Genesis 22

“Why have you been crying, Mother?” Isaac stood at the tent door, staring at his mother. He stepped inside and took her hand. “We’re going to make a special sacrifice. We’ll be back within a few days.”

Her smile did not reach her eyes as she waved him away.

The preteen* turned and joined his father. A donkey carried the wood for the altar, and two servants stood waiting with Abraham. A few butterflies fluttered above them. Sarah watched the small group, led by Abraham and her son, disappear in the distance.

The combination of pain and anger dried Sarah’s face. She understood the real purpose of the journey. Sarah and Abraham had argued long into the night.

“You can’t do this! We won’t have any sons to carry on. There will be no descendants like stars in the sky!” she shouted.

Abraham shook his head and replied softly. “This is what God told me to do. ‘Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.’ I have to, because …”

“NOOOO!” she screamed. “God told us we would have a son. A son. One son! Not any more! We can’t get Ishmael back. You sent him away. We have no other sons to fulfill God’s promise.”

She cried, threatened, pleaded, anything to dissuade him, to no avail. He turned away. And now they were gone, gone to sacrifice her son, the son she had nursed and burped. The son she had watched, holding out her hands, as he took his first steps. The son whose first tooth she had sewn into the hem of her robe.

As the sun rose high in the sky, the grieving mother slipped back into the tent. Picking up their sleeping blanket, she shook it angrily. She lifted it to fold it up, but instead, wadded it into a bundle and threw it into the corner. She would sleep in something else.

She turned to look out the tent flap. A butterfly circled near the front of the tent.It rose and fell, managing to face her most of the time. She glared at it. If this was God’s gift to them, as the elders said, it was not what she wanted. What she wanted was the son God gave her.

“But Isaac is the Son of the Promise,” she shouted, almost blowing the butterfly away.

The servants were nowhere around. Years of serving Sarah had taught them better than to remain close when their mistress showed her temper. She continued the argument with Abraham, even though he was out of sight and sound.

“Remember? Remember what God said when you had that other vision?” She stomped her foot on the hard-packed floor. “I hate your visions!” Her tone mocked her husband. “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.”* She remembered another vision. “Look up at the sky and count the stars—if indeed you can count them. So shall your offspring be.”*

She sank to the floor in despair. “Remember what God told you when you became Abraham instead of Abram? I went from Sarai to Sarah? God said, ‘Yes, but your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will call him Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him.’ ”* Head in her hands, she sobbed. “Isaac, my only son Isaac, my precious child, my tall, handsome son.”

Tears spent, she raised her head and lifted her hands, pleading, “God, you are my only hope now. You gave me this son when I had no hope. You scolded me for laughing, but you told us to name him ‘Laughter.’ Take care of this child, your child, the child you promised me.”

No voice answered, no vision of a safe return appeared, but somehow, Sarah found some peace. The butterfly continued its circle, seeming to stare at her. She wondered if this could be a sign from God. Surely God, who had given her this son, would not take him away now.

She knew her husband well. He would have no peace with the command ringing in his ears. “Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.” *

Would he have the courage even to look at his son walking beside him?

Would Abraham question his vision? Could he consider that he might have been mistaken? Might he have imagined what he heard? Might Sarah have been right? Was this God speaking? The people of their time believed that their gods sometimes required the sacrifice of their oldest son. He hated the thought of others doing it.

But the words would fill his ears again. “Take your son …” He had always obeyed, and he would obey now.

Sarah clutched the tooth in the hem of her robe, but she did not sleep. She had not slept since they left. This was the third day of anguish and grieving, alternating with a strange peace. When the peace came upon her, she dozed. But after a short time, she would wake with a start, shaking in fear.

At dawn, she crept out, looking over the hill, scanning the horizon. Of course, the darkness restricted her view, but she sat outside, staring where they had gone, willing herself to see a mountain that far away. Instead, in the moonlight, she saw a rabbit creep cautiously along the edge of the trees. And the butterfly returned, seeming to try to communicate with her.

