Theologian and biblical scholar J. Richard Middleton joined us at Upper House on September 12, 2025. Middleton will explore the provocative question “Does God command immoral actions?” using the story of Abraham and Isaac (Genesis 22) as a central example, inviting us to engage deeply with the moral and theological complexity of this foundational text.

J. Richard Middleton is Professor Emeritus of Biblical Worldview and Exegesis, at Northeastern Seminary and Roberts Wesleyan University, in Rochester, NY. A native of Jamaica, he immigrated to Canada for graduate studies and moved to the USA for a teaching position. He is past president of the Canadian-American Theological Association (2011–2014) and the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies (2019–2021). Middleton’s research area is Old Testament theology with a focus on creation, suffering, and the ethics of power. He is the author of five books; the most recent are The Liberating Image: The Imago Dei in Genesis 1 (Brazos, 2005); A New Heaven and a New Earth: Reclaiming Biblical Eschatology (Baker Academic, 2014); and Abraham’s Silence: The Binding of Isaac, the Suffering of Job, and How to Talk Back to God (Baker Academic, 2021). He is currently working on two new books, one on the power dynamics between prophet and king in 1 Samuel and the other on the biblical worldview for our troubled times.

Well, good evening and welcome to Upper House. I'm Tony Bollos. I'm the director of New College Madison, which is an initiative of the S.L. Brown Foundation. And we're delighted to have you here tonight. This is the first lecture for the semester of the Friday night lectures. I see many, many familiar faces, but for those who are new to the foundation and what we do here, this is a wonderful example of the work that we do in Madison. At our core,

We seek to bring Christian thoughts and formation into conversation within the life of the University of Wisconsin community and beyond. Tonight, we gather around an enduring question, one that has long challenged, puzzled both biblical writers and philosophers. think the question is behind me. Does God command immoral actions? This is not only a question at the heart of Abrahamic faiths or traditions, but also one that continues to press upon anyone.

who reflects on the limits, or if there are any limits, of divine moral authority and action. Our program this evening will unfold through three 30-minute lectures, each followed by a time for questions and a response from our speaker, Richard Middleton, with a couple of short breaks along the way. So it is my honor to introduce tonight our speaker, Professor J. Richard Middleton.

the Doctrine of Creation, Christianity, and Contemporary Culture, the biblical books of Genesis, Job, Psalms, and Samuel. And he has served as president of both Canadian American Theological Association and the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies. And he also teaches as an adjunct professor of Old Testament at the Caribbean Graduate School of Theology in Kingston, Jamaica, where he's from. Will you please join me in welcoming Professor J. Richard Middleton?

Good evening. Can you hear me okay? All right.

Does God command immoral actions? That's a very important question. It could be addressed from many different angles and I'm going to address it tonight through a case study of one particularly troubling story. In Genesis 22, God tells Abraham to offer up his son Isaac as a burnt offering on a mountain that he will be shown in the land of Moriah. This is a prime example of what seems on the surface to be an immoral action, an immoral command from God.

kill your own son. Surprisingly, Abraham does not seem to regard it as immoral, at least if we go by his response. He doesn't question the command, either to see if it's really from God or to ask why God would want such a thing, nor does he intercede on behalf of his son. Instead, Abraham rises early the next morning and in silence sets about preparing for the journey and the sacrifice.

When he arrives three days later at the place God had indicated Abraham builds an altar, spreads out the wood which Isaac has been carrying and binds his son in preparation for the sacrifice. It's the presence of the Hebrew verb for bind, akkad, that leads Jews to call this story the akkadah, the binding of Isaac, pronounced in lots of different ways.

In Christian tradition, the story is known as the sacrifice or the near sacrifice of Isaac. By whatever name, it's a disturbing story. For a long time, though, I was not disturbed by this story. Like most Christians and Jews and like many theologians and biblical scholars, I just accepted Abraham's response to God as a model of faithful obedience. Christians have tended to emphasize Abraham's faith.

Jews stresses obedience, but they're often combined. But then I had children about half my life ago. And since then I've come to wonder, should Abraham's response to God be viewed as laudable? Is this a positive example for us to follow? And how we answer this question bears on the broader question that the title of my talk has been given. Does God command immoral actions? The two questions are actually interconnected.

Should we regard God's instruction to Abraham to sacrifice his son as an example of an immoral command? If not, how do we interpret this story in Genesis 22? I'm going to propose a fresh reading of this story. I'm going to read the details of the story carefully, pointing out things that often we don't notice. And I'm going to read it in context. In the context, first of all,

of the trajectory of the Abraham story, which covers Genesis 12 through 25, and even beyond into the story of Isaac and Jacob. And also I'm going to read it in the context of other biblical texts where faithful people question God about what seem like immoral commands. But I should warn you that you're going to find my proposal unbelievable. Impossible to believe.

