Ascending Son

Abram builds altars all over the land (Genesis 12:7-8; 13:4, 18; 22:9), wherever Yahweh appears to him. But what does he do at those altars? He “calls upon the name of Yahweh” (12:8; 13:4). None of the normal terminology of sacrifice is used in these passages – no “offering” or “ascension” or “cause to go up.” Only calling on Yahweh. Abram is like a rebirth of the line of Seth (cf. 4:26).

Abram’s only offering/ascension occurs in Genesis 22. Suddenly the text abounds in the use of ‘olah (noun in 22:2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 13; verb in 22:2, 13). Yahweh tells him to offer Isaac on Moriah as an ascension (22:2), and he prepares the altar with wood, knife, and a sacrificial victim (22:9-10). In the end, instead of “causing Isaac to ascend as an ascension,” he “causes a ram to ascend as an ascension in the place of his son” (vv. 2, 13). Isaac – actually, the substitute ram-Isaac, the replacement “son” – is the only offering Abraham offers.