Binding of Isaac

The Binding of Isaac (Hebrew: עֲקֵידַת יִצְחַק‎‎), also known as The Binding (הָעֲקֵידָה) and the Akedah or Aqedah, is a story from the Hebrew Bible found in Genesis 22. In the biblical narrative, God asks Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac, on Moriah, Abraham begins to comply, when a messenger from God interrupts him. Abraham then sees a ram and sacrifices it instead.

This episode has been the focus of a great deal of commentary in traditional Jewish, Christian, and Muslim sources, as well as being addressed by modern scholarship.

According to the Hebrew Bible, God commands Abraham to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice. After Isaac is bound to an altar, a messenger from God stops Abraham at the last minute, saying "now I know you fear God." Abraham looks up and sees a ram and sacrifices it instead of Isaac.

The passage states that the event occurred at "the mount of the LORD" in "the land of Moriah." Chronicles 3:1 refers to "mount Moriah" as the site of Solomon's Temple, while Psalms 24:3; Book of Isaiah 2:3 & 30:29; and Book of Zechariah 8:3 use the term "the mount of the LORD" to refer to the site of the Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem. The location believed to be the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

The majority of Jewish religious commentators argue that God was testing Abraham to see if he would actually kill his own son, as a test of his loyalty. However, a number of Jewish Biblical commentators from the medieval era, and many in the modern era, read the text in another way.

The early rabbinic midrash Genesis Rabbah imagines God as saying "I never considered telling Abraham to slaughter Isaac (using the Hebrew root letters for "slaughter", not "sacrifice")". Rabbi Yona Ibn Janach (Spain, 11th century) wrote that God demanded only a symbolic sacrifice. Rabbi Yosef Ibn Caspi (Spain, early 14th century) wrote that Abraham's "imagination" led him astray, making him believe that he had been commanded to sacrifice his son. Ibn Caspi writes "How could God command such a revolting thing?" However, according to Joseph Hertz, Chief Rabbi of the British Empire, child sacrifice was actually "rife among the Semitic peoples" and suggests that "in that age, it was astounding that Abraham's God should have interposed to prevent the sacrifice, not that He should have asked for it." Hertz interprets the Akedah as demonstrating to the Jews that human sacrifice is abhorrent.

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