Now, not in my opinion for want of evidence, but because of the pressures of the traditional interpretation of the story, which had been around for over 2,000 years. It is very, very difficult for faithful Christians, harder for them than for Jews, we'll talk about that, to read this story in any way other than as a validation of Abraham for his faithful obedience to God.

And this reading typically goes hand in hand with the idea that if God commands something, then it can't be immoral and we are obligated to obey. This is the traditional interpretation with lots of variations among Christians and Jews. The weight of tradition is against anyone who questions Abraham as a model of faith or obedience. So be warned. And yet...

I want to ask whether the tradition of prior interpretations should act as a straight jacket, preventing new and fresh readings of this text. I don't think they should. So I'm going to attempt to unbind the Akheda from the limitations of traditional readings. My motivation is that a fresh encounter with this ancient text from a new angle, raising new considerations, might not only illuminate its meaning, but might renew

our experience of the God who we believe can be encountered precisely through this text.

Now in recent times, more and more interpreters of Genesis 22, both Jewish and Christian, have admitted an unease with what seems to be Abraham's blind obedience to God, an obedience that includes being willing to kill his own son. And those who let their uneasiness guide their interpretation of Genesis 22 have often believed that they were reading against the grain of the text. They believed that they are to exercise what we call

a hermeneutic of suspicion by protesting what they assumed the text clearly teaches, namely that Abraham is a positive model of faithfulness to God. I don't plan to read against the text. I want us to see what the text really says when read carefully and in context. I want to uncover aspects of the story that many simply do not see or notice.

because the traditional reading functions as a prescriptive lens that tells us in advance what the story means and automatically filters out alternative approaches. My presentation tonight is based on my book Abraham's Silence, which examines Genesis 22 in light of biblical models of vigorous prayer, including the lament psalms, the intercessory prayers of Moses and the prophets, and especially the protests of Job.

I'm going to be drawing specifically on some of the material in part three of this book, the section on Abraham. I'm going to try and show that while God's instruction for Abraham to kill his son might well be regarded as an immoral command if we take it out of context, God did not intend for Abraham to obey this command, but precisely to question it, to protest against it.

and to intercede on behalf of his son. So join me as we explore together the Akedah, the story of the binding of Isaac in Genesis 22. And I'm going to now read the entire text in my very literal translation, which you have as a handout on your tables. You may follow along there on the screen. But the handouts are there so that you can look at that text during my presentation, during the question time, and see if there's something from that you want to raise. This is a very literalistic translation.

After these things, God tested Abraham. He said to him, Abraham, and he said, here I am. He said, take, please, your son, your only one, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I will tell you. So Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey, and he took two of his young men with him.

and Isaac his son. And he cut the wood for a burnt offering. Then he arose and went to the place that God had told him. On the third day Abraham lifted his eyes and saw the place from afar. Then Abraham said to his young men, stay here with the donkey and I and the young man will go over there. We will worship and we will return to you. Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering

and placed it on Isaac his son, and he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So the two of them went together. Isaac said to Abraham his father, and he said, my father. And he said, here I am, my son. He said, here are the fire and the wood, but where is the sheep for the burnt offering? Abraham said, God himself will provide, or see to, provide.

The check to see in advance would provide the sheep for a burnt offering, my son. So the two of them went together. When they came to the place that God had told him, Abraham built an altar there and laid out the wood. He bound his son Isaac and placed him on the altar on top of the wood. Then Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son. But the angel of Yahweh called to him from heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham.

And he said, here I am. He said, do not stretch out your hand to the young man or do anything to him. For now I know that you are a God-farer, since you have not withheld your son, your only one from me. And Abraham lifted his eyes and saw there a ram behind, caught in a thicket by its horns. Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called the place

Yahweh sees or provides. As it is said to this day, on the Mount of Yahweh it shall be seen or provided.

The angel of Yahweh called to Abraham a second time from heaven and said, By myself I have sworn declares Yahweh, because you have done this thing, and have not withheld your son, your only one, I will certainly bless you. And I will greatly multiply your offspring like the stars of the heaven, and like the sand that is on the seashore, and your offspring shall possess the gate of their enemies. And by your offspring shall all the nations of the earth bless themselves, because you have listened to my voice.

So Abraham returned to his young men and they arose and went together to Beersheba and Abraham lived at Beersheba.

Now, one common way of reading the Abraham story is to follow the narrative arc of promise, delay, and fulfillment concerning a son, especially the promise about Abraham's descendants through whom his line would continue, by whom the nations would bless themselves or bless each other. The narrative arc moves from various articulations of the promise multiple times in Genesis through the delay, that is Sarah's problems with childbearing.

to the attempt to produce an heir through Hagar. Then God's specification that the heir will come through Sarai, now called Sarah, followed by a prediction that this would happen shortly. And finally, the birth of Isaac. This narrative arc of the Abraham story reaches its culmination in Genesis 21, prior to the Akedah, which raises the question of why we need the story of Genesis 22.

What exactly is the function of the Akkadab in the larger Abraham story?

