De Abrahamo

Philo Judaeus

The works of Philo Judaeus, the contemporary of Josephus, volume 2. Yonge, C. D., translator. London: Henry G. Bohn, 1854.

And the father collected stones wherewith to build the altar; and when his son saw everything else

v.2.p.432

prepared for the celebration of the sacrifice, but no animal, he looked to his father and said, "My father, behold the fire and the wood, but where is the victim for the burnt sacrifice?" [*]( Genesis xxii. 7. )

Therefore, any other father, knowing what he was about to do, and being depressed in his soul, would have been thrown into confusion by his son’s words, and being filled with tears, would, out of his excessive affliction, by his silence have betrayed what was about to be done;

but Abraham, betraying no alteration of voice, or countenance, or intention, looking at his son with steady eye, answered his question with a determination more steady still, "My child," said he, "God will provide himself a victim for the burnt offering," although we are in a vast desert where perhaps you despair of such a thing being found; but all things are possible to God, even all such things as are impossible and unintelligible to men.

And even while saying this, he seizes his son with all rapidity, and places him on the altar, and having taken his knife in his right hand, he raised it over him as if to slay him; but God the Saviour stopped the deed in the middle, interrupting him by a voice from heaven, by which he ordered him to stay his hand, and not to touch the child: calling the father by name twice, so as to turn him and divert him from his purpose, and forbid him to complete the sacrifice.