Genesis 22:13 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Genesis 22:13
And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son.
properly · noun, common masculine singular absolute
caught
נֶאֱחַ֥זne.'e.Chaz
H270
to seize (often with the accessory idea of holding in p… · verb, niphal perfect, 3rd person masculine singular
thicket
בַּסְּבַ֖ךְba.se.Vakh
H5442
a copse · preposition with the article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
horns
בְּקַרְנָ֑יוbe.kar.Nav
H7161
a horn (as projecting) · preposition + noun, common feminine dual construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
Abraham
אַבְרָהָם֙'av.ra.Ham
H85
Abraham · proper noun, a man's name
went
יָלַךְyâlak
H3212
to walk (literally or figuratively)
took
וַיִּקַּ֣חvai.yi.Kach
H3947
to take (in the widest variety of applications) · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
ram
הָאַ֔יִלha.'A.yil
H352
properly · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
up
וַיַּעֲלֵ֥הוּvai.ya.'a.Le.hu
H5927
to ascend · conjunction + verb, hiphil sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
offering
לְעֹלָ֖הle.'o.Lah
H5930
a step or (collectively · preposition + noun, common feminine singular absolute
stead
תַּ֥חַתTa.chat
H8478
the bottom (as depressed) · noun, common masculine singular construct
son
בְּנֽוֹbe.No
H1121
a son (as a builder of the family name) · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
1 Corinthians 10:13 There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye ar…
Psalms 40:6-8 Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened: burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required.
2 Corinthians 1:9-10 But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead:
Genesis 22:8 And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together.
Psalms 89:19-20 Then thou spakest in vision to thy holy one, and saidst, I have laid help upon one that is mighty; I have exalted one chosen out of the peop…
Isaiah 30:21 And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to th…
1 Corinthians 5:7-8 Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:
1 Peter 1:19-20 But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Genesis 22:11-14
Hitherto this story has been very melancholy, and seemed to hasten towards a most tragical period; but here the sky suddenly clears up, the sun breaks out, and a bright and pleasant scene opens. The same hand that had wounded and cast down here heals and lifts up; for, though he cause grief, he will have compassion. The angel of the Lord, that is, God himself, the eternal Word, the angel of the covenant, who was to be the great Redeemer and comforter, he interposed, and gave a happy issue to this trial.
I. Isaac is rescued, Gen 22:11, Gen 22:12. The command to offer him was intended only for trial, and it appearing, upon trial, that Abraham did indeed love God better than he loved Isaac, the…
Abraham lifted up his eyes . . . and behold . . . a ram, &c.--No method was more admirably calculated to give the patriarch a distinct idea of the purpose of grace than this scenic representation: and hence our Lord's allusion to it (Joh 8:56).
Next: Genesis Chapter 23
Adam Clarke on Genesis 22:12
Lay not thine hand upon the lad - As Isaac was to be the representative of Jesus Christ's real sacrifice, it was sufficient for this purpose that in his own will, and the will of his father, the purpose of the immolation was complete. Isaac was now fully offered both by his father and by himself. The father yields up the son, the son gives up his life; on both sides, as far as will and purpose could go, the sacrifice was complete. God simply spares the father the torture of putting the knife to his son's throat. Now was the time when it might properly be said, "Sacrifice, and offering, and burnt-offering, and sacrifice for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure in them: then said the…
And Abraham lifted up his eyes,.... They were before fixed upon his son lying upon the altar, and intent upon that part he was going to thrust his knife into; but hearing a voice from heaven above him, he lift up his eyes thitherward:
and looked, and, behold, behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns; the ram making a noise and rustling among the bushes behind the place where Abraham was, he turned himself, and looked and saw it: the Targum of Onkelos introduces the clause thus, "after these things"; and so the Arabic version: after Abraham had heard the voice of the angel, and had lift up his eyes to heaven, he was directed to look behind him; and both that and the Targum of Jonath…
The Church Fathers
The mountain spit out the tree and the tree the ram. In the ram that hung in the tree and had become the sacrifice in the place of Abraham's son, there might be depicted the day of him who was to hang upon the wood like a ram and was to taste death for the sake of the whole world.
Thus the sacrifice was not for the sake of Isaac but for that of Abraham, who was tested by being called upon to make this offering. And of course, God accepted his intentions, but he prevented him from slaying Isaac. The death of Isaac would not buy freedom for the world. No, that could be accomplished only by the death of our Savior, by whose stripes we are all healed.
