Verse 13
13. Lifted… looked… behold These verbs afford another vivid word-picture . The startled patriarch hears, stops short, looks up and all around to see and know all that Jehovah wills .
A ram The Samaritan, Sept . , Syriac, and many MSS . read one ram, which would result from the mere changing of ר into ד in the word אחר , translated behind. Such a reading would emphasize the ram as being single and separate from the flock, thus typifying, as some think, the Lamb of God as being “separate from sinners . ” Hebrews 7:26. The same thought, however, may be held with the common reading . God had truly provided a lamb for a burnt offering . Comp . Genesis 22:8.
Caught in a thicket by his horns “What, then, did he represent,” asks Augustine, “but Jesus . who before he was offered up, was crowned with thorns by the Jews?”
Offered him up… in the stead of his son Here comes out prominently the idea of substitution in sacrifice; the animal for the human life . But it is scarcely proper to hold up this incident as designed to teach or enhance the doctrine of vicarious atonement . That doctrine is, indeed, implied; but the prominent thought is not that either Isaac’s or Abraham’s life was now demanded in order to atone for sin . The typical lessons of the whole procedure are rather incidental, and to be presented as by accommodation and analogy, (see below,) not as the great thought, which is to show the perfection of Abraham’s faith in God .
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