Legends of the Patriarchs and Prophets

So Abraham planted a grove in Beer-sheba, one hundred ells long and one hundred ells broad, and he planted it with vines and figs, pomegranates and other fruit trees; and he built a guest-house adjoining this garden, and he made in it four doors, one towards each quarter of the heavens; and when a hungry man came by, Abraham gave him food; if there came a man who was thirsty, he gave him drink; if one who was naked, he clothed him; if one who was sick, he took him in and nursed him; and he gave to every man who passed by what he most needed for his journey.

He would receive neither thanks nor payment; and when any one thanked him, he said hastily, “Give thanks, not to me the servant but to the Master of this house, who openeth His hand, and filleth all things living with plenteousness.”

Then when the traveller asked, “Who, and where is this Master?”

Abraham answered, “He is the God who rules over heaven and earth; He is Lord of all; He kills and makes alive; He wounds and heals; He forms the fruit in the mother’s womb, and gives it life; He makes the plants and trees to grow; He brings man to destruction, and raises him from his grave again.”

Thus Abraham instructed those whom he relieved. And if a traveller asked further, how he was to worship the great God, Abraham answered, “Say only these words, Praised be the Eternal One who reigns over heaven and earth! Praised be the Lord of the whole world, who filleth all things living with plenteousness.” And no traveller went on his way without thanking God.

Thus that guest-house was a great school, in which men were taught the true religion, and gratitude to the Almighty God.

10. THE OFFERING OF ISAAC.326

Abraham loved the son of his old age, and Isaac grew up in the fear of God, and his good conduct heightened the love Abraham bore him; but the Patriarch thought in his heart, “I prepare gifts to give of my abundance to every man that asks of me, and to every passer-by; but to my Lord and God, the Giver of all good things, have I given nothing!”

There was a day when the sons of God (the angels) stood before the Eternal One, and amongst them was the accusing angel, Satan or Sammael. The Lord asked them, “Whence comest thou?”

“From walking to and fro upon the face of the earth,” he replied.

“And what hast thou beheld there of the doings of the sons of men?”

The accuser answered, “I saw that the sons of earth no longer praise Thee, and adore Thee; when they have obtained their petition, then they forget to give Thee thanks. I saw that Abraham, the son of Terah, as long as he was childless, built altars and proclaimed Thy name to all the world: now he has been given a son at the age of a hundred, and he forgets Thee. I went to his door as a beggar, on the day that Isaac was weaned, and I was turned away without an alms. I have seen him strike alliance with the king of the Philistines, a nation that knows Thee not, and to him has he given seven lambs. He has built a large house and he gives to strangers, but to Thee he gives no sacrifice of value. Ask of him any sacrifice that is costly, and he will refuse it.”

“What shall I ask?” inquired the Almighty.

“Ask of him now his son, and he will refuse him to Thy face.”

“I will do so, and thou shalt be confounded,” answered the Holy One.

The self-same night God appeared to Abraham, and addressed him gently so as not to alarm him, and He said to him, “Abraham!”

The patriarch in deep humility answered, “Here am I, Lord what willest Thou of Thy servant?”

The Lord answered, “I have come to ask of thee something. I have saved thee in all dangers; I delivered thee out of the furnace of Babylon; I rescued thee from the army of Nimrod; I brought thee into this land, and gave thee men-servants and maid-servants and cattle and sheep and horses, and I have given thee a son in thine old age, and victory over all thine enemies, and new temptations await thee, for I must prove thee, and see if thou art grateful in thy heart, and that thy righteousness may be manifest unto all, and that thy obedience may be perfected. Take therefore thy son – ”

Abraham answered trembling, “Which son? I have two.”

The voice of God.– “That son which alone counteth with thee.”

Abraham.– “Each is the only son of his mother.”

The voice of God.– “The one you love.”

Abraham.– “I love both.”

The voice of God.– “The one you love best.”

Abraham.– “I love both alike.”

The voice of God.– “Then I demand Isaac.”

Abraham.– “And what shall I do with him, O Lord?”

