Adam agrees to this request because he fears and trusts God. Abraham relies on God to command him and then fulfill what he has promised Abraham, in this case, like Kass says, “land, seed, and a great name.” God’s promises to Abraham directly align with his deepest desires and longings, so Abraham listens to what God commands of him. Sacrificing his son Isaac is a deeply difficult action, but God is the one who gave Abraham this son, so Abraham must trust that God’s plan for him will work out in the end, even though the promise of many children has seemed grim. Abraham may have lied in these lines (22:5 and 22:8) where he promises his servants and Isaac that they will be sacrificing a lamb, but he probably did this because he knew that Isaac and his servants did not have as strong a faith in God as he did. He had to lie to obey God, otherwise his sacrifice may have gone awry. God makes Abraham go through this ordeal to test his faithfulness and unwavering obedience to Him. God probably does not want to see Isaac die, but He might be showing Abraham that his relationship to God should always come before any others, including family and offspring. Adam is praiseworthy in the sense that he is extremely obedient to God’s commands, but it seems like being willing to betray his own son to this extent should not be worthy of praise. God has made it very clear up to this point that he does not look favorably upon violence and murder, but Abraham is willing to do so anyway because God says. Although it seems Abraham is in a win-win situation, since either way he is obeying God, I think he should have been more hesitant or not attempted to kill Isaac. In this situation, I am somewhat skeptical of God’s actions here, even though this is a clever test. I think an enigmatic command like this is definitely an effective test of faithfulness, but risking Isaacs life isn’t very favorable, even if God stopped Abraham before he committed murder.
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Michelle's Theology Blog 
I really liked your response, and it made me think twice about saying that Abraham is worthy of praise period. I think that you are correct in that there is somewhat of a blurred line here, because Abraham is willing to kill his own son. However, earlier, when Abraham tells his servants “we are just going to worship, we will be back”, is where I feel as if Abraham knows God is looking out for them and that that is the real praiseworthy part.
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I really liked your response, and it made me think twice about saying that Abraham is worthy of praise period. I think that you are correct in that there is somewhat of a blurred line here, because Abraham is willing to kill his own son. However, earlier, when Abraham tells his servants “we are just going to worship, we will be back”, is where I feel as if Abraham knows God is looking out for them and that that is the real praiseworthy part.
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I found your point about Abraham’s servants not having as much faith in God as he had very interesting. I had not considered this before. If Abraham had killed Isaac, do you think that he would tell the servants what he did and why he did it? Or would he lie and make something up?
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I thought it was interesting how you talked about God not being in favor of violence. I guess that made me think about how that changes throughout the Old Testament. People often say that the God of the OT is violent so maybe this is starting to show a shift? I also liked how you questioned God’s testing of Abraham. I took a different stance by saying that we should not question God and trust His plan. I do think from a human perspective it seems unreasonable, however.
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