And in your descendants shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because you have obeyed my voice.
All Commentaries on Genesis 22:18 Go To Genesis 22
Bede
AD 735
In the third age of the world, God, testing Abraham’s obedience, commanded him to offer to him as a holocaust his one and only son, whom he loved. Abraham did not delay in doing what he was ordered, but a ram was immolated in place of his son. Nevertheless for his virtue of extraordinary obedience he was granted the inheritance of an everlasting blessing. Behold, [here] you have the third hydria, for when you hear that a greater obedience is repaid by a greater prize, you yourself [will] attempt to learn and to possess obedience. If in the immolation of his one and only son, whom he loved, you understand the passion of the one concerning whom the Father says, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am wellpleased” (in him, since his divinity remaining impassible, only his humanity suffered death and sorrow, it is as though a son was offered but a ram was slain); if you understand the blessing which was promised to Abraham about the nation’s coming to belief as a gift fulfilled in you—then he has truly made wine out of water for you, since he has opened to you the spiritual sense, by whose new fragrance you are intoxicated.