The voice of God.– “Go to the place that I shall tell thee, where, unexpectedly, hills shall arise in sight out of the valley bottom. Go to that place whence once My Light, My Teaching issued, which My eye watches over untiringly, and where the smoke of incense shall arise to Me, to the place where prayer is heard and sacrifice shall be offered, where at the end of time I shall judge the nations, and cast the ungodly into the pit of Gehinom; – to the land of Moriah that I shall show thee, there shalt thou take thy son Isaac as a whole burnt offering.”

Abraham.– “Shall I bring Thee such an offering as this, O Lord? Where is the priest to prepare the sacrifice?”

The voice of God.– “I have taken from Shem his priesthood, and thou art clothed therewith.”

Abraham.– “But in that country there are many hills; which shall I ascend?”

The voice of God.– “A mountain on which shall rest my Glory; there shall it be told thee further what thou must do.”

Abraham prepared to fulfil the command of God, but he dreaded the separation between Sarah and her son. If he took Isaac away secretly, then he feared that, in the excess of her distress, she would do herself harm. At last he decided on this course; he went to Sarah’s tent, and he said to her, “My dearest, prepare this day a little banquet, that in our old days we may rejoice our hearts.”

Sarah answered, “Wherefore this day, my husband? Are you about to lose any thing this day?”

Abraham said, “Think, my wife, Sarah! how good God has been to us; therefore it behoves us to thank Him all the days of our life.”

Sarah did as Abraham had commanded.

As they sat and ate, Abraham said, “Thou knowest well, dear wife, that I knew the one true God from the time that I was three years old. Isaac is older, and it behoves him to know more of the law of God. Therefore I design to take him with me to Shem and Eber, our ancestors, who live not far from here, that they may instruct him. Hast thou any thing to object to this, Sarah?”

She answered, “No; do that which is pleasing in thine eyes; only let not Isaac be away too long, for thou knowest how precious the sight of him is to me.”

Then Sarah put her arms round her son, and kissed him, and they parted with many tears; and she exhorted Abraham to have great care of the youth, that the journey might not be too great for him.

Next morning, very early, Abraham rose, and he saddled the ass himself, though he had many slaves, for he was eager to be gone, and to go where the Lord called him. This was the ass, born of the she-ass created by God on the eve of the sixth day, upon which Moses afterwards rode when he went to Egypt:327 it is the ass which spake to Balaam, and it is the ass of which the prophet Zechariah has spoken, that on it Messiah shall ride.328

This ass was of a hundred colors.329

Sarah clothed Isaac in the garment that Abimelech had given her, and placed a jewel-studded fillet about his head. She provided the travellers with food for their journey, and accompanied them with her maids, till Abraham bade them return. Then she clasped Isaac once more to her breast, and said with tears, “God be gracious to thee, my son; how know I that I shall see thee again?”

Abraham had two to accompany him, Eliezer and Ishmael; he had cut fig and palm wood and made a fagot. On the way this discourse took place between Eliezer and Ishmael.

Ishmael said, “I perceive clearly that my father is about to offer Isaac as a whole burnt offering; therefore I, his eldest son, will inherit his possessions.”

But Eliezer said, “That is false: I am his trusty servant! Did not thy father drive thee away from home? He will leave all to me.”

Whilst they thus spake, there came a voice from heaven, “O ye fools! neither of you knows the truth.”

Abraham in the mean time walked forward. Then came Satan to him in the form of an old man bowed upon a staff, and said to him, “Whither goest thou?”

He answered, “I go to offer up my prayers.”

“Wherefore this knife, and fuel, and fire?” asked Satan.

“I take them in case we have to spend much time on the mountain, that we may bake bread and slay beasts.”

“Old man, thou deceivest me,” said Satan. “Was I not by when a voice bade thee slay thy son, thine only son; ane now, what art thou about to do? Thinkest thou that thou shalt have another son, now that thou art a hundred years old? Art thou then about to cut down with thine own hands the main pillar of thy tent, the staff on which thou mayest lean in thine old age? Knowest thou not the proverb, ‘He who destroys his own goods, how shall he get more?’ That was not the voice of God, it was the voice of the Tempter, and thou didst listen to it. Dost thou think that God, who promised to make of thee a great nation, and to bless all generations through Isaac, would thus persuade thee to make void His own promises?”

