Why is God attempting to tempt Abraham? Are we about to see deception from the LORD?

I'm sure this would come across as a little unexpected, not only does God forget that Isaac is Abraham's second son, he's just gone and asked him to kill him.

What no questions? I can imagine his thoughts..."Hmmm, What shall I do this morning, Oh... let's gather up some wood and go and burn my son, it's OK, the LORD told me to do it, It's not like I've been waiting ninety years for a son with Sarah". What mind-bending substance must Abraham have been on? he pleaded for Sodom and Gomorrah, God agreed his terms and then ignored them. Why wouldn't he plead for his own son?

OK.

Abraham, evidently doesn't want any witnesses to the ritual murder of his son. Who would?

Off they go then.

Isaac smells a rat! Why hasn't Abraham brought a lamb? He's an astute boy.

...or perhaps not, He must have inherited his critical thinking skills from father. Why didn't he realise that the purpose of sacrifice is to give something of yours up, if God provides the lamb then no actual sacrifice is being made. Such a gullible boy.

No struggle? Isaac really is a docile creature.

Again, not even a second thought. This is a properly barbaric act, all the LORD has done for Abraham is help him scam a couple of kings and made him cut off his foreskin. Who would kill their child in return for that?

God didn't show up in person for this one, Does God use angels when he wants plausible deniability?

OK, Apparently God doesn't want Isaac dead after all. Phew. That must have been a pretty traumatic event for Isaac, I'd say the same of Abraham but he has shown about as much parental love for the boy as a robot. I'm thinking he may have gone senile.

Abraham sees a ram that has gotten stuck and helps it by setting fire to it as a means to please God, Why does God like burnt ram? I can understand Abraham being pleased that he doesn't need to kill his son, but he didn't need to in the first place, he could have said no, also why isn't Abraham angry that God pulled this stunt in the first place?

"it is said to this day"? When was this written, the narrative has taken on the style of folk myth again, it does this quite often

Right.

Go on...

But Abraham has already been promised all of this, more than once. This doesn't seem like much of a reward, he's basically been given the same promises he's already heard. His reward amounts to exactly nothing.

But he'd already been granted this.

OK.

Some time later Abraham becomes an uncle.

Nahor's children are Huz, Buz, kemuel (who himself has a son called Aram),..

...Chesed, Hazo, Pildash, Jidlaph and Bethuel. That's quite a lot of kids to announce in one go. I'm guessing Milcah and Nahor wanted to make sure they had finished breeding before sending Abraham the "congratulations, you're an uncle" letter.

Bethuel has a daughter, Rebekah, So far this book hasn't listed women often in genealogies, I'm guessing this means Rebekeh will be important later.

Whoa, Nahor had a load of other kids by his concubine too, I wonder if Abraham is jealous.

Genesis 22.What have we learned?Abraham is willing to murder his own son, his own long-awaited and promised-by-God son, just because God commands it. You might think that Abraham has such love for God that this is a demonstration of that love but let's look at Abraham's respect for the Lord in the past; God was going to destroy all of Sodom, Abraham didn't like it and was man enough to argue his case, he argued strongly enough to have God capitulate. Abraham clearly thinks that the LORD fallible, capable of being wrong and capable of being corrected, so we are left with no option but to conclude that Abraham didn't think there is anything wrong with killing his son or else he would have argued to protect him.The nature of sacrifice has been called into question, In verse eight it is suggested that God will provide a lamb to be sacrifice and I note that if God is providing the offering, in what sense is it an offering. Now that I come to think of it, if God provided the planet and all of the animals on it, in what sense is *any* sacrifice made by man an actual sacrifice? And in what way does God benefit? Let's take an analogy: A parent gives a child a bag of sweets, the child is grateful and so as a means of thanking the parent takes one of the sweets and burns it. This act benefits no one.