Verse 17
17. Abraham, the father and founder, is still continued. Our author has, in previous verses, shown how by faith of Abraham Israel received miraculous origin. But a later crisis came. It seemed as if by God’s command the miracle-born race was to be cut off by the knife of its founder. By the sacrifice of Isaac the thread was to be severed, and in Isaac all Israel must die. But as Isaac’s birth was in a figure an incarnation, so his rescue from the sacrificial knife was in a figure a resurrection.
Tried Tempted, in the sense of a divine desire that he should prove faithful upon trial. Not that God needs proof to know what he would do; but faith exists for works and self-evidence, by manifestation to the world. Man is by nature not only a reflective, but an active being. Faith is in the heart, that it may resist evil, work good, and so evolve a glorious history. Probation is the scene for faith to act itself out in, and prove its own genuineness before the Infinite, and to the finite.
Only begotten Since Ishmael was counted for nothing, as being of ignoble birth, and outside the promises.
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