My father’s god was always asking
him to do strange things in strange ways. Mother’s favorite story was how
they’d been the first family to move from my grandfather Teran’s home in Ur in
five generations. “I thought he was crazy,” she’d smile, “hearing voices like
that…but then your father’s god told me I’d have a baby…I laughed and he got
angry. What? No, not your father, dear. The messenger. Nine months later…” she
smiled and held her hands out as if to say, “The rest is obvious—here you are!”
All her stories end with me. I’m not blind—I can see how old they are. My
friends’ parents are all much younger and of course I’d heard whispers about my
brother Ishmael and his mother Hagar. I was wanted—plain
and simple.
They’re not all like that you know.
Babies, I mean. Some aren’t wanted—too many mouths to feed already or too few
months since the wedding. My father is wealthy enough—and mother is perceptive
enough—to take care of most of that under the table. An extra servant at supper
when no one else was needed, leftover food dropped by a tent because, “We’d
hate for it to go to waste.” Some babies aren’t wanted, but I have never been
one of them. In a camp as large as ours, we have births every few months. When
the babies are born, she holds them and whispers to them and you can tell: she
always wanted more.
I had a lot of freedom growing up.
Father and Mother both had lots to do to make sure the camp ran smoothly, and
although I helped Father with the animals and listened as he talked to his
servants when he asked me to (“Someday, Isaac, this will be your
responsibility.”) my most vivid memories of childhood are carefree. After the
Fight, things changed.
“What?! No! Abraham, you must be
out of your mind! How can you even consider such a terrible thing!?” Mother was
angry. Mother and Father didn’t argue frequently and when they did, they made
sure to do it quietly, where no one else could hear them. This time, Mother was
standing in plain sight, in front of their tent, eyes blazing.
“Sarah, He told me to.” Father
sounded tired, resigned. A little pleading.
“NO. He’s my only son. We won’t get
another chance, Abraham, we’re lucky we have Isaac!” Her voice went up another
octave and they were beginning to gather a crowd.
“Sarah. He told me.”
“Why?! Why, Abraham? Why would He
give us something only to take it away? You must have misheard him. He
wouldn’t—couldn’t—ask you to do something like that. That’s disgusting!
It’s...wrong, Abraham, simply wrong.”
“Sarah, darling. He asked me to.”
“No! I won’t let you. Anything else
He can have. He took my home—I left my clothes, my furniture,
everything!—behind because I trusted you when you said He had asked you to
leave. But this?! It’s too much! He cannot have Isaac! He’s my only son,
Abraham. He’s all I have.”
At this point, Mother was sobbing, and I was scared,
although I didn’t understand why they were arguing about me. Father’s god had
never talked to me in the same way He talked to Father, but I tried to do what
Father told me to keep Him happy. I couldn’t think of anything I’d done to make
Him angry. Father tried to put his arm around her, and lead her into the tent,
away from staring eyes but she got angry, and began pushing my father away from
her.
“Sarah,” he tried again. “Isaac
already belongs to him.” Mother stopped fighting. She just stood there,
dumbfounded, as if he’d hit her.
“What?”
“Isaac already belongs to him.”
We left early the next morning.
Father and I went with two of our men into the desert. When I asked him where
we were going, he kept quiet, as if he were afraid of the answer. We had wood
for a burnt offering on the back of the donkey. I’d participated in offering
sacrifices to Father’s god before and although we’d never offered a donkey
before, I saw no reason why we couldn’t. It was a long trip—two days into the
wilderness. The mountain range got closer and eventually, on the third morning,
Father told the men he and I would be traveling on alone. I carried the wood.
Father carried the knife and a smoldering coal for the sacrifice. I thought it
was peculiar—we weren’t taking the donkey with us on the next leg of our
journey? I asked Father what we’d use for the sacrifice. He looked at me—I’ll
never forget his face—and said, “The Lord, will provide the lamb, my son. Did I
ever tell you about the first time the Lord our God spoke to me?”
“Tell me again.” If the story of my
birth was Mother’s favorite, this was Father’s.
“I thought I was dreaming. ‘Abram,’
God said (they called me Abram then). ‘Abram, you will have a son, an heir.
Your property will remain with your family. Abram, look up—count the stars if
you can. Your descendants will number more than all the stars in the sky.’ When
I told your mother, she thought I was crazy. We’d tried for many years to have
a child and all the midwives thought she was barren. And I was old, too, you
know. We made a covenant that night—El Shaddai, God Almighty, and I. He named
me Abraham—the father of many children. As many children as there are stars in
the sky! I laughed when He told me. But who wouldn’t! What a preposterous
thing, to think that at so old we would have a son. You—you are the fulfillment
of that promise. You’re everything we could ever have hoped for.” We reached
the top of the mountain. Father looked around and began gathering rocks for the
altar. This was a familiar chore and I started to help.
“No, Isaac, you sit and
listen. I trust God. I don’t understand him. Your mother—she thinks I
understand why God says what He says to me. But I don’t! It never made sense
for me to leave Haran. We were comfortable there. I was respected. But God said
to me, ‘Go’ and I left. When he showed me the stars and told me I would be a
father to many, I didn’t understand that either. And the sign of the covenant!
You should have heard the other men argue about that command. But I trusted
that God knew where we were going and here we are. No matter how crazy the
order seemed, He’s never let me down. He’s never abandoned me. It’s always made
sense in the end. You are the child of the covenant, the first to be included
in the promise God made to your mother and me. You’re just as much part of this
as I am.” Abraham—my father—stood up, looking old; older than he’d ever seemed
before. I looked around. The altar was finished, the wood ready. There was no
lamb in sight. “Do you understand, Isaac?”
“What?” I said, turning towards
him.
“Isaac, do you understand what I’m
telling you?” There were tears in his eyes. I’d never seen my father cry
before. I did understand, although I wished I didn’t. What choice did I have,
really? As he bound me to the altar, Abraham kept talking, telling me of his
trust in El Shaddai. “You are my child, given to me by the Lord in fulfillment
of the covenant,” he repeated, raising the knife over my head. I closed my eyes
in terror, irrationally glad I was tied too tightly to try to escape. “You’re
just as much a part of this as I am.”
“Abraham!” My eyes flew open and I
searched for the person speaking. I had never heard that voice before. But, oh,
I have heard it since.
He sobbed. “Yes, Lord!”
“It is enough. Untie your son.”
We made a sacrifice to my God on
the mountaintop that day, and returned home to Sarah, who cried, and held me so
tightly I bruised.
