And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son.
Behold behind him a ram - [Hebrew, 'ayil (H352) 'achar (H310)]. Gesenius says the meaning is not that Abraham saw the ram 'behind himself,' according to the usual view taken of the words, but in the distant part, the back ground, of what lay before his eyes. The correctness of the text, however, has been questioned. The received reading is supported by the Vulgate, forty MSS., as well as by Onkelos and Saadias; while the Sanskrit, Septuagint, Syriac versions, and forty-two MSS. have х 'ayil (H352) 'echaad (H259)] a certain ram (the numeral one being used here indefinitely, like the Greek tis (G5100), as it is also in 1 Kings 13:11; 1 Kings 19:4; 1 Kings 22:9; especially Daniel 8:3, where the identical words of this passage occur.
Caught in a thicket by his horns - [Hebrew, bacªbak (H5442)]. Onkelos renders it, 'in a tree.' [The Septuagint, en futoo Sabek, retaining the original word, as denoting a particular shrub.]
Abraham ... took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering. He offered it in sacrifice, regarding it as a substitute for his son, directly provided by God Himself for a burnt offering. Septuagint, eis holokarpoosin. The burnt offering was the greatest of all sacrifices, and consisted in the immolation of a MALE victim, either a sheep or goat of a year old; a bullock of three years old sometimes; and, more rarely, a young pigeon or turtle dove. It was always placed entire on the altar, and consumed in the fire. (See the note at Leviticus 1:4.)