“By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even though God had said to him, ‘It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.’ Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death.
By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau in regard to their future.
By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of Joseph’s sons, and worshiped as he leaned on the top of his staff.
By faith Joseph, when his end was near, spoke about the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and gave instructions concerning the burial of his bones.” -Hebrews 11:17-22
After the author of Hebrew’s brief diversion in the middle of Abraham’s story that we looked at last week, he returns here to the story of Abraham and his descendants.
The first part of Abraham’s story was significant because it set him up as the father of a great nation, which could only happen by him having faith in the promise of God to give him a son even though he and his wife Sarah were old. But, God only gave him one son – Isaac – which is significant for the piece of Abraham’s story in this passage. You can read the entire narrative in Genesis 22.
This test was likely the most difficult one that Abraham had to endure. God asked Abraham to sacrifice (kill) his only son, Isaac. Of course, that would be really confusing for Abraham. God promised to make Abraham into a great nation, but that would open happen through his biological descendants, and Isaac was not yet married nor had any children at this point. Abraham would have had an internal conflict between his love for his son and his love for God, but there’s more to it than that.
The author of Hebrews points out that it appeared to Abraham that God made conflicting revelations to him. God revealed that He would give Abraham many biological descendants. God also revealed that Abraham must kill the one son he has. Abraham believed by faith that God could not lie to him, but how could both of these be true at the same time? If Isaac is dead, he won’t bear any children!
But even without understanding, Abraham still operated by his faith in God and chose to be obedient to the most recent revelation from God. His faith was strong enough that he knew that somehow, God would work it out. God made it clear that Isaac was the son through which God’s promise of a great nation would be fulfilled (Genesis 21:12). He knew that God was powerful enough to raise the dead (even though he hadn’t seen that work being done), so maybe God would raise Isaac from the dead after he was sacrificed?
The Greek verb used for “offered” in verse 17 is a tense that implies that Abraham considered Isaac as good as dead through this offering. Abraham DID offer his son as a sacrifice and did not hold back. But then, the same Greek verb is used in another tense that implies that the action was not fully completed. So it is made clear that Abraham’s heart motivation was truly to obey God, no matter what the earthly consequence was – even death for his only son. Abraham was still obedient to God, even though God stopped the action from taking place.
Next, after concluding the story of Abraham, the author moves to the other patriarchs – Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph.
Interestingly, the only piece of Isaac’s life mentioned by the author of Hebrews (verse 20) is blessing his sons Jacob and Esau, which you can read about in Genesis 27-28. Even though Jacob deceived Isaac into blessing him instead of the older Esau who should have received the birthright, Isaac did end up blessing both of his sons. The author of Hebrews is focused on the faith that Isaac had – he blessed both of his sons with blessings that would not be realized in the near future. Isaac trusted by faith that this was what God would have him do, and he was obedient in that.
The author continues that theme of blessing when mentioning Jacob next in verse 21. Just like with Isaac, Jacob’s blessings of his grandsons Ephraim and Manasseh went against the traditional birth order requirement for the birthright. God will do what God wants to do, and God wanted the younger Ephraim to have the blessing. The phrase about how Jacob “worshiped as he leaned on the top of his staff” tells us the heart attitude that Jacob had – one of truly worshiping God, even as he gave the blessing.
The faith of Joseph, too, looked forward to the future (verse 22), though his mention does not include a blessing as Isaac’s and Jacob’s did. The next great phase of the life of the nation of Israel would be slavery in Egypt followed by the exodus where they left that land to back to the promised land of Canaan. We know from Genesis 50:22-26 that Joseph instructed his descendants to “carry my bones up from this place.” Joseph had faith that God would come through to deliver his people and bring them back to the land He had promised to them at some point.
What can we learn today from all these stories? The first and simplest observation is to just have faith in God. Even when the circumstances look extremely confusing and impossible, God has a plan and will take care of everything. We only have a short view of the immediate future, while God knows all of time, so we need to trust Him with whatever our futures hold. Like Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, we look forward to what God will do for future generations – even if we won’t be alive to see it. We need to live our lives today in faith in God so that future generations can do the same.
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