This is precisely how the sages of the Talmud (Taanit 4a) understood the Akedah. God's commandment to Abraham was very specific, and Abraham understood it very precisely: Isaac was to be "raised up as an offering", and God would use the opportunity to teach humankind, once and for all, that human sacrifice, child sacrifice, is not acceptable. ![]() Isaac's death was never a possibility - not as far as Abraham was concerned, and not as far as God was concerned. ![]() Rabbi Ari Kahn (on the Orthodox Union website) elaborates this view as follows: In The Binding of Isaac, Religious Murders & Kabbalah, Lippman Bodoff argues that Abraham never intended to actually sacrifice his son, and that he had faith that God had no intention that he do so. ![]() Mosaic on the floor of Beth Alpha depicting the Akedah
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