8
Abraham offereth up Isaac.
Isaac being now arrived at the age of twenty-seven, God, to try Abraham, commands him to take his son, whom he loved, and offer him up upon a mountain. He remembered he had received his son from God, and his great faith stifled all the thoughts which did arise in him about the divine promises so often repeated to him, that from the very Isaac whom he was now about to offer, his posterity should be multiplied as the stars of heaven. Accordingly he rises early in the morning, and takes Isaac his son, and two servants, cleaves the wood for the burnt-offering, and binding Isaac his son, laid him on the alter, and stretching forth his hand, took the knife to slay him. God, seeing constancy in the father, stops his hand by an angel from heaven Hereupon Abraham, seeing a ram caught in a thicket by the horns, offered him up to God instead of his son, and returned to his house.