Abraham answered, “No, it was not the Tempter who spake, it was the voice of God; therefore I will not hearken to thy words, but walk on still in mine uprightness.”

“But if God were to ask of thee some further sacrifice, wouldst thou grant it?”

“Of a truth would I,” answered Abraham.

“Thy piety is folly,” said Satan impatiently. “To-morrow God will punish thee for this murder thou art about to commit, since thou wilt shed the blood of thine own son.”

But when Satan saw that Abraham was not to be moved from his purpose, then he took the form of a blooming youth, and joined himself to Isaac, and asked him the object of his journey.

Isaac replied that he was going to receive instruction in the law of the Most High.

“Art thou going to receive this instruction living or dead?” asked Satan, scornfully.

Isaac.– “Can a man receive instruction after he is dead?”

Satan.– “O thou son of a mother much to be pitied, knowest thou not that thy father is leading thee to death?”

Isaac.– “Nevertheless I shall follow him.”

Satan.– “Then all the tears and prayers of thy mother, beseeching Heaven to grant her a son, end in this! All the pains and grief in child-bearing! All the afflictions she laid on Hagar and Ishmael! All the care she has taken of thy youth! All the love she has expended upon thee! All these things for nothing!”

Isaac.– “As my father wills.”

Satan.– “Then the inheritance passes to Ishmael. How he will glory in being the first-born, and his mother Hagar will despise Sarah, and maybe will drive her out!”

Isaac.– “I obey the command of my father and the will of God, be they what they may.”

But these words were not without some effect on Isaac. With piteous voice he urged his father to suspend or delay what he had undertaken. But Abraham exhorted his son not to listen or give credence to the words he had heard, for they were the temptations of Satan to draw him from the path of obedience and the fear of God.

They went a little further and came to a broad stream. Abraham, Isaac, and their followers sought to wade it; the water at first reached their knees, but when they were in the middle, it rose to their necks.

Abraham, who knew well the spot, and that there was neither brook nor river there by nature, recognized this as a deception of Satan, to divert them from the right way. He told Isaac that this was his opinion, and raising his eyes to heaven he prayed; “Thou, O Lord, didst declare to me Thy will, that I should take Isaac my son and offer him to Thee in pledge of my obedience. I did not hesitate, I did not refuse, and now the water overwhelms us and we sink; how then can I perform that which Thou badest me do?”

The Lord answered, “Fear not, through thee shall My Name be known.”

Then the stream vanished away, and they stood upon dry land.

But now Satan made another attempt to turn Abraham from his purpose. He drew him aside and said, “The object of thy journey has failed. I caught a whisper in heaven, and it was this – God will prepare a lamb for the sacrifice, and not thy son.”

Abraham answered, “Even if thy words be true, it matters not; for this is the penalty of liars, that when they speak the truth they are not believed.”

Abraham journeyed on the rest of that day, without seeing his appointed place. Next day he retraced his steps, but could find no signs of the place. The Almighty had so ordered it, that men might not say Abraham was hasty and acted precipitately, but might see that he had leisure and time for reflection on what he was about to do.

On the morning of the third day,330 they reached the height of Zophim, and thence Abraham saw a beautiful mountain-land, and on the top of one of the mountains was a fiery pillar, which reached from earth to heaven, – it was the Glory of the Lord appearing in the cloud.

When Abraham asked Isaac if he beheld this sight, he answered that he did so: but when he asked his other companions, they replied that they saw nothing save the brown hills and purple valleys. Some say they answered that one hill was to them like every other hill.

From this, Abraham concluded that God was well pleased with Isaac as a victim. Then he said to Eliezer and Ishmael:

“Tarry ye here with the ass, for you are not worthy to behold the Shekinah nearer. But I and the youth will go on, so many only shall go.”

Now, as he said these words, it suddenly came to his mind that God had promised him a great people descended from Isaac, so many as the stars for multitude, and with prophetic voice he said, “If the Lord will, so many as go on, so many shall return.”

Then Abraham laid the wood of the sacrifice on his son Isaac, and took the fire and the knife in his hand; and they went on both together, Abraham joyous, and Isaac without fear or thought.

But after they had gone some way, Isaac turned to his father and said, “Father, whither are we going alone?”

Abraham.– “My son, we go to offer a sacrifice?”

