Does God Command Immoral Actions? | Lecture 2

Theologian and biblical scholar J. Richard Middleton joined us at Upper House on September 12, 2025. Middleton will explore the provocative question “Does God command immoral actions?” using the story of Abraham and Isaac (Genesis 22) as a central example, inviting us to engage deeply with the moral and theological complexity of this foundational text.

J. Richard Middleton is Professor Emeritus of Biblical Worldview and Exegesis, at Northeastern Seminary and Roberts Wesleyan University, in Rochester, NY. A native of Jamaica, he immigrated to Canada for graduate studies and moved to the USA for a teaching position. He is past president of the Canadian-American Theological Association (2011–2014) and the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies (2019–2021). Middleton’s research area is Old Testament theology with a focus on creation, suffering, and the ethics of power. He is the author of five books; the most recent are The Liberating Image: The Imago Dei in Genesis 1 (Brazos, 2005); A New Heaven and a New Earth: Reclaiming Biblical Eschatology (Baker Academic, 2014); and Abraham’s Silence: The Binding of Isaac, the Suffering of Job, and How to Talk Back to God (Baker Academic, 2021). He is currently working on two new books, one on the power dynamics between prophet and king in 1 Samuel and the other on the biblical worldview for our troubled times.

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Transcript

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Now, I want to explore in more detail my proposal. Now, the test of Genesis 22 has to do with Abraham's discernment of God's character and not whether he'd be willing to give up his son as proof of his commitment to God. Now, the test is not just that to see if Abraham rightly understands God, as if it's a yes-no answer. Rather, like the testing of Israel in the wilderness, this is a learning opportunity. It allows, even perhaps prods Abraham to rise to the occasion of God's seemingly immoral command, to grapple with the command, to question whether this is something God really wants, and to learn something about God from it that he might only have been implicitly aware of before. So here I need to suggest that besides the narrative arc of the promise of descendants, which culminates in the birth of Isaac in Genesis 21, there is another narrative arc that we can see in the Abraham story. And that's the arc of Abraham's growing relationship with God. That's an important narrative arc, since the Abraham story is about the genesis of a new relationship, which will be formalized in a covenant in Genesis 15 and then again in 17. A relationship between a God whom later scripture will radically distinguish from the deities of the nations, and a man who at this point has no explicit prior knowledge of this God. So let's attend to Abraham's developing relationship with God in Genesis. Taking our cue from the various divine speeches addressed to Abraham between Genesis 12 and 22, because God never again speaks to Abraham after Genesis 22, I'm going to suggest the ups and downs of Abraham's verbal responses to God on each occasion. These responses are going to exhibit a growing and then a declining degree of intimacy and confidence in the divine human relationship. Now God speaks to Abraham on two occasions in Genesis 12 and then once in Genesis 13. But the first time any verbal response from Abraham is recorded is in Genesis 15. God speaks multiple times in this chapter about the promise of an heir and the promise of land. Abraham responds with questions in both cases. He honestly expresses his doubts. And in both cases, God takes his question seriously and responds appropriately to bolster his faith. God speaks again in Genesis 17 extensively about the covenant and circumcision and also about the birth of Isaac through Sarah. In all this, Abraham speaks once, asking God not to forget about Ishmael, which God agrees to do while reiterating the promises really about Isaac. At the beginning of Genesis 18, three quote men visit Abraham and Sarah. There's some recorded speech from Yahweh, who is distinguished as one of the men, the other two are angels, and he speaks concerning Sarah's giving birth. No speech of Abraham is reported at this point in the story, but Sarah speaks once in reply to deny that she laughed, to which God responds, Oh, yes, you did laugh. It's quite humorous when you read it. Then comes the extended dialogue between God and Abraham in Genesis 18. God reveals his intentions about Sodom to Abraham, which generates Abraham's bold upbraiding of God about doing what's right, followed by God's agreement to spare the sake for the sake, the city for the sake of 50. Abraham then speaks five more times as he brings the number down, and each time God agrees. Finally, in Genesis 22, God, Ha Elohim, not Yahweh, speaks. That's a deviation from the previous speech introductions. And God addresses Abraham twice at the beginning of the narrative and twice through an angel of Yahweh from heaven at the end. In all this, Abraham says only one word, Hinei. Here I am. The narrator says it twice, right? Now the narrator has previously introduced God's speeches to Abraham by calling God by his covenant name, Yahweh. But the switch to Elohim means that the generic word for God is being used. What might that signal to the reader? I think it signals that what's going to be happening here is a little bit different from God's previous conversations with