as arrested by the thought that even this terrible sacrifice might
rightly be demanded by the Being to whom he owed all that he was;
and as brooding over it till he seemed to hear the voice of God calling
on him to offer up his own son as proof of devotion to Him. He is
led on step by step to the very verge of accomplishing the act, when an
inward monition stays his hand, and reveals to him that what God really
requires is the surrender of the will—that being the truth in his previous
impression; but that the sacrifice of a human life is not in accordance
with the character of the true God whom Abraham worshipped.
But it must be felt that this line of exposition is not altogether satisfying.
The story contains no word in repudiation of human sacrifice, nor anything
to enforce what must be supposed to be the main lesson, viz., that
such sacrifices were to find no place in the religion of Abraham's
descendants. (2) Having regard to the origin of many other Genesis
narratives, we must admit the possibility that the one before us is a
legend, explaining the substitution of animal for human sacrifices in
some type of ancient worship. This view is worked out with remarkable
skill by Gu. (211-214), who thinks he has recovered the lost name
of the sanctuary from certain significant expressions which seem to
prepare the mind for an etymological interpretation: viz. (
Hebrew characters), 8
(cf. 14); (Hebrew characters), 12; and (Hebrew characters) [(Hebrew characters)] (Hebrew characters), 13. From these indications he
concludes that the original name in 14 was (Hebrew characters); and he is disposed to
identify the spot with a place of that name somewhere near Tekoa,
mentioned in 2 Ch. 2016 ((Hebrew characters) in 1 Ch. 72 is excluded by geographical
considerations). Here he conjectures that there was a sanctuary where
the custom of child-sacrifice had been modified by the substitution of a
ram for a human being. The basis of Gn. 22 would then be the local
cultus-legend of this place. Apart from the philological speculations,
which are certainly pushed to an extreme, it is not improbable that
Gu.'s theory correctly expresses the character of the story; and that
it originally belonged to the class of ætiological legends which everywhere
weave themselves round peculiarities of ritual whose real origin
has been forgotten or obscured.—An older cultus-myth of the same
kind is found in the Phœnician story in which Kronos actually sacrifices
his only son Ἰεούδ ((Hebrew characters) = (Hebrew characters)?) or Ἰεδούδ ((Hebrew characters)?) to his father Uranus
(Eus. Præp. Ev. i. 10, 29). The sacrifice of Iphigeneia, and the later
modification in which a hind is substituted for the maiden, readily
suggests itself as a parallel (Eurip. Iph. Aul. 1540 ff.).
XXII. 20–24.—The Sons of Nāḥôr (J, R).
In the singular form of a report brought to Abraham, there is here introduced a list of 12 tribes tracing their descent to Nāḥôr. Very few of the names can be identified; but so far as the indications go, they point to the region E and NE of Palestine as the area peopled by the Naḥorite family. The division into legitimate (20–23) and illegitimate
