The Collected Works of Hugh Nibley, Volume 14: Abraham in Egypt by Hugh Nibley

Author:Hugh Nibley [Nibley, Hugh]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Deseret Book Co
Published: 2000-01-31T07:00:00+00:00

First, in both stories there is much made of the preparatory gathering of wood for a “holocaust” that never takes place. Abraham is commanded, “Take now thy son . . . and offer him . . . for a burnt offering” (Genesis 22:2, emphasis added). “Behold, I offer thee now as a holocaust,” he cries in the Pseudo-Philo.4 Accordingly, he “bound Isaac his son, and laid him upon the altar on the wood,”5 sometimes described as a veritable tower, just like the structure that Nimrod had built for Abraham.6 And while the Midrash has Isaac carrying the wood of the sacrifice “as one carries a cross on his shoulder,”7 so Abraham before him “took the wood for the burnt offering and carried it, just as a man carries his cross on his shoulder.”8 According to one tradition, the sacrifice was actually completed and Isaac turned to ashes.9 On the other hand, when the princes announced their intention of putting Abraham in a fiery furnace, he is said to have submitted willingly: “If there is any sin of mine so that I be burned, the will of God be done.”10 Indeed, the Hasidic version has it that “Abraham our father offered up his life for the sanctification of the Name of God and threw himself into the fiery furnace.”11 The famous play on the words “Ur of the Chaldees” and “Fire [ʾūr] of the Chaldees” was probably suggested by these traditions—not the other way around—since Isaac escapes from the flames in the same way that Abraham does; i.e., the original motif requires a fire, not a city called Ur.

For all the emphasis on sacrificial fire, it is the knife that is the instrument of execution in the attempted offerings of Abraham and Isaac: “And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son” (Genesis 22:10). It was always the custom to slaughter (zāḇaḥ) the victim and then burn the remains to ashes; the blood must be shed and the offering never struggles in the flames. Many stories tell how the knife was miraculously turned aside as it touched the neck of the victim, whether Abraham or Isaac: suddenly the throat is protected by a collar of copper, as it turns to marble, or the knife becomes soft lead.12 But in the usual account it is dashed from the hand of the officiant by an angel who is visible to the victim on the altar but not to the priest.13 If the wood under Abraham and Isaac was never ignited, neither did the knife ever cut.

Being bound on the altar, Abraham, as the Book of Abraham and the legends report, prayed fervently for deliverance. Exactly such a prayer was offered as Isaac lay on the altar, but though in this case it was Isaac who was in mortal peril, it was again Abraham who uttered the prayer for deliverance: “May He who answered Abraham on Mt. Moriah, answer you, and may He listen to the voice of your

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