Abraham. Perhaps even that the narrator is signaling to us that the question is going to be whether the God Abraham has been coming to know is simply a generic deity, like the other gods of the ancient world. Is he just Ha Elohim? Or is he different in some way? Is he Yahweh? So, what's the nature of the God that Abraham's been coming to know? In all of the reported dialogues with between God and Abraham, Yahweh is shown as a God who listens to his servant and tries to address his every articulated need. And in the case of the rescue of Lot, even his unarticulated needs. So one way to think of this relational narrative arc is that it has to do with Abraham's coming to understand the nature and character of the God who called him out of Haran. And a sign of Abraham's growing or diminishing discernment of God's character is his willingness to speak up in the manner of the psalmists and the prophets later on, who articulate their own needs. And would he intercede on behalf of others? So this narrative arc in the Abraham story suggests an alternative proposal for what the test is going to be about that God gives Abraham. Abraham is not being tested to see if his devotion to God can override his love for his son. Rather, God wants to see if Abraham understands just who this God is. Here I think it's really important for us to take a look at Genesis 18, just four chapters earlier, where God gives Abraham an intentional opportunity to learn more about divine mercy through the process of intercession. It's worth pausing to understand what's going on in Genesis 18, because many people read this story incorrectly. They don't attend to what it actually says. But this episode sets us up for Genesis 8.22. After the two angels depart for Sodom, you know, they're going to go and do whatever they're going to do there. Yahweh remains with Abraham, for it got something he wants to tell him. Yahweh muses to himself, Shall I hide from Abraham what I'm about to do? That is, concerning the cry of Sodom that has come to him. Yahweh decides that he's going to inform Abraham of this cry. Why? In order that he may charge his children and his household after him to keep the way of Yahweh by doing righteousness and justice. Sedaka Umishpat. When God tells Abraham that he's going down to see if the cry he's heard from Sodom deserves judgment, if not, I will know, he says. He waits on Abraham's response. But Abraham overinterprets God's statement that he's going to examine the situation in Sodom to mean that God has already decided to destroy the city where his nephew Lot is living. No doubt that's partly due to the reputation of Sodom, already alluded to in Genesis 13 and 14. But it's perhaps it's also due to Abraham's assumptions about the character of God and what constitutes righteousness and justice from God's perspective. But note, this is precisely what God wants to teach Abraham by revealing his intentions about Sodom. God wants Abraham to be able to instruct his children and his household in the way of the Lord, so they will do righteousness and justice. But that means that Abraham must first himself be instructed in God's righteous ways. Now Abraham does indeed vigorously intercede on behalf of Sodom. He abrades God for unjustly planning to destroy the innocent with the wicked, and he encourages God to do what is right and just. He challenges God despite, as he puts it, being merely dust and ashes. In a series of requests that God save the city, initially for the sake of fifty righteous or innocent, which he eventually ratches down to ten as his last offer. Abraham tests the extent of God's mercy, and God accedes to every single request he makes. Have to point out that this is quite contrary to the traditional reading of the text that you find in biblical commentaries. There is absolutely no bargaining or bartering or haggling, as many people say, going on here. Because bargaining involves two people starting at opposite ends and meeting in the middle of a compromise. The dialogue in Genesis 18 is different. Abraham makes an opening offer of 50. God says, sure. Abraham says, How about 45? God says, Fine. Abraham proposes 40. God agrees. Then Abraham drops the price by 10 instead of five and offers 30. God says, let's do it. Abraham offers 20. God agrees. Abraham says, I got one final offer for you. How about 10? God says, 10 it is. The question is, what is God trying to teach Abraham about the way of Yahweh from this exchange? If this is a used car sale, I think the seller wants to give the car away. The next thing is just don't destroy the city. Okay. So what sort of righteousness and justice is God displaying here? Certainly one infused with mercy. And as a number of biblical scholars have shown, the phrase righteousness and justice used throughout the ancient Near East is equivalent to mercy. It's almost as if Yahweh is looking for an excuse to save Sodom and Lot. Jeremiah 5:1 suggests that God might forestall the destruction of a wicked city for just one righteous person. That Abraham stops at 10 suggests he has not fully plumbed the depths of divine mercy. He's not yet learned what God wants to teach him. Nevertheless, God rescues Lot and his family through the agency of the angels, even though Abraham had not thought to ask for that at all. Perhaps he didn't think God was that merciful. So at the end of the dialogue with God in Genesis 18, Abraham has not quite learned what God wanted to teach him, even though Lot and his family have been saved. So we can frame the question that wins