The Akedah Test: What Passes and What Fails

In this article, we point out some difficulties which arise from the conventional interpretation of the Akedah episode. We suggest that there is an additional meaning embedded in the text, with each of the two interpretations serving a different purpose.

THE BASIC EPISODE

The story of the Akedah begins after the treaty between Abraham and Abimelech, with Genesis 22:1:

And it was after these events that God tested Abraham and said to him: ‘Abraham’ and Abraham said , ‘Here I am,’ and He said ’Please take

your son, your only son, whom you love, that is, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as an sacrifice on one of the hills that I will designate to you.’

The text proceeds to relate that Abraham traveled with Isaac and two attendants when, on the third day, he sighted the hill at a distance. He told the attendants to remain behind, while he continued towards the hill alone with Isaac. Upon arrival, he bound Isaac, laid him upon the altar, and took the knife to slaughter his son.

An angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, ’Abraham,

Abraham,’ and he said, ‘Here I am.’ And he said, ’Do not lay your

hand on the boy and do not do anything to him, for I now know that

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you are God-fearing and you did not/will not keep your only son

from Me’ (v. 12).

Abraham then substituted an animal sacrifice for the human one.

The conventional interpretation of the story is as follows: God tested Abraham, and told him to perform a deed which was completely noxious from both the personal and moral point of view. A positive result, that is, passing the test, constitutes a decision (followed by the act), to perform the obviously wrong deed because it is God’s instruction, and God’s instruction overrides all personal moral intuition or rational thought. Thus, the subject of the Akedah story is the theme of blind obedience to the word of God. The theme of child-sacrifice is used in support of the subject; that is, it is a severe, but nevertheless only one of many, example of performance of a deed which makes no sense on its own, and can be justified only on the basis of the assumption that it has been directly ordered by God.

CONSISTENCY WITH PRECEDING TEXT

We now ask: How does the subject of this episode fit in with the rest of the biblical narrative on Abraham? First, there is the question of Abraham’s fundamental nature. Both his dealings with people and conversations with God demonstrate a deep compassion for people, as well as an intuitive sense of morality and justice. He gives his nephew Lot first choice of grazing lands when they part (13:8). He initiates military action to rescue his nephew (14:14) and refuses his due in war booty (14:23). He sets a paradigm for hospitality in treatment of complete strangers (18:2). He pleads the case, before God, for saving Sodom and Gomorrah (18:23). These characteristics are natural to Abraham and are not described as resulting from acceptance of a supernatural communication from God. In fact, Maimonides1

describes Abraham’s youthful conversion from pagan

practice to worship of the God of monotheism from the point of view of a completely rational intellectual exercise. He narrates the story of Abraham as a child constantly turning over, in his mind, the problems posed by the pagan understanding of the visible universe. For example, how can an (inanimate) heavenly body order its own motion? Surely, there must be an independent entity that causes and directs its movements. At the age of 40, Abraham finally rejected the pagan philosophy he grew up in, and concluded the existence of a single invisible God controlling the universe and requiring orderly, ethical human behavior. He

then sought to convert the populace around him to this truth. Maimonides emphasizes, furthermore, that Abraham used the same methods of logical argument for his missionary activities as those that brought him to his own personal conviction. Supernatural revelation or even Divine communication played no role. (They were to come later in time and history.)

At the Akedah, Abraham is supposedly being told that the God he reached as a result of his compassion and love of humanity expects him to be ready to destroy those values, and substitute for them blind obedience. Could he have ever come to know God, with no thinking but only a penchant for blind obedience? Furthermore, the purpose of this “test” is presumably the establishment of the word of God as the ultimate and only moral standard. But what, in the time of Abraham, is the word of God? We have, after Sinai, the written Torah, accepted as a document representing the word of God. In it, the Akedah episode is related and the voices Abraham heard are certified as the word of God. But, in the time of Abraham, the Torah had not yet been given, so these voices were not certified. Abraham had to trust his own senses. Both the voices and opposing intuition were internal, to which only he was privy.

Is there any point. at this stage of his religious development, to making a life and death issue of a supposed conflict between the voices he heard and his moral intuition? For the principle to be applicable to any individual other than Abraham himself, for the next 500 years or so, a person would have to set his own intuitive values against voices that only he himself has heard. It would seem that the proper time for such an issue, blind obedience versus intuitive understanding of right and wrong (if the Torah really intended to create that issue), would be when the Divine document, the Torah, was already in existence, and available to the entire populace as an independent reference for the word of God.

