Genesis Vol 3.pdf - College Press

22 : 1-24 GENESIS
temptation, that of Satan, occurs when one is drawn away
by his own lust, and enticed, even as Eve-at Satan’s
suggestion-was enticed by her lust for illicit knowledge
(Gen. 3 : 6). James gives us here the true pedigree of sin:
Satan, lust, sin, death.
Note that God said to Abraham, etc., v. 1, possibly
in a dream-vision, but surely in an audible voice which
previous experience had taught him to recognize. Note
the patriarch’s simple response, “Here am I,” a response that
combined both humility and readiness: so do the righteous
always respond to God’s calls (cf. Acts 22:10, Isa. 6:8).
“Into the land of Moriab,” i.e., “Jerusalem. The
Rabbis explained that it was so named because from thence
‘teaching’ (boradh) went forth to the world. It was the
land of the Amorite . . . the land where myrrh grew
abundantly (cf. Song of S. 4:6) ; it was the site of the
Temple,” cf. 2 Chron. 3:l (S.C., 109). “2 Chron. 3:l
identifies Moriah with the hill on which the Jerusalem
temple was later built. Subsequent tradition accepted the
identification” (JB, 39). As in all such cases involving
the support of tradition only, modern criticism is inclined
skeptical about this identification. It has been
objected that the region of Beersheba (from which Abra-
ham and Isaac set out) is not sufficiently distant ’from
Jerusalem to have required a journey of three days to
there, and that a topographical feature of the city of Jeru-
salem is that the Temple hill is not visible until the traveler
is quite close. “However, the distance from S. Philistia
to Jerusalem is about 50 miles, which might well have re-
quired three days to traverse, and in Genesis the place in
question is not a ‘mount Moriah’ but one of the several
mountains in a land of that name, and the hills on which
Jerusalem stands are visible at a distance. There is no need
to doubt therefore that Abraham’s sacrifice took place in
the site of the later Jerusalem, if not on the Temple hill”
434