It would be today. They would need about three days to reach the land of Moriah, to reach whatever mountain. It would be today.

The servants came and offered her breakfast, but she shook her head. They returned to their chores, cleaning up from the meal they had prepared, beginning the next meal. She saw them close enough to keep an eye on her, but far enough away to not disturb her. They had heard her screams of rage, her arguments with absent Abraham, and they had put the pieces together. They whispered sympathetically, but they stayed away. The butterfly followed her wherever she went.

She dozed. Did she dream? Or was she somehow transported to the place? She seemed to hover in the air as Abraham lifted the wood from the donkey and hung it from a sling on Isaac’s back.

The butterfly! Over Isaac’s head, was it the same butterfly? It couldn’t be in two places at once, but Isaac’s butterfly looked the same.

Abraham turned to the two young men with them. He pointed to the mountains. “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.”* She heard a catch in his throat when he said “we.” Did he mean that? Not if he was going to obey God’s order. Was that a sign or a slip of the tongue? He shook his head and touched his knife in its sheath inside his belt. Knowing him, he had spent the night sharpening the blade.

They set off together, the son carrying the wood and the father carrying the ember, carefully cradled in a small pot. Isaac’s butterfly flew along with them, staying close to the young man.

Abraham’s had accompanied them, but it hung back more than normal. Did it know what was going to happen?

About mid-morning, Isaac looked over at his father. “The fire and wood are here, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”*

“God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.”*

His answer reminded Sarah of her question. Would God provide a lamb? Isaac was the promised son. Isaac was the son to give them uncountable descendants, more than the stars in the sky. How could that happen if he offered Isaac as a burnt offering?

Something on Abraham’s face told Sarah what the man was thinking. She had heard it many times: God knew the future. God knew the plan. He would trust God’s promise and plan. “Trust.” She saw his lips form the word over and over, softly.

When Abraham picked up the first stones to make the altar, Sarah willed herself to flee. She could not stay. If she had any control of this vision, she would not remain there with them.

Back at the camp, a woman ventured toward Sarah with a bowl of stew, but when she shook her head, the servant returned to the others.

Sometime later, the dozing mother leaped to her feet, almost bumping into the butterfly hovering above her. “NO! STOP! NO!” In her semi-conscious mind, she had seen the flash of a knife. “Stop him, God,” she shouted to the wind, to the butterflies with her son and her husband. “Don’t let him do it! Don’t let him kill my son! Don’t let him! Isaac is your promise! Your covenant! Don’t let him kill your promise!”

She ran to the top of the hill, to the grove of trees, sobbing and screaming, “NO!” as her feet carried her to where she had last seen them. At the top of the hill, she collapsed. “No,” she murmured. “He’s your child too. The child of the promise. You promised …”

In her frustration, she swatted at the butterfly. “Go away! Stop following me!”

Ignoring the butterfly, she lay motionless on the ground until sunset, when she stumbled to her tent. Had God heard her? Had God responded? Had God protected her son? The child of the covenant?

Exhausted, she slept fitfully, still clutching the hem of her robe. Her half-awake dreams alternated between seeing the altar Abraham had built and feeling her son safe in her arms.

The next day, she accepted a bit of bread from the servants before returning to the top of the hill on the other side of the trees. And she waited, watching the butterfly. She had waited twenty-four years after God’s first promise for this child to be born. She could wait two or three days for him to return safely with his father.

At noon, she shook her head at the servant who came to offer her a bit of meat. She spent a few minutes looking at the servants as they whispered and glanced in her direction. Then she turned back to the horizon, waiting and watching, watching and waiting.

Despite knowing they would not travel at night, she did not return to the tent when the sun sank. She kept her vigil, even though she could see nothing. The moon stayed in bed, and dark clouds covered the stars. She shivered in the night air, but she watched, listening for the clopping of donkey’s hooves, the slapping of sandals, the scuffles of tired feet. The butterfly waited on a twig nearby. She wondered if butterflies sleep.

