Abraham’s Spiritual Journey – A Chiasm that Climaxes with the Akedah

For a very recent treatment of our subject, albeit with a focus on latter-day (including modern) interpretations of Genesis 22, see Aaron Koller, Unbinding Isaac: The Significance of the Akedah for Modern Jewish Thought (Lincoln: Jewish Publication Society / University of Nebraska Press, 2020).

Already in Hebrews 11:17 the author of this New Testament epistle used the Greek verb προσφέρω “offer, bring near,” the same verb used in the Septuagint to render Hebrew הקריב hiqriv “offer, sacrifice,” employed throughout the cultic texts in the book of Leviticus. At a distance of several centuries, see also St. Augustine, City of God, book 16, chapter 32 (conveniently translated here)—even if he does not use the explicit phrase “sacrifice of Isaac.”

Note, for example, that both carry their own wood, see Gen 22:6, John 19:17.

On the different readings and interpretations in the two religious traditions, see Robin M. Jensen, “The Binding or Sacrifice of Isaac,” Bible Review, vol. 9, no. 5 (October 1993), pp. 42‒50, with a digest available here.

The term עקדת יצחק ʿaqedat yiṣḥaq “the binding of Isaac” occurs in such classical Jewish texts as Vayyiqraʾ Rabba, Talmud Bavli, Tanḥuma, Pesiqta Rabbati, and Judah ha-Levi, Sefer ha-Kuzari (in the Hebrew translation by Judah ibn Tibbon).

For general orientation, see https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/hapax-legomenon-hapaxes. For the Bible, see especially Harold R. (Chaim) Cohen, Biblical Hapax Legomena in the Light of Akkadian and Ugaritic (SBL Dissertation Series 37; Missoula, Mont.: Scholars Press, 1978); and Frederick E. Greenspahn, Hapax Legomena in Biblical Hebrew: A Study of the Phenomenon and Its Treatment since Antiquity with Special Reference to Verbal Forms (SBL Dissertation Series 74; Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press, 1984).

This is Robert Alter’s translation of the phrase in Gen 31:10. (Other verses have slightly different lists of types.) “Brindled” means “streaked, tabby, marked with streaks” (Oxford English Dictionary); “gray or tawny, with darker streaks or spots” (American Heritage Dictionary).

Even if Hebraists occasionally have attempted to relate the two meanings. See, e.g., David Qimḥi, comments to Gen 30:35.

The root appears once in the Mishna (M. Shabbat 5:3) and once in the Tosefta (T. Shabbat 4:3). It also appears three times in the Tannaitic Midrash (known as Midrash Halakha), though all three are derivative of the Aqedah story.

For details on the latter, see Wolf Leslau, Ethiopic and South Arabic Contributions to the Hebrew Lexicon (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1958), p. 40. Such correspondences—with one cognate common in one language, but rare in the other—are well known in world languages.

I cite here only passages that entail actual tying or binding, not metaphorical acts. See also Deut 6:8, 11:18, following rabbinic and other (e.g., Qumran) Jewish interpretation. In the Mishna and Tosefta passages cited above (see n. 9), the two verbs appear side-by-side, as an indication of how they inhabit the same semantic field.

See especially, Gary A. Rendsburg, How the Bible Is Written (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 2019), pp. 183–212 (=ch. 10 “Alliteration in Prose Narratives”).

Umberto Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Genesis: Part Two; From Noah to Abraham, trans. Israel Abrahams (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1964), p. 296; Nahum M. Sarna, Understanding Genesis (New York: Schocken, 1966), pp. 160‒161; and Yehuda T. Radday, “Chiasmus in Hebrew Biblical Narrative,” in Chiasmus in Antiquity, ed. John W. Welch (Hildesheim: Gerstenberg, 1981), pp. 104‒105. To be sure, Cassuto died while working on the Abraham material for his multivolume commentary on the book of Genesis, so all that we possess is his outline statement. The most detailed treatment is in my own book, Gary A. Rendsburg, The Redaction of Genesis (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1986/2014), pp. 27‒52. See also my recent article, “Chiasmus in the Book of Genesis,” in Chiasmus: The State of the Art, eds. John W. Welch and Donald W. Parry = BYU Studies Quarterly 59, supplement (2020), pp. 17‒34, available here.

Note that the focal point, 17:1‒5, occurs as part of unit Eʹ, 17:1‒18:15. Some may consider this an imperfection in the overall construction of the narrative, though I suspect that we moderns are thinking a bit too rationally, in an Aristotelian fashion, should we reach such a conclusion. Those who have sought chiastic structures in biblical and other ancient literature have found instances where the focal point stands alone and where the focal point is integrated into one of the matching central units.

See further discussion of this parallel in Everett Fox, “What Kind of Hero Is Abraham?” TheTorah (2017).

See Benno Jacob, Das erste Buch der Torah: Genesis (Berlin: Schocken, 1934), p. 493; Cassuto, From Noah to Abraham, p. 296; Robert Davidson, Genesis 12-50 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), p. 94; Everett Fox, The Five Books of Moses (New York: Schocken, 1995), p. 92; and most significantly Sarna, Understanding Genesis, pp. 160‒161.

Several more stories concern Abraham (ch. 23, the death of Sarah and Abraham’s purchase of a burial site in Hebron; ch. 24, the procurement of a bride for Isaac; ch. 25, Abraham’s sons [vv. 1‒6] and the death and burial of Abraham [vv. 7‒11]), but 22:16‒18 represent God’s final words to Abraham.

True, Abram builds an altar in 13:18 as well, but the construction of the two altars at Moreh (12:7) and at Moriah (22:9) serve as a nexus between the two scenes nonetheless.

Only in these two passages in the Abraham cycle does God speak in such fashion to Abra(ha)m (though see also 18:18).

Generally, the text would simply say “to Shechem.” It is further possible that the phrase in 22:3, wayyaškem “and he arose,” evokes the name of the city, šəkɛm, and vice versa.

Admittedly, though, my rendering of the verb yirʾɛ as ‘Appearance’ plays slightly with the grammar, since this form of the verb is in the Qal construction.

God also appears to Abraham in 17:1 and in 18:1, with the use of the same verb (Niphʿal of ר.א.ה), but the double usage of the verb in 12:7 and 22:14 highlights the nexus between these two passages.

For my earlier treatment, see Rendsburg, How the Bible Is Written, p. 478.

The root ע-ת-ק ʿ-t-q occurs twelve other times in the Bible, with a range of meanings, among which are three additional instances of the Hiphʿil stem (Prov 25:1, Job 9:5, 32:15), though with different connotations.

The ʿayin in both verbs represents the same pharyngeal fricative /ʿ/, as determined through the cognates, Ugaritic ʿ-t-q ‘pass’ and Arabic/Ethiopian ʿ-q-d ‘tie, knot’ (see above, n. 10). I note this point because at times the ʿayin may represent a different consonantal phoneme, namely, the velar fricative /ǵ/.

I say “author” and not “authors” because I do not accept the source-critical approach which assigns Gen 12:1‒9 to the so-called ‘J’ source and Gen 22:1‒19 to the so-called ‘E’ source (with presumed ‘P’ and/or ‘R’ insertions); see Rendsburg, How the Bible Is Written, pp. 469‒490 (= ch. 22, “A Challenge to the Documentary Hypothesis”).