(Verse 13.) And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and behold, behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by its horns. Emisenus Eusebius has spoken a silly thing in this place: Sabech, he says, is called a goat, which with straight horns is raised high to pluck the leaves from a tree. Again Aquila has interpreted as a bush, which we can call a thicket or briar: and to interpret the force of the word, dense and intertwined twigs. And Symmachus also expresses the same opinion, saying, 'And it appeared that a ram, after this, was caught in a net by its horns.' However, some have interpreted it better in this particular place, namely the Septuagint and Theodotion, who translated the word as 'Sabech,' saying, 'In the thicket Sabech with its horns.' For σύχνεων, that is, the net, which Aquila and Symmachus have used, is written with the letter 'Sin.' But here the letter 'Samech' is used. From this it is clear that the interpretation is not of thickened branches, and like the word 'Sabech' intertwined like a net with intertwined branches, but rather the name signifies a thicket, which is thus expressed in Hebrew. But in my diligent investigation, I frequently found that the letter συχνεῶνα is often written as Samech ().
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Burnt offering — Hebrew olah; i.e., “ascending,” the whole being consumed by fire, and regarded as ascending to God while being consumed. Part of every offering was burnt in the sacred fire, but this was wholly…
Gerizim — A mountain of Samaria, about 3,000 feet above the Mediterranean. It was on the left of the valley containing the ancient town of Shechem (q.v.), on the way to Jerusalem. It stood over against Mount…
Isaac — Laughter. (1) Israel, or the kingdom of the ten tribes (Amos 7:9, 16). (2.) The only son of Abraham by Sarah. He was the longest lived of the three patriarchs (Gen. 21:1-3). He was circumcised when…
Sacrifice — The offering up of sacrifices is to be regarded as a divine institution. It did not originate with man. God himself appointed it as the mode in which acceptable worship was to be offered to him by…
Temple, Solomon’s — Before his death David had “with all his might” provided materials in great abundance for the building of the temple on the summit of Mount Moriah (1 Chr. 22:14; 29:4; 2 Chr. 3:1), on the east of the…
Temptation — (1.) Trial; a being put to the test. Thus God “tempted [Gen. 22: 1; R.V., ‘did prove’] Abraham;” and afflictions are said to tempt, i.e., to try, men (James 1:2, 12; comp. Deut. 8:2), putting their…
Burnt Offering, The · The most ancient of all sacrifices — The most ancient of all sacrifices
Courage · .In offering — .In offering
Horns · Animals with, mentioned: The ram — Animals with, mentioned: The ram
Isaac · .Offered in sacrifice by his father — .Offered in sacrifice by his father
And, behold, behind him a ram. What the Jews feign respecting this ram, as having been created on the sixth day of the world, is like the rest of their fictions. We need not doubt that it was presented there by miracle, whether it was then first created, or whether it was brought from some other place; for God intended to give that to his servant which would enable him, with joy and cheerfulness, to offer up a pleasant sacrifice: and at the same time he admonishes him to return thanks. Moreover, since a ram is substituted in the place of Isaac, God shows us, as in a glass, what is the design of our mortification; namely, that by the Spirit of God dwelling within us, we, though dead, may yet…
In this eventful moment, when Isaac lay bound like a lamb upon the altar, about to receive the fatal stroke, the angel of the Lord called down from heaven to Abraham to stop, and do his son no harm. For the Lord now knew that Abraham was אלהים ירא God-fearing, and that his obedience of faith did extend even to the sacrifice of his own beloved son. The sacrifice was already accomplished in his heart, and he had fully satisfied the requirements of God. He was not to slay his son: therefore God prevented the outward fulfilment of the sacrifice by an immediate interposition, and showed him a ram, which he saw, probably being led to look round through a rustling behind him, with its horns fast in…
God provided a ram caught by its horns in a thicket for the sacrifice. God graciously allowed Abraham to substitute an animal sacrifice in place of Isaac. Later, all Israel would offer animals to the Lord, knowing that God’s grace had provided this substitution (Exod 29:10; Lev 4:15; 16:20-22). In the New Testament, God substituted his only son for all humanity; the perfect sacrifice was made once and for all (Isa 53:6, 10; John 1:29; Heb 7:27; 10:1-14; 1 Pet 3:18).
Rashi on Genesis 22:13
והנה איל BEHOLD, A RAM — It was predestined for that purpose from the six days of Creation (Avot 5:5; Midrash Tanchuma, Vayera 23).
אחר AFTER the angel had said to him “Lay not thy hand upon the lad” he saw it being caught in the thicket. And that is what we mean when we translate it in the Targum by “And Abraham lifted up his eyes after these (i.e. after these words)”. Other versions of Rashi have: according to the Midrashic explanation, after means after all the words of the angel and the Shechinah, and after all the arguments of Abraham.
בסבך IN A THICKET— a tree.
בקרניו BY ITS HORNS — because it was running towards Abraham, but Satan caused it to be caught and entangled among the tree…
Resurrection Of Christ, The · Typified: Isaac — Typified: Isaac
Sacrifices · Were offered: By the patriarchs — Were offered: By the patriarchs
Sheep · .By Abraham — .By Abraham
Temptation · A TEST — A TEST
Vicarious · .The ram for — .The ram for
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
