Abram's Test
 When Isaac was about fifteen
years old God gave Abraham a test of his obedience and faithfulness. God spoke to Abraham: "Take Isaac, your only son, and
go to a mountain in the land of Moriah. Offer Isaac to me as a burnt offering sacrifice."
How sad Abraham was to receive this command from God. But Abraham listened, because it was God who had spoken, and he
trusted God. At the place God had told Abraham about, he and Isaac built the altar. They placed wood on top of it. Then
Abraham fastened Isaac's hands and feet and laid him on the wood. After that came the awful moment. Abraham took a knife and
lifted it up to kill his only son, Isaac.
But at that very moment a messenger of God spoke: "Abraham! Abraham! Do not touch Isaac. Now I know how much you love God
and want to serve him. You have not kept back your only son from him."
A noise in the bushes attracted Abraham's attention. Abraham looked up. Right in front of him, caught by its horns in a
thorn bush, was a ram. Together Abraham and Isaac used the ram for a sacrifice offering. They worshiped God there. Abraham
knew that he could trust God no matter what happened.
A Wife for Isaac
 When Sarah died, Abraham knew that
he would not live much longer. In those days the parents always found wives for their sons. Abraham called his oldest, most
trusted servant to tell him how he must go about finding a wife for Isaac.
Abraham sent the servant all the way back to Haran to look for a wife for Isaac. Abraham's brother Nahor still lived in
Haran. Abraham hoped that the servant would be able to find in that tribe a wife for Isaac.
When the servant eventually came to the country of Nahor, near the town of Haran, it was evening. He stopped beside the well
outside the town. Soon the women would
be coming out to get water. Before they came, the servant prayed that God would make the lady who should be Isaac's wife
answer him in a special way when he spoke to the women. If he asked one of them to let down her jug into the water and give
him water to drink, then the right one must not only give water to him but to his camels as well.
And Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel, Abraham's nephew, did just that. After the servant had spoken with Rebekah she ran on
ahead to tell her family what had happened.
When he came to Rebekah's house, the servant told her family why he had come. He explained who Abraham was. He gave them the
presents Abraham had sent. The servant told how he had prayed to God to show him the lady who was to become Isaac's wife.
And then he said he was sure that Rebekah was the right one. Her father, Bethuel, and her brother, Laban, were also sure it
was God's will and that Rebekah must go back to be Isaac's wife.
On the evening that Rebekah and the servant arrived back near Abraham's tent, Isaac was out in the field. He saw the servant
coming back. He went out to meet them. When he and Rebekah saw each other, they loved each other right away.
Soon they were married. For the first time since his mother died, Isaac was not lonely any more. |
