And the angel of the LORD called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here [am] I.
Ver. 11. And said, Abraham, Abraham!] Twice, for haste's sake: yet not at all till the very instant. When the knife was up, the Lord came. God delights to bring his people to the mount, yea, to the very brow of the hill, till their feet slip, and then delivers them. He reserves his holy hand for a dead lift. Only be sure you look to your calling; for it was otherwise with Jephthah, Jdg 11:1 whom St Augustine calls facinorosum et improbum, a lewd and naughty man, in his questions upon the Old Testament. What then would he have said to Thomas the Anabaptist, who beheaded his brother Leonard, in the sight of his parents, at Sangal in France, Anno 1526, pretending the example of Abraham? a As did likewise those odious idolaters of old, that offered their children in sacrifice to Moloch in the valley of Hinnom; which was so called, because the poor child put into the arms of the red-hot image, was נהס, nohem, that is, roaring; or because the priests comforting the parents said, Jehenneh lach. "It shall be profitable or pleasant to thee," as Kimchi hath it. b So, because Abraham planted a grove to serve God in, Gen 21:33 the devil, God's ape, set the blind heathens a work to plant a thicket near the altar of their god Priapus, whereinto his worshippers stepped when the sacrifice was ended, and there, like brute beasts promiscuously satisfied their lusts, thereby, as they conceived, best pleasing their god; which was the true cause, as it seems, that the true God commanded that no groves should be planted near the place of his worship; and if any were, they should be cut down.
a Stumpt., lib. v.
b Condimentum erit tibi. - Falkut in Jerem.