Isaac.– “But art thou a priest to execute this undertaking?”

Abraham.– “Shem, the High Priest, will prepare the victim.”

A great fear fell upon Isaac when he saw that they had no animal with them to offer, and he said, “Here are the fire and the wood, but where is a lamb for the whole offering?”

Abraham.– “The lamb which is to be offered is foreknown to the Almighty. He will provide the lamb; and if none other is here, then must thou be the offering, my son.”

Isaac was silent, for the fear of death came over him. But presently he recovered himself and said, “If God chooses me, I place my soul in His hands.”

Abraham.– “My son! Is there any blemish in thee within? For the offering must be without blemish of any sort.”

Isaac.– “My father! There is none. I swear by God and by thy life, that in my heart there is not the least resistance to the Divine will. My limbs do not tremble, and there is no quaking at my heart. With gladness do I say, The Lord be praised, who has chosen me for a whole sacrifice.”331

Abraham.– “O my son, with many a wish wast thou brought into this world. Since thou hast been in it, every care has been lavished on thee. I hoped to have had thee to follow me and make a great nation. But now I must, myself, offer thee. Wondrous was thy coming into this world, and wondrous will be thy going out of it!332 Not by sickness, not by war, but as a sacrifice. I had designed thee to be my comfort and stay in old age; now God himself must take thy place.”333

Isaac.– “It were unworthy of thee were I to think to withstand the decree of God, and of thee. Had the decision been thine alone, I would have obeyed.”

When they reached the top of Moriah, God said to Abraham, —

“This is the place where once Adam, when driven out of Paradise, built an altar to My name. Here also Cain and Abel offered their sacrifice. Then came the Flood, and when it was passed away, Noah offered victims to Me here. When the people were scattered from the tower of Babel, then this altar was overthrown. Now it is for thee, friend of God, to set it up again!”

Abraham built the altar, and Isaac brought him the stones. But, according to some authors, this was not so. Abraham hid his son in a cave, lest Satan should take advantage of the opportunity, with a stone or clod of earth, to blemish him.

And when all was ready and the wood laid in order, then Isaac said to his father, “Bind me hand and foot, lest in the fear of death I start and thou wound me, and so I be blemished. Fold thy garments together, and gird thy loins, and bare thine arm, and strike me with the knife and then burn me to ashes, and lay up my ashes in a coffer, and let this coffer be preserved as a memorial of me in thy house, before my mother; and when thou passest by it, bid her remember me. But remind her not of it near a well, or on the edge of a precipice, lest she cast herself down in her grief.”334

And he continued, “When thou returnest home, how wilt thou console my mother?”

Abraham answered, “Well I know that he who comforted us before thou camest, will comfort us after thou art gone from us.”335

Abraham now stood over his son, who was bound with his hands to his feet, upon the wood laid in order; and the eyes of Abraham rested on the eyes of his son. But Isaac looked up into heaven, and saw the Angel hosts crowded about God’s throne. Abraham saw not this, and he lifted the knife; but he trembled and the knife fell from his hand, and he cried aloud, “O my son! Would that another offering were found instead of thee! But my help cometh only from the Lord who hath made heaven and earth?”

Then he gathered up his resolution, and took the knife and held it once more to strike; and Isaac’s spirit left him, and he swooned away.

But the angels of God, who stood round about His throne, announced to the Most High all that took place, and they cried and wept, and even the fiery seraphim exclaimed, “Woe! He slays his son.” And the tears of the angels fell upon the face of Isaac, and made him ever after sad of countenance.

Then God said, “Behold and see how great is the faith of My servant Abraham, how on earth a man can hallow My great name, and devote his best and dearest to My service; see that, ye, who at the creation exclaimed, What is man, that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that thou so regardest him?”

Then He ordered Michael to fly swiftly, and stay the hand of Abraham.

And the archangel, when he came near, cried aloud, “Abraham! Abraham! what doest thou?”

Abraham looked in the direction of the voice, in doubt, and said, “Here am I.”

Then said the angel, “Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him.”

And Abraham said, “Who art thou?”

Michael told him who he was. Then said Abraham, “The Most High appeared to me in a vision, and bade me take my son as a whole offering to the place which He should say, and I may take no command from a servant of God, against that which God Himself hath laid upon me.”