its way through the Abraham story in this way. How will Abraham be able to distinguish this God he's coming to know from the gods of the nations? This sort of discernment is going to be necessary, so Abraham will be equipped to charge his children and his household after him to keep the way of Yahweh by doing righteousness and justice. In light of the command that Abraham receives in Genesis 22 to sacrifice his son, let's put the question of Abraham's discernment of God's character more pointedly. Is the God of Abraham simply like one of the pagan deities of Mesopotamia and Canaan, who requires child sacrifice as a symbol of allegiance? Or is he different, a God of mercy and love for his children, who's even willing to forego judgment on Sodom for the sake of the innocent? That was something Abraham should have learned in chapter 18, so he could pass it on to his children, but he didn't. The lesson was cut short by Abraham himself. And so, in a final climactic episode to the Abraham story, God gives Abraham another chance to grow in the relationship, to learn about who God is. But God ups the ante this time. It's not that his nephew Lot will be destroyed, along with Sodom his home. It's Abraham's own son. And it's not God who will do it. Abraham must do it by his own hand. If anything would force Abraham to speak out, to appeal to the mercy of God, this would be it. He has the opportunity in this test to protest the command and intercede for his son's life, which would articulate his view of the character of God, both in what he says to God and the fact that he says it. It would further show his love for Isaac, which would be a good thing, not an impediment to his commitment to God. I got a cartoon from the internet. I didn't put it in here, but it shows Abraham about to sacrifice Isaac saying, Must I choose between religion and family? But Abraham doesn't speak out. Abraham is silent. Whereas Abraham became silent at the end of his intercession in Genesis 18, he stopped the conversation earlier than he needed to, so he never grasped the fullness and wideness of God's mercy. In Genesis 22, he never gets the conversation off the ground. He's simply silent, and his silence speaks volumes. It articulates a view of God as a harsh taskmaster, just as if he had used words. This is a God who should never be challenged. Now, one important consideration that bears on the question of whether or not Abram's response to God in Genesis 22 was a positive thing, an example for us to follow or not, is whether he was actually planning to sacrifice Isaac all along, or did he really expect God to provide a substitute? It's significant, first of all, that God did not tell Abraham to sacrifice Isaac immediately, but to journey to a place that he would indicate in the land of Moriah. It turns out that this was a three-day journey from Abraham's home. Why did God make Abraham take this long journey rather than just sacrifice Isaac on the spot? Could God have been giving Abraham time to mull over the command, to wonder about whether he should comply, to reflect on his relationship to his son and build up the courage to finally question God about it? Well, Abraham does not question God about the command, but could he be thinking that maybe God would provide a substitute sacrifice? After Abraham, Isaac, and the servants have been traveling for three days, they stop at the foot of a mountain where the sacrifice is to take place. And Abraham tells his servants that he and the boy will go worship on the mountain and they would return to them. The question is: does Abraham actually believe this? Or was he dissembling so the servants wouldn't know the real reason for the journey? Some rabbinic interpreters in the Middle Ages suggest that this was an outright lie on Abraham's part to prevent the servants trying to stop the old man from killing his own son. Other rabbinic interpreters suggest Abraham says that they would worship on the mountain in the sense that he was going to go and pray to God and intercede on behalf of Isaac. But he didn't do that. So worship could include prayer, right? Other interpreters suggest that Abraham would return with the bones or ashes of Isaac. So he would return with Isaac, just not the same Isaac you thought. These are all traditional rabbinic interpretations. After Abraham and Isaac leave the servants, the two of them went or walked together. The same statement ends verse 8. But in between, as they walk, there is a touching conversation between father and son, and it's a poignant moment worth lingering over. My father, says Isaac, Hinani, my son? Same response he made when God called him in verse 1. It's the same response he will make when the angel calls out from heaven in verse 11. It signifies readiness. Here I am, ready to listen, ready to act. Having got Abram's attention, Isaac notes that they have the fire, that is the fire stone or the fire pot, which Abram is carrying, and the wood, which Isaac is carrying. He omits mention of the knife, which a narrator says was in Abraham's hand. I can almost imagine him averting his eyes from that big knife when he's when he's asking the question. But then Isaac asks somewhat tentatively, I imagine, where is the sheep for the burnt offering? No, Abraham's answer to Isaac's question about the sheep is often taken as an expression of faith, but it's actually quite ambiguous. God will see to the sheep for God himself will see to the sheep for a burnt offering, my son. Does Abraham's answer mean that he had faith that