Genesis 22:9

22:9 When they came to the place God had told him about, Abraham built the altar there ¹  and arranged the wood on it. Next he tied up ²  his son Isaac and placed him on the altar on top of the wood.

Leviticus 1:6-8

1:6 Next, the one presenting the offering ³  must skin the burnt offering and cut it into parts, 1:7 and the sons of Aaron, the priest, ⁴  must put fire on the altar and arrange wood on the fire. 1:8 Then the sons of Aaron, the priests, must arrange the parts with the head and the suet ⁵  on the wood that is in the fire on the altar. ⁶ 

¹ sn Abraham built an altar there. The theme of Abraham’s altar building culminates here. He has been a faithful worshiper. Will he continue to worship when called upon to make such a radical sacrifice?

² sn Then he tied up. This text has given rise to an important theme in Judaism known as the Aqedah, from the Hebrew word for “binding.” When sacrifices were made in the sanctuary, God remembered the binding of Isaac, for which a substitute was offered. See D. Polish, “The Binding of Isaac,” Jud 6 (1957): 17-21.

³ tn Heb “Then he”; the referent (the offerer) has been specified in the translation for clarity. The LXX and Smr have “they” rather than “he” in both halves of this verse, suggesting that the priests, not the offerer, were to skin and cut the carcass of the bull into pieces (cf. the notes on vv. 5a and 9a).

⁴ tc A few medieval Hebrew mss, Smr, LXX, Syriac, and Tg. Onq. have plural “priests” here (cf. 1:5, 8) rather than the MT singular “priest” (cf. NAB). The singular “priest” would mean (1) Aaron, the (high) priest, or (2) the officiating priest, as in Lev 1:9 (cf. 6:10 [3 HT], etc.). “The sons of Aaron” is probably a textual corruption caused by conflation with Lev 1:5, 8 (cf. the remarks in J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 13).

⁵ tc A few Hebrew mss, Smr, LXX, Syriac, and Tg. Onq. have the conjunction “and” before “the head,” which would suggest the rendering “and the head and the suet” rather than the rendering of the MT here, “with the head and the suet.”

⁶ tn Heb “on the wood, which is on the fire, which is on the altar.” Cf. NIV “on the burning wood”; NLT “on the wood fire.”