‘And he said, “Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, even Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah (LXX has ‘land of the height' - ‘upsele'; the Syriac translation of the Old Testament has ‘land of the Amorites') and offer him there for a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you.”
The land of ‘Moriah' is not known elsewhere although a Mount ‘Moriah' (slightly different etymologically) is later found in the vicinity of Jerusalem (2 Chronicles 3:1-2) as the Mount on which the Temple was built. But the latter passage does not mention this incident (as we would have expected if they were identical), and here it is not the name of a mountain. It is significant in this regard that Abraham does not name the site as ‘Moriah' but as ‘Yahweh yir'eh' (Genesis 22:14).
In view of the fact that Jerusalem was at this stage a city occupied by the Jebusites it is not likely that Mount Moriah is in view.
It was a ‘three day journey' i.e not very far, in contrast with a ‘seven day journey', for they arrived within sight of it ‘on the third day' (within one and a half to two and a half days).
The emphasis by God that He is asking for the ultimate sacrifice - ‘your son, your only son, whom you love ' - demonstrates already that it is a test, but so far as Abraham is concerned it is a very real one. The stress is interesting. It is not on the fact that he is the covenant son, but that he is the ‘only beloved' son. It cannot help but remind us of another ‘Only Beloved Son' of later times Who was sacrificed on our behalf. So the sacrifice requested was deeply personal, his most treasured possession.
Isaac is of course not literally his ‘only son', and the phrase must rather mean ‘the heir', the one on whom everything is centred, the only son of the primary marriage. Thus the phrase links directly with the covenant. He is not only called on to offer the one dearest to his heart, but the one through whom all the covenant promises are to be fulfilled. He is called on to sacrifice everything he has ever lived for.
We are not told what passed through his mind. Sacrifice the one through whom the covenant would be fulfilled (Genesis 17:19; Genesis 17:21)? He did not even stop to question. He obeyed unquestioningly. Yahweh would see to the rest. He had trusted Him so far, he would trust Him to the end.
He does not even question the morality of it. As a prophet of God he knows when God has spoken, and if it is His command it can only be right. (Only one who has had unique experiences of God and actually hears the voice of God can have such certainty. For such it was not an issue that required consideration for ‘God had spoken'). The final consequence, of course, is that God finally demonstrates to His people once and for all that He does not want such sacrifices.
This episode compares very specifically with that in Genesis 12. There he was called to go to a country that Yahweh had chosen for him, here he is called to go to a mountain that God has chosen for him. Yet the second contradicts the first because of its purpose. We cannot doubt that this is the greater test of faith. As Abraham grows in obedience the tests become harder.