Second, Abraham’s previous response to an impending action on the part of God which he, Abraham, regarded as unjust, had been to argue the case with God. When this occurred in the case of God’s planned destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (18:23), Abram pleaded the case for saving the entire city if there were 50 righteous ones among them, then if there were only 45, 40, 30, 20, or even 10. God patiently agreed to each of these conditions, which in the end turned out to be of no avail even for the minimum 10. The point to note, however, is that at no time did God invoke a principle that the merit of Abram’s argument was inconsequential, and that the word of God is independent of moral justification. Yet, in

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the case of Isaac, Abraham did not even attempt an argument. Obedience to the order to kill his child is set into motion promptly, without question or discussion. Third, the preceding episodes on Abraham focus strongly on the theme of a great nation prophesied to arise from the seed of Abraham, with strong emphasis on Isaac as the next and vital link in the chain of inheritance. A constant recurring theme of this story is the promise given by God to Abraham that He will create a great nation from his descendants, causing them to be numerous as particles of dust on the earth (13:16) or stars in the sky (15:5). An auxiliary theme is the promise to give this great nation a home of its own in Canaan (12:5,7). Still another theme emphasized time and again that the great nation will specifically descend from Abraham’s son Isaac (17:21). Yet, the conventional interpretation would have it that Abraham is being asked to destroy this God-promised future with this irrational act of child-sacrifice. Ordering the death of Isaac completely abrogates, without stated reason, God’s promise to Abraham.

AKEDAH AND MESOPOTAMIAN CULTURE

The key to understanding the true significance of this episode is the manner in which the Akedah story impacts on the culture of the day. There are two major themes in the Akedah episode. One is that of the principle of blind obedience, a corollary to what is nowadays called the “intellectual sacrifice.” The other is the theme of child sacrifice. In the conventional interpretation of the Akedah, the command to perform the repugnant and unacceptable act of child sacrifice is used to demonstrate the principle of blind obedience. This principle, however, could have been demonstrated in any number of other ways. The theme of child sacrifice does not have to be chosen as the object of an exhortation towards blind obedience. Many other purposeless, repugnant, and/or extreme self-damaging acts might have been chosen. Selection of child sacrifice, then, invites examination of a possible special meaning to this choice.

It is a well-established finding2

of archaeological research that child sacrifice

was rampant in ancient Mesopotamia. Abraham grew up in this culture and may very well have had it ingrained within him that this practice is indeed an appropriate way to demonstrate devotion to one’s god, whether one of the pagan gods or Abraham’s own God of monotheism. If rejection of this practice is an important event in Abraham’s religious evolution, the child sacrifice motif, rather than the blind obedience theme, may very well be the point of the episode.

FACTS OF THE AKEDAH EPISODE

The scenario involved in selection, transcription, and interpretation of the episode may reasonably be described as follows: The fact that Abraham left his abode with his son Isaac and two attendants and headed for the land of Moriah, where he was presumably planning to offer his son as a sacrifice to his God, had become well-known at the time it occurred, and was undoubtedly passed on through the generations. Rashi3

states that word of the event reached Abraham’s

wife Sarah, and that it was this that caused her death. Probably, the attendants, when dismissed, secretly observed the proceedings which, to the naked eye, included Abraham’s taking the knife in hand, then seemingly changing his mind and sacrificing a ram instead.

Passed down through the generations as observed by the attendants but not including what transpired in Abraham’s mind, and not with the voices he heard, this legend would certainly at the time of Moses puzzle many members of the Israelite populace. Why would Abraham, the father of their people and religion, even consider offering his son as a sacrifice; an act reprehensible on the face of it, to be classified in the Torah as an abomination, and described specifically therein as a profanation of the name of God (Lev. 18:21; 20:2)?

BASIC TREATMENT

At this point, it should be recognized, firstly, that the episode is selected by the Torah for inclusion because it must be selected. It is already a known event and must be dealt with. Secondly, the theme of the episode is not blind obedience, but, rather, child sacrifice, very relevant in those times. With the Akedah legend existing in the folklore that claims, to some extent, respectability for the practice of child sacrifice, since Abraham considered carrying it out, the first task of the Torah is to deny any validity to such a claim. It must consequently be emphasized, to as wide a populace as possible, that this notion is completely unacceptable. Therefore, the Torah immediately makes this clear, using a format easily understood by the populace at large in the age of transmission of the Torah. Through use of the “testing” construct, it is emphasized that this act should not be regarded as having been introduced by Abraham himself (God told him to do it) and, furthermore, that the act does not really have the sanction of God (He was only testing him).

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However, since the Torah is designed to influence a more sophisticated populace, at that time or in future generations, the passage is carefully written to convey a more realistic version of what actually took place. First, it may be noticed that while it is clearly stated that Abraham is being tested, the Torah does not explicitly state what the test is: That is, how does Abraham pass the test, how does he fail the test? The text states:

And it was after these things, that God tested Abraham, and said

to him, ‘Abraham,’ and he said, ’Here I am, And He said, ’Please

take your son, your only son, whom you love, that is, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a sacrifice [olah] on one of the hills that I will designate to you’ (22:1-2).

