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'''Christian exegesis''' is an interpretation of the Bible, usually the Old Testament from a Christian perspective. It is used for trying to find deaper meanings to the Biblical text that would interest a Christian audience.
'''Christian exegesis''' is an interpretation of the Bible, usually the Old Testament from a Christian perspective. It is used for trying to find deaper meanings to the Biblical text that would interest a Christian audience.
== Christians can see Jesus in the Binding of Isaac==
Christians often see Christ proliptically portrayed in the Binding of Isaac. This comes about both because of the parallels in the story of Abraham's sacrifice-to-be with the actual giving by the heavenly Father of His Son, Jesus as a sacrifice, and by the knowledge of what the sacrifices for sin meant in the Hebrew Bible. But Christ is also portayed when one peers at the Akeda through the eyes of the Midrash. The message of the New Testament and of Paul's teaching of the sacrifice of Christ was first of all nothing alien to comprehensibilty to the Jewish mindset and expectation.
1. "AND HE TOOK IN HIS HAND THE FIRE AND THE KNIFE (Ma'akelet - the word for knife is derived from the root Alef, Kaf, Lamed, which means "eating"). The Midrash continues : The rabbis said, "All eating ('akilot') which Israel enjoy in this world, they enjoy only in the merit of that knife". Here, the New Testament teaching that the benefits imputed or given to many, who otherwise would not receive it not meriting it, is given them by a meritorious act outside of themselves and of another somehow related (eating/knife) to them.
2.Rabbi Isaac said: "When Abraham wished to sacrifice his son Isaac, he (Isaac) said to him, 'Father, I am a young man and am afraid that my body may tremble through fear of the knife and I will grieve thee, whereby the slaughter may be rendered unfit, and this will not count as a real sacrifice; Therefore, bind me very firmly'. Forthwith, "HE BOUND ISAAC" Here the willingness of Jesus to sacrifice Himself is portayed by Isaac's own willingness, and the Midrash clearly understands that the slaying of the son as a sacrifice is for an indispensable, beneficial purpose. "No man takes My life from Me. but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment I have received from My Father."
3. "LAY NOT THY HAND UPON THE LAD" Where was the knife? Tears had fallen from the angels upon it and dissolved it. "Then I will strangle him", said he (Abraham) to Him. "LAY NOT THY HAND UPON THE LAD", was the reply. "Let us bring forth a drop of blood from him", Abraham pleaded. "NEITHER DO THOU ANYTHING TO HIM." Here, it is precisely the contrast of the unwillingness of the heavenly Father, despite the willingness of the earthly father, to sacrifice Isaac, with the willingness of the Heavenly Father to offer His own Son Jesus, that causes us to wonder and look forward to some resolution both in literature and in life. "He was pleased to bruise Him".
4. And here the solution is offered - in the biblical passage before us, in the eyes of the midrash, and looking forward to completion in Christ - to the eyes of the Christian. "AND ABRAHAM WENT AND TOOK THE RAM, AND OFFERED HIM UP FOR A BURNT-OFFERING IN THE STEAD OF HIS SON," The Midrash: He (Abraham) prayed to Him, "Sovereign of the Universe! Look upon the blood of this ram as though it were the blood of my son Isaac". When a man declares: This animal be instead of this one, in exchange for that, or a substitue for this, it is a valid exchange - so the Midrash.
"Think not that I have come to be served, but to serve, and to give My life as a ransom for many" ..."...the Just for the unjust that He might bring us to God."
5. "AND ABRAHAM LIFTED UP HIS EYES, AND LOOKED, AND BEHOLD BEHIND (AHAR) HIM A RAM. In this biblical passage, the Midrash saw the both meanings in the word "AHAR". It means "behind" and it means "after". The Midrash continues, ..."AFTER all that happened, Israel still fell into the clutches of sin and [in consequence] became the victims of persecution; yet they will ultimately be redeemed by the ram's horn, as it says, 'AND THE LORD GOD WILL BLOW THE HORN...'Zech. 9:14"
"For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the Archangel, and with the Horn of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first" 1 Thess. 4:16
[[Category:Christianity]]
[[Category:Christianity]]