Then God said, ‘Take your son, your only son, whom you love – Isaac – and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain that I will show you.’ -Genesis 22:2
Low-hanging fruit has less to do with the way a passage is interpreted today and more with the effect it has had since it was written. While a passage may spark contention or even disdain today, what matters more is how it has shaped the way we live our lives. One of the best examples is the story found in Genesis 22.
Few passages in the Bible are more difficult or disturbing to the modern mind than Genesis 22. In episode 2 of the 2nd season of “Bones,” the two main characters, Forensic Scientist Temperance Brennan and FBI agent Seeley Booth, a practicing Catholic, have the following interaction while solving the brutal killing of a child:
BRENNAN: I thought you found answers in what you believe.
BOOTH: Well, I mean, that’s just one Bible story that I just don’t like. I mean, God commands Abraham to kill his own son, and he does.
BRENNAN: No. Abraham does not kill Isaac.
BOOTH: But old Abe, you know, he had the intention.
BRENNAN: Well, I thought what he had was faith.
BOOTH: Look, I have faith. But if God himself came down, pointed at Parker and said, “I want you to, you know” – that ain’t gonna happen.
BRENNAN: But God’s messenger stopped Abraham?
BOOTH: Yeah. Grabbed his hand at the last second right before the knife was about to go in.
BRENNAN: Okay, then the lesson I would learn from the myth –
BOOTH: Myth?
BRENNAN: Well, it fits the definition.
BOOTH: Okay, fine.
BRENNAN: That when it comes to your children your love has to be absolute. The messenger represents goodness, what you know to be right. Ergo, you have to remain open to what you know is true.
(Booth chuckles softly, smiling at Brennan)
BOOTH: Are you sure you’re not religious?
BRENNAN: (nods) Science all the way.
Once again, people miss the context and thus the low-hanging fruit of the story. However, in this case, our very objection stems from the story's massive impact on human history, rightly understood.
We don’t think it is proper for God to ask for human, much less child, sacrifice. This assumption makes verse 2 offensive. But many of our ancestors held a different view.
Late Shang China (around 1250–1050 BCE): Archaeology shows large, organized sacrificial rites, including many people placed in pits around elite tombs.
The Mexica (Aztec) Empire: Documented human sacrifice was central to state religion from 1325 to 1521, and excavations in the capital have uncovered substantial physical evidence of the practice.
Inca Empire: The capacocha ritual1 is well documented, especially in the 15th and 16th centuries. Archaeologists have found children buried at high-altitude sites with evidence of ceremonial preparation.
Other Scriptures describe such practices among the Ammonites, and even some Israelites taking part. If you search for “Molek and Sacrifice” in BibleGateway, you will find 5 references. Here are a few:
‘Say to the Israelites: “Any Israelite or any foreigner residing in Israel who sacrifices any of his children to Molek is to be put to death. The members of the community are to stone him. -Leviticus 20:2
[Josiah] desecrated Topheth, which was in the Valley of Ben Hinnom, so no one could use it to sacrifice their son or daughter in the fire to Molek. -2 Kings 23:10
They built high places for Baal in the Valley of Ben Hinnom to sacrifice their sons and daughters to Molek, though I never commanded – nor did it enter my mind – that they should do such a detestable thing and so make Judah sin. -Jeremiah 32:35
Our passage, however, comes earlier in the Biblical story. Abraham, whose wife was barren, left everything he knew for the promise of his new God. (Joshua 24:2,3)2 The promise (Genesis 12:1-4) was that he would have a child of his own, the beginning of a legacy with descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore. By Genesis 22, he has faced numerous obstacles to the birth of that son, made several missteps that threatened the promise, but finally, against normal age limits, he and Sarah have Isaac, their one and only son. But as we see in our story, the challenges to his trust in God aren’t over yet. Will he obey God even to the point where Abraham himself becomes the barrier to the promise fulfilling as he sacrifices his son?
The story's frame confirms that the promise is primary and sacrifice is secondary. The frame begins with the latest challenge to the promise (Genesis 22:1-3) and ends by reaffirming the promise made in Genesis 123 (Genesis 22:15-18).
Then God said, ‘Take your son, your only son, whom you love – Isaac – and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain that I will show you.’ Early the next morning Abraham got up and loaded his donkey. -Genesis 22:1-3
The angel of the Lord called to Abraham from heaven a second time and said, ‘I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me.’ -Genesis 22:15-18
The text between these two passages heightens the first-time reader's concern, making them ask again whether God can be trusted. “How can God’s promise to Abraham possibly be fulfilled?
Abraham passes the test, as verses 15-18 confirm, and the Biblical story continues.
Over time, however, as this story of God substituting a ram for Isaac passed down through generation after generation and culture after culture, religious rituals of human sacrifice became rarer and rarer. Human sacrifice became repugnant to the human race.
The story also prepared the way for Jesus’ death on the cross. His crucifixion further developed the story of Abraham and Isaac. The God who asked Abraham to sacrifice his only son, never intending him to actually do it, proved himself willing to sacrifice his only Son for the sake of humanity.
Christian singer Michael Card puts the story of Abraham and the story of Jesus together beautifully in well in his song, “God Will Provide a Lamb”:
A gleaming knife, an accepted choice
A rush of wind and an angel’s voice
A ram in the thicket caught by his horns
And a new age of trusting the Lord was born
‘Cause God has provided a lamb
He was offered up in your place
What Abraham was asked to do, He’s done
He’s offered His only son.
The story of God asking Abraham to sacrifice Isaac has had an incredibly fruitful impact. The story's effectiveness is exactly why it is now so upsetting to us. But the low-hanging fruit doesn’t stop there. Genesis 22 also prepared the human race to find the love of God in the equally disturbing story of Jesus’ death on the cross.
…the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.’ For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. -John 3:14b-16
Capacocha (also spelled qhapaq hucha) was an important Inca state ritual involving offerings to sacred places and powers. In some ceremonies, children were sacrificed and buried—often at high-altitude shrines in the Andes.
The passage reads: Joshua said to all the people, ‘This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: “Long ago your ancestors, including Terah the father of Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the River Euphrates and worshipped other gods. But I took your father Abraham from the land beyond the Euphrates and led him throughout Canaan and gave him many descendants.
The initial promise in Genesis 12 reads: “The Lord had said to Abram, ‘Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. ‘I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.’