The conventional interpretation is, of course, that a command to carry out this act is being given to an unwilling Abraham, where passing the test consists in carrying out the deed nonetheless. The exhortation your son, only son . . .., in that view, hammers home the anguish Abraham should feel in carrying this out. One might, however, ask: Why? Is not Abraham himself aware of these feelings? Should it not be Abraham who tells God “he is my son, my only son, whom I love . . . how can I be expected to do this”?

ALTERNATIVE EMBEDDED INTERPRETATION

Abraham was a product of Mesopotamian culture, who has already rejected the dominant paganism of the age in favor of a monotheistic God with whom he has established a close relationship. In the alternative interpretation interwoven in the text, he now wonders about the method of worshipping his God, a Deity certainly no less worthy than the amoral pagan gods of the dominant culture. Abraham perhaps was beginning to wonder whether his son Isaac, a relatively passive figure as compared to his dynamic father, was really going to be the sire of a great nation. He wondered whether perhaps this has become a delusion, whether God no longer has such plans for him. In that case, perhaps the most effective action Abraham could take to utilize Isaac for an act of devotion to his God, would be to perform the contemporary and widely-accepted act of child sacrifice. In addition, there may have been a subconscious input involving Abraham’s unhappiness over the banishment of Ishmael from his household.

God then appeared to him in a dream, and prepared to test him. The real test is: Will Abraham, the monotheist in a largely pagan world, the revolutionary de-

scribed by the Midrash as having smashed the idols4

in his father’s shop, break

away from this noxious practice of the pagan world, or will he succumb to it? The exhortation ’‘Please take your son, your only son, whom you love, that is, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah . . .’ is intended to mean “Abraham, what you are intending to do, according to this practice of the Mesopotamians, which you imagine has My approval, is to take your son, your only son, whom you love so much, Isaac himself, who is to sire a future nation, and kill him!” Implied: “Abraham, does this make sense? Does your God-given intelligence allow this? Think about it, Abraham, on your three-day trek to Moriah.”

The test having been set up, the ball so to speak is now in Abraham’s court. He has three days to ponder. At the end, he cannot bring himself to do it. However, the decision is not entirely emotional. It has its intellectual component, with Divine interaction involved. The dominance of Abraham’s own contribution to this decision, however, is now symbolized by the intervention of an angel rather than God Himself. God set up the test, but in the end it is primarily Abraham who, although Divinely aided, is responsible for the revolutionary breakthrough. Understanding, finally, what is really expected of him, Abraham breaks with the pagan practice of human sacrificial worship. It is not merely fatherly mercy that propels his decision, in which case he would simply have aborted the action on his own.

There is the underlying theological principle involved, symbolized by the participation of the angel, who, when he first speaks, supports Abraham’s decision not to sacrifice his son. Abraham then finds a ram, which he submits as an olah sacrifice in place of Isaac. Speaking to Abraham a second time, the angel commends him, saying, ‘Because you have done this thing, and have not kept your only son from Me . . . .’ “This thing” refers to Abraham’s substitution of an animal sacrifice in place of the child sacrifice and “have not kept your only son from Me” refers to the fact that Abraham did not kill his son, which would have kept (prevented) him (Isaac) from fulfilling the historical role planned for him by God. The angel then continues with a blessing, saying, ‘And in your seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have listened to My voice.’ The voice referred to, of course, is that of the angel (speaking the first time) telling Abraham not to proceed with the sacrifice of Isaac.

CONCLUSION

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In conclusion, the Akedah story has been traditionally interpreted as involving testing Abraham’s devotion to God by seeing if he will carry out what is purported to be a direct order from God to perform a morally repugnant sacrifice. We point out that there is embedded in the biblical account an alternative interpretation; that what is really being tested is Abraham’s determination to complete his abandonment of pagan practices, and continue religious evolution to what will historically become the Torah standard of behavior and worship.

NOTES

1. Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Avoda Zara, Chap. 1.

2. L. E. Stacker and S. R. Wolff, “Child Sacrifice at Carthage – Religious Rite or Population Control?”, Biblical Archaeology Review 10 (1984) pp. 30-51. This reference documents the phenomenon for the period 750 to 146 BCE. In addition, archaeologists have found evidence of its prevalence towards the beginning of the second millennium BCE.

3. Rashi commentary on Genesis 23: 2.

4. Midrash Rabbah 38:19, commenting on Genesis 11:28.