Then heaven opened, and he saw the glory of God, and God said to him, “Touch not the lad to do him harm, for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from Me.”

And Abraham said, “How is this, O Lord! that Thou changest Thy purpose, and sayest one day, Do this, and the next, Do it not?”

And the Lord answered, and said, “I said not unto thee, Slay the lad as a burnt offering, but I said, Take thy son to the place that I shall tell thee, as a whole burnt offering. This hast thou done; thou hast fulfilled My command, I exact no more of thee. I change not my purpose, but I did suffer thee to misunderstand the purport of My command, and to think that I exacted more of thee; and this I did to prove thee. And now, by Myself have I sworn; for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son; that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heavens, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies.”

Then Isaac revived, and Abraham cut his cords, and he stood up and said, “Praised be the eternal One, who quickeneth those that be dead.”

And Abraham turned to the Shekinah and said, “Lord! how shall I depart hence without having offered to Thee a sacrifice?” The Lord answered, “Lift thine eyes, and thou shalt see a beast for sacrifice behind thee.”

In the thicket of the wood was that ram which God created at dusk on the sixth day, that it might serve this purpose. An angel had brought it out of Paradise, where it had lived since its creation, and had fed under the shadow of the Tree of Life, and had drunk of the River that there flows. And when the ram was brought into this earth, all the earth was filled with the fragrance from its fleece, on which hung the odors of the flowers on which it had lain in Paradise.

But by Satan’s fraud, the animal was frightened and strayed away, and Abraham tracked it by its foot-prints. Then Satan decoyed the beast behind some bushes and entangled its horns in the thicket; and Abraham would have passed by, and not seen it, but the ram caught him by his cloak. So Abraham slew it, and offered it in sacrifice, and sprinkled with its blood the altar he had made.

Now the Last Trumpets that shall sound, the one to call the just, the other the unjust, are made of the horns of this wondrous ram.

11. THE DEATH OF SARAH

Sarah, – who, as we have seen, accompanied Abraham and Isaac part of the way to Moriah, – on her return to the tent, found an old man awaiting her. It was Satan.

He greeted her with profound respect, and asked after her husband and son.

She answered that they had gone forth on a journey.

“Whither have they gone?” asked Satan.

“My lord has gone to visit the school of Shem and Eber, our grandsires, there to leave my son Isaac to be instructed in the law of God.”

“Alas! alas!” exclaimed the Apostate Angel; “thou art greatly deceived.”

Sarah was alarmed; and she asked wherefore he spake thus.

“Know then,” said Satan, “that Abraham has gone forth with Isaac to sacrifice him, upon a mountain, to the Most High.”

When she heard this, Sarah laid her head on the bosom of a slave and fainted. When she came to herself she hurried with her maidens to the school of Shem and Eber, and inquired after her husband and son, but they had neither seen nor heard any thing of them. So Sarah was convinced that what had been told her was true, and there was no spirit left in her.

Now when Satan knew that Abraham was bringing back his son, and that God had accepted the will for the deed, he was moved with envy and spite, and he could not rest to think of the joy that this would cause; so he went hastily to Sarah, and she was weeping in her tent, and sorely cast down and broken in spirit. Then he said suddenly to her, “Thy son liveth and is returning. God hath spared him!”

And she rose up and uttered a cry, and fell, and was dead; for the joy had killed her.

Abraham and Isaac, in the mean time had returned from Moriah, and they sought Sarah at Beer-sheba, but she was not there; therefore they went to Hebron, and there they found her corpse. Isaac fell weeping upon the face of his mother, and he cried, “Mother, mother! why hast thou forsaken me? why hast thou gone away?”

Abraham wept aloud, and all the dwellers in Hebron wept and lamented over Sarah, and ceased from their labors, that they might mourn with Abraham and Isaac. Sarah’s age was one hundred and seven-and-twenty years, and she was as fair to look upon when she died as in the bloom of her youth.

And as Abraham was bowed over the body of his wife, he heard the laugh of the Angel of Death, and his words, “Wherefore weepest thou? Thou bearest the blame of her death. Hadst thou not taken her son from her, she would have been alive now.”