Endnote 8 – The Exodus of Abraham

I am not the first to suggest that the near sacrifice of Isaac foreshadows Israel’s subsequent paschal ransoming of the firstborn son. As early as the Book of Jubilees, a Jewish apocryphal work written in the second century B.C.E., Isaac’s near-death experience was associated with the Passover. And even within the Bible itself there are indications that Isaac’s near sacrifice was meant to be connected with the ransoming of the firstborn son. For instance, following Abraham’s offering of a ram in Isaac’s stead, Genesis reports, “So Abraham called that place ‘The LORD will provide.’ That is why it is said to this day, ‘On the Mount of the LORD [i.e., the Temple Mount] it will be provided’” (Genesis 22:14). And, in the Book of Chronicles, the place of Isaac’s near sacrifice—Mt. Moriah—is explicitly connected to the eventual location of Israel’s Temple (2 Chronicles 3:1). Thus, minimally, the biblical authors desired to connect Abraham’s activities atop Mt. Moriah with Israel’s later sacrificial system atop the Temple Mount. Yet, given the other parallels between Abraham’s ransoming of Isaac and Israel’s command to ransom its own firstborn sons, it seems most likely that Isaac’s near-death experience was intended to foreshadow the events of the Passover.