God would provide a sheep, so he wouldn't have to go through with a command to sacrifice his own son? Was he uncertain, hoping against hope that a sheep would be provided, or was he trying to deceive Isaac so the intended victim wouldn't bolt? But there's an even more interesting possibility. If my son in God would seat to the sheep for burnt offering, my son was clearly meant to be what we call a vocative, that is a direct address to Isaac, it would come at the start of the sentence better. And you do find that in some translations in English. But that rearrangement obscures the ambiguity of the Hebrew. In the present position at the end of the sentence, my son could be a vocative of address, but it also could be what we say is opposition to the sheep for burnt offering. Earlier in chapter 22, verse 2, God gives a series of descriptions in opposition of Isaac. Your son, your only one, whom you love, Isaac. The referent of all of them is the same thing. Could that be the case here, where the burnt offering is my son? And you also find that expressed in rabbinic tradition. See, Jewish scholars read the text much more carefully than Christians do. There's a cartoon making its way around the internet that depicts the ambiguity of verse 8, though not in reference to the Hebrew, but it's got an analogous ambiguity. I got permission in my book to use this cartoon from the the author has since passed away. Where is here's the wood for the sacrifice, Dad? Groovy. Where's here's the dagger for the sacrifice, Dad, Keen. Where's the sacrifice? God will provide Isaac. What did you say? God will provide comma Isaac, or God will provide Isaac. Come here, son. I ain't budging until you put in a comma. That is an excellent example of the sort of ambiguity found in Abraham's answer in verse 8. Given the syntax of the sentence, my son following directly on the sheep for a burnt offering, you've got two possible meanings. We're left with an ambiguity, which might be intentional. It could be a signal from the narrator about the complexity of Abraham's response. It might even communicate what we call a Freudian slip on Abraham's part. But of course, we don't have access to Abraham's intent, just to his verbal response. At least at this point, that's all we have. But when we look further on in the story, there are some very significant clues as to whether Abraham actually believed God would provide a substitute. If he did believe this, one sign of this belief would have been his search when he got to the mountain for a substitute animal. But there is no reference to Abraham even checking to see if such an animal had been provided. Instead, he builds an altar and places the wood on it. His very next action is to bind Isaac and place him on the altar. And then he reaches out his hand, takes the knife, and prepares to slaughter his son. Abraham is so intent on the sacrifice that the angel has to call his name twice. Abraham, Abraham. I think the repetition is to get his attention. It's only after the angel instructs him not to go through with the sacrifice, do not stretch out your hand to the young man or do anything to him that Abraham lifted his eyes and saw the ram that God indeed had provided. As if only then did it dawn on him that there might be a substitute sacrifice. Now the details that the narrator provides about the location and circumstances of the ram are significant. When Abraham finally looks, he sees a ram behind caught in a thicket by its horns. Question is, how long has it been there? Well, you know, there is a standard Jewish painting of this and a tradition that says the ram was put there on the second day of creation, so that Abraham would never have to go through with a sacrifice. Well, let's just stick with the story for the time being and understand what's going on. A ram is a male goat or sheep, and its curled horns, for which a shofar is made, have to be long enough to be caught in a thicket, means it's a fully grown specimen. A large adult ram full of testosterone would have made a huge racket trying to extricate its horns from a thicket that it was caught in. The fact that Abraham did not hear the ram, didn't even look around for the sound of the noise when he first arrived, might suggest the ram had already stopped struggling, been provided by God a long time before, maybe not the second day of creation, but a long time in advance. It had been caught in the bushes before Abraham got there and was exhausted. That's a possible interpretation. But if the ram had indeed been there, provided Or seen to by God, just as Abraham claimed it would have been, he clearly missed it. Did he even look to see if there was a substitute? And suppose Aram was actually struggling to get free, having just recently become entangled. That means Abraham was so hyper-focused on sacrificing his son because, damn it, that's what God demanded, that he shut out the noise of the struggle. In either case, he didn't even bother to investigate whether God provided a substitute. This leads me to think that he did not believe his own words to Isaac. God himself will see to the sheep for a burnt offering. Abraham's attempt to sacrifice his own son leads me to wonder what Isaac learned from that event on the mountain. Many commentators, mostly Jewish and a few Christians, have noticed throughout the ages that Isaac is missing at the end of the story. Verse 5, Abraham tells his servants that he and the boy will go up the mountain to worship and we will return to you. Yet the narrator tells us