Three days.
That’s how long it took Abraham and Isaac to get to the top of Mount Moriah where he would eventually offer his son to God.
Three days.
That’s a long time to think. In a world filled with wireless headphones, streaming music and audiobooks available on a device held in your hand, the idea of silence is a fleeting concept.
Humans don’t usually like to be alone with our thoughts. We prefer to fill that void with distractions, scared of what we might discover about ourselves and the world around us.
But for three days, Abraham had to walk next to his son, knowing that the time would come when he would have to drive the knife into his son. What a thought. He would’ve given anything to escape that thought.
But he didn’t. And he had to think about it.
For three days.
What Did Abraham Think About?
If you couldn’t tell, I love diving into the minds of people. I love trying to figure out why people act the way they do and think the way they think. I’m not always successful, but it’s still extremely interesting to me.
So for those three days, what kind of thoughts went through Abraham’s mind?
Here’s my guess.
“God Said Isaac Would Be a Great Nation”
Technically, Isaac wasn’t the one that God told Abraham would be a great nation. That honor belongs to Ishmael (Genesis 17:20).
But God did tell Abraham that he would be a great nation (Genesis 12:1-3). Is it possible that Abraham misunderstood God and thought the great nation would be Ishmael’s instead?
Not likely. At least twice in the book of Genesis, Isaac is talked about as having descendants (Genesis 17:19; 21:12). He can’t have descendants if he’s dead, so God has to have something else in mind for Isaac besides his death, right?
“God Will Raise Isaac Up.”
It was Arthur Conan Doyle who once said, “If you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
This applies double for Isaac.
If God has told Abraham two contradictory things — that Isaac would have descendants and that he was to be sacrificed — there’s only one possible solution: Resurrection.
But, Abraham reasons to himself, this has never happened before. Nowhere in the recorded history of the Bible has it ever been told that God raised someone up. It’s not even in the rest of the Bible that often: 9 total (three in the Old Testament and six in the New Testament).
Is it possible that God can raise up Isaac. Absolutely! After all, it took a miracle for Sarah to even be pregnant, so why wouldn’t God be able to do a similar miracle now?
Something to think about.