Morning came, and she ate the bit of hot porridge the servant offered. “Thank you. This is good,” she told her gently. The servant stared at her in surprise, then turned and went back to the camp.

“Maybe I should not be so harsh with them,” she thought. “They are trying to take care of me.”

Another sleepless night and she remained outside her tent. She ate and drank what the servant brought her. She decided the butterfly was sleeping, its wings folded tightly above it. She tried to remember seeing butterflies this close before. Only once, when the three men came by and she laughed when one of them, when God promised her a son.

As the sun began its afternoon descent, she thought she saw something on the horizon. She closed her eyes, shook her head, and looked again. Nothing moved. She sighed. “I’m tired,” she thought. “I haven’t really slept in how many days? I’m seeing things.” Another moan. Her shoulders sagged. “Oh, how I want to see them return.”

Gradually, she became aware of someone beside her. Not the butterfly resting nearby. She felt someone close. She felt a comforting Presence, like when she was a child, when she was sick, and her mother sat by her. “I’m going crazy,” she thought, “I’m going crazy.”

She continued to wait, alone, but not alone. She spoke to the Presence. “God, why would you do such a thing to my son? Why would you tell my husband to sacrifice your child of the promise?”

She remembered being called out from Harran, the city where they lived, to a place God would show them. Was that so they would recognize that God was different, so they could go beyond what others believed their gods wanted? Sometimes she seemed to understand God in new ways, but sometimes she held onto her old ideas. Was change coming? Did she have new understandings about God?

If Isaac lived, would he also find new ways to live, new ways to offer worship, new ways to serve? Somewhere inside her, deep within her mind and soul, she felt a vibrant affirmation. She looked at the butterfly, flapping its wings above her.

In the silence that followed, Sarah tried to clear her thoughts. Lack of sleep. That was her problem. If they did not return tonight, she would go back into the tent and sleep. She wanted to be awake and alert when …

The butterfly swooped down, almost touching her, and then flew away toward where they had gone. She followed it with her eyes. What did she see in the distance? Something moving! Several somethings moving! In the dusk, she could not count the figures. The shorter one, was that the donkey? She squinted into the setting sun, but she could not tell. As the sun hovered over the horizon, as the figures dropped into the shadows, she could not see them.

She started in their direction. At first, a slow, deliberate walk, but then her feet flew faster and faster, running breathlessly as a tall figure rushed toward her.

As their bodies collided, she heard Abraham’s voice saying, “He’s OK. It’s all right.” She sank into his arms, then turned and grabbed her son, her tall, handsome son. At his age, he often pulled away, but this time he hugged her close, lifting her off the ground.

“Thank you, God,” she cried, as her feet dangled above her son’s ankles and their butterflies swooped around them both.

Together, they returned to the camp. Abraham handed the donkey’s rope to the young men and followed Sarah, still clutching her son’s hand, into the tent.

“I don’t know,” he said, “if God was testing me—the angel seemed to say that. Or if you were right, if maybe something else. But the angel stopped me, and we sacrificed a ram caught in the bushes instead.” He paused. “We hurried back because I knew you were worried.” He reached out and touched her shoulder. “I’m sorry it was so hard for you.”

As she heard the butterflies landing softly on the tent, Sarah drifted off to sleep, clutching the child of the promise. She felt again the words of the Presence. “They will learn that I care about each of you, about all of you, and I do not wish the sacrifice of anyone.” She wondered how long it would be before people would learn.

* * *

* No age is given for Isaac at this point. The most common understanding of the event is that Isaac was a child, but verse 6 says that Abraham “placed” the wood on Isaac. The amount of wood needed for such a sacrifice suggests an older Isaac. A child could not have carried what the donkey did.