that Abraham returned to his servants. Isaac is conspicuously absent. Abraham's son is not recorded as returning with him down the mountain. And this is a very well-crafted narrative in which details are important. In fact, in the remainder of the Abraham story, Abram and Isaac live in different places. Isaac in Bihir Laharoi, Abram in Beersheba. I could get into Jewish tradition, it asks, where was Isaac for the few years? One of them says he was learning Torah from Seth. How they work with that, I don't know. The other one says he was taken to the Garden of Eden to recover from his wounds and his trauma. Well, they don't live in the same place afterwards. What about Sarah? Everybody points out Sarah's missing at the start of 22. Abraham doesn't say anything to Sarah that I'm taking my your son, your favorite son, to be sacrificed. But you know what? She's also missing for the rest of Abraham's life after Genesis 22. The next time Sarah is mentioned, we're told of her death in Hebron, where she'd been living. And Abraham travels, presumably from Beersheba, where he was living, to Hebron to bury her. They don't seem to be living together, at least if we attend to the geographical references in Genesis. Did Abraham's attempt to sacrifice Isaac result also in Sarah's alienation? The fact that Abraham comes down the mountain alone and is never reported as seeing Isaac again prods me to ask if Abraham's attempt to sacrifice his son without even attempting to stand up for the boy and plead with God for his life as he pled for Sodom didn't have the effect of traumatizing Isaac and alienating him from his father. So if God wants Abraham to instruct his children in God's way of righteousness and justice, we can ask, what did Isaac learn from the episode on the mountain? I can safely say that if he learned anything of the mercy of God, it was through the angel's intervention to stay his father's hand. Yet if he learned that it was God who commanded his father to sacrifice him in the first place, this sense of mercy would not be pure and unvarnished. I think minimally he'd be somewhat confused about the character of God. And if Abraham's response to God's command in Genesis 22 affects Isaac negatively, how can we view this response as an exemplar for us to follow? Wouldn't there be some alternative way to be faithful to God without traumatizing and alienating our son, a child, another person? One of the most pronounced effects of the Mount Moriah episode is the structure of the book of Genesis itself. We are familiar, of course, with the promises given to the three patriarchs, the ancestors of Israel, right? Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. That triad is found over and over again in the Bible, mostly Old Testament, but also New Testament. But in the book of Genesis, after the primeval history, the first 11 chapters, we have the Abraham story, Genesis 12 to 25, the Jacob story, Genesis 25 to 35, and the Joseph story, Genesis 37 to 50, each introduced by reference to the father of the main character. The introductions to the stories of Abraham, Joseph, and Jacob all begin with the phrase, now these are the generations of, or the Toldot in Hebrew, of, followed by the name of the patriarch's father, Terah for Abraham, Isaac for Jacob, and Jacob for Joseph. There is no heading, these are the Toldot of Abraham, which would introduce a narrative block about Isaac. Isaac actually has only one chapter devoted to himself, which could be considered his own story, and that's tucked into the story of Jacob. In that chapter, God blesses Isaac's every attempt to dig wells wherever he travels, so he has water, wealth, and peaceful relations with the Hittites or the Philistines, sorry. It feels when I read chapter 26 as if God is comforting Isaac with overabundant grace for what he went through on the mountain. But apart from Genesis 26, Isaac appears only as a bit player in either Abraham's story or Jacob's story. Even in the Jacob story, there is no mention of Isaac between the account of his blessing Jacob and the notice of his death. Between those two episodes, he just disappears from view. Isaac has no significant actions that advance the narrative of the promise. In fact, he's a much diminished, shadowy, and insubstantial character in Genesis. Perhaps that's to be expected given what he went through on the mountain. One of the most intriguing bits of information that we are given that bears on the question of what Isaac learned from the events of Genesis 22 is found in Genesis 31. In Jacob's conversation with his uncle Laban, which leads to a covenant between them, Jacob first affirms that despite Laban's underhandedness, the God of his fathers has protected him. And who is this God? In Jacob's words, he's the God of Abraham and the fear of Isaac, Achad. And when he and Laban swear at the covenant oath, we were told, Jacob swore by the fear of his father Isaac. This is what Isaac passed down to Jacob, by intent or otherwise, about the character of God. He is the fear. My contextual reading of the Akada suggests that this is not the use of fear in the sense of reverence and awe. It does not have a positive connotation. That God is to be feared because he wants you to kill your son was the legacy that Abraham passed on to Isaac, which he passed on to his son. When we come back after our QA time, I'm going to talk about the angel speeches, which seem to validate Abraham's sacrifice, but they actually don't. Trust me on that. So now we have some time for QA. Excellent.