Monday, February 20, 2012
Angel vs. Hashem
Hashem told Avraham to go to a land and sacrifice his son, THE son-the one that Hashem had promised to him, the one he was waiting so long to finally get. This is a huge test and it was testing Avraham. Hashem was the person to actually speak to Avaraham about the test and tell him to do it. Avraham had done what Hashem had told him, he had lied to his son, got it ready, and was even about to do it. Right as he was about to sacrifice his son an angel came to him and told him to stop and he had fulfilled the test and Hashem now trusts him. I was thinking about it and it came to mind that it would probably please Avraham more if it were Hashem to come and tell him that he was down and He is satisfied. If Hashem was the one to tell him to do this why could he not be the one to stop it? So why an angel telling Avraham that Hashem is pleased why not Hashem coming straight to him and saying "I am pleased you passed the test, I now understand that you have complete faith in me, you do not have to kill your son."?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
To answer racheli's question I would like to point out that G-d performs most of his 'physical' actions, such as stopping Avraham from killing Yitzchak, through angels. An angel might be a messenger of G-d, but everything an angel says is really G-d talking through it. That idea is shown when the angels go to visit Avraham and the pasukim switch off from saying 'And the Lord said' and 'And they said'.
ReplyDeleteIt is also an unheard of privledge to be able to see G-d. No one has ever been able to see G-d. The closest anyone has ever gotten was Moshe, and he only got a tiny hidden glance. Avraham must not have been on a high enough level of spirituality to earn that. It also might be because he was ready to go through with killing his son, even though G-d said so, it is still troubling that he went so far. Even though many commentators explain how his trust in G-d was proved and G-d would not have let that happen, it is still bothersome.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Emma on the point of why HaShem didnt appear to Avraham himself. Moshe is really the only one HaShem ever appeared to face to face. I don't know why he couldn't have stopped him another way though. As for what Emma said about why he got so far: We said that HaShem wasn't just testing Avraham so that He Himself would know the depth of his devotion, but so that all the nations of the world would know.
ReplyDelete