the dead, so we can assume that Abraham thought that he would have to go through with what the angel of the Lord had commanded. It is a dramatic moment, one of the most dramatic in the Scriptures, and obviously a type of the full and final sacrifice of Christ at the cross.