A Mistake in Scripture

Now, just to be clear, so that my readers don't become either excited or miffed. I am not about to point out a mistake in Scripture. I'm about to point out a mistake someone in Scripture made. So, cool your jets you skeptics and breathe easy you believers.

Remember the well-known story of Abraham and Isaac where God told Abraham to sacrifice his son? Such a gripping story (Gen 22:1-19)! God told him, "Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you." Yikes! Acknowledging that this was a singular son and a son who was loved, God tells him to sacrifice the boy. Now, we don't know how old Isaac was at the time, but Abraham "rose early in the morning" and set out to do what he was told. At the place where God told him, he took Isaac (He made Isaac carry the wood!) up the mountain. On the way Isaac asked, "Where is the lamb for the burnt offering?" And his father answered, "God will provide for Himself the lamb." At the designated place Abraham set up the sacrifice, bound his son, and laid him on the wood. He raised his knife ... and God stopped him. Whew! Just in the nick of time! A ram was stuck in a nearby thicket, so Abraham offered him instead. And he called the place Jehovah-Jireh -- the Lord will provide.

Did you catch the error? It's really a small one, but, I think, a significant one. Abraham told Isaac that God would provide a lamb ... and He didn't. In this instance He provided a ram. "Well," we'd say generously, "close enough." Maybe.

I think, however, that Abraham was actually right, just at the wrong time. Abraham said that God would provide "for Himself" the lamb. I think that God did provide that lamb ... later. Because we know of another Father who led His Son to the top of the hill to be a sacrifice. Only this time God didn't call out and stop it. This time God finished it. That one and only beloved Son died -- the Lamb of God.

The Abraham and Isaac sacrifice story is really moving. It tells of a father's love and a father's devotion to his Father over those he loved. Hebrews tells us that Abraham did it because he knew his son was a son of promise and God could raise him from the dead (Heb 11:17-19). That passage tells us also that Isaac was "a type" -- a forerunner of the Lamb to come. It tells of God's seeming harshness but actual mercy. It tells us of God's overwhelming sacrifice of His Son on our behalf, a Lamb that God provided for Himself that He might be just and justifier (Rom 3:26). It is a marvelous image of a majestic reality. And all we have to do is believe to participate in the majesty.

(Postscript: The place of that sacrifice in Genesis was Moriah. Moriah means "to see Jehovah" or "to be taught by Jehovah." The other reference to this place is in 2 Chron 3:1. It is the place on which Solomon built the Temple. Now tell me that was a coincidence.)