When Abraham laid his son Isaac on a sacrificial altar no witness was present but God. The Bible is silent on whether Abraham wept as he bound the boy to the firewood. The scriptures do not tell us whether he averted his eyes from Isaac’s frightened gaze. If we have ever loved someone dearly, however, we can imagine the turmoil raging in Abraham’s soul.

‘Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them’, God had promised Abram many years before, ‘so shall your descendants be’ (Gen. 15:5). And Abram had looked to the heavens and believed Him. At that moment of faith a vision was planted within the childless Abram, a vision of descendants whose numbers he could not count. ‘You shall be the father of many nations’ he had heard God say on another occasion when…