So the traditional interpretation is that Abraham is being tested for his willingness to give up the child of promise, the very one through whom future blessing would come. It's a test, in other words, of Abraham's wholehearted commitment to God, placing this commitment above every earthly value, including the promise of an heir. And here we could compare two parallel leaf takings to which Abraham is called.

linked by the repetition of the Hebrew phrase, lech lecha, possibly rendered as go yourself. In Genesis 12, Abraham is called by God to leave his home, his family. While in Genesis 22, he's called to sacrifice his son. In one case, he is called to make a break with his past. In the other, he's called to relinquish his future. That interpretation has prima facie plausibility, and many people portray this this way.

When Israel was tested by God in the wilderness in Exodus and Numbers, that was to prove their trust in God. And prove here has the idea of bringing out and realizing a potential that you prove it in practice. The potential must have been there, but it could have been latent. And the stringent situation of testing can force the one being tested to rise to the occasion and show their mettle, so to speak. So is Abraham being tested?

to see if he's willing to give up his son and his future out of commitment to God. Well, there are four basic problems with this interpretation. The first problem is ethical. The commitment to God that Abraham has to demonstrate involves being willing to kill his very own son. How can this be a model of commitment to God? It works as a model only if we abstract

from the very particularity of the text to some general axiom that we need wholehearted obedience to God. But we already knew that we didn't need this text to teach it to us. That's obvious from the rest of Scripture and does not need to be grounded in this story. At a very personal level, I just don't believe that the God I've come to know would ever want me to sacrifice another person as proof of my faithfulness. Nor do I believe that this God values blind unquestioning obedience. So if I heard a voice...

internal or even external, claiming to come from God, telling me to sacrifice my son, I would not automatically comply. If hypothetically I heard such a voice, initially I would question its source. I'd wonder was this really from God? Then, as one particular theological student once said to me after I taught a course and we talked about this story, he said, if I had heard a voice telling me to sacrifice my son, I would reply,

get thee behind me, Satan. If for the sake of argument, after probing and investigating, I somehow came to believe this word genuinely came from God, I would then vigorously object to the instruction and question why God would want me to do this, and I would certainly intercede for the life of my son. So that's the first problem. It's ethical. There's a second reason for reconsidering the traditional interpretation in Genesis 22, that is,

There is significant biblical precedent not to acquiesce voicelessly in a situation that seems wrong or unjust. This precedent includes many Old Testament texts which include prayers in the Psalter, the lament prayers, the lament psalms. It includes the intercession of Moses at the golden calf. We'll get to that later. Where gets God to change his mind about destroying Israel, followed by the prophetic tradition of intercession on behalf of Israel.

along with the vocal complaints of Job, who is vindicated at the end of the book of Job as having spoken what is right, both about and to God. Now the Psalms of Lament and the book of Job show us faithful Old Testament saints who protested what they sensed was wrong in the world that God was supposed to be in charge of. Moses and the prophets on the other hand questioned directly what God said or planned as unjust.

and they pleaded for God to change his mind about what he was going to do, what is the King James Version, to repent of the evil he had planned. In the New Testament, we have Jesus' anguished prayer as he anticipates his death in the Garden of Gethsemane before his betrayal, where he earnestly pleads with God, remove this cup from me while submitting to God's will. And then on the cross he prays a lament psalm, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

The writer of Hebrews alludes to these events when he tells us, during the days of Jesus' life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. And then Hebrews applies that to our own situation, for we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tested in every way, just as we are yet without sin.

Note, Jesus' fervent prayers were not sin. Therefore, let us approach the throne of grace with boldness that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in time of need. But Abraham did not boldly approach the throne of grace in his time of need. In all these ways, Scripture provides a precedent for speaking one's mind directly to God, pleading for mercy, even challenging God.

over the injustice or wrongness of any situation in one's life or in the wider world. The biblical precedent of vigorous prayer raises the question for me of why Abraham did not intercede for Isaac? Given this weighty precedent, I might wonder why he didn't cry out like the psalmist, my God, my God, why have you abandoned me? Or could he have pleaded as Jesus did, remove this cup from me? Indeed, just four chapters before the Akheda,

Abraham does challenge God with great boldness. And that's my third reason for questioning the traditional interpretation of the Akedah. Genesis 18 has an extended dialogue between Abraham and God in which Abraham questions whether it is right for God to destroy Sodom. Abraham's concern, which he never actually voices, is that his nephew Lot and his family are living in Sodom.

And Abraham's perception that God might bring judgment against the city for its sins leads him to upbraid God for being willing to destroy the righteous or the innocent that is locked in his family along with the wicked. But when it comes to his own son, who he has commanded himself to kill, he's strangely silent. Instead, he rises early in the morning and sets out on his fateful journey. Why does Abraham shift?

from engaged protest and intercession on one occasion to silent compliance on the other. That's something I'm going to try and answer tonight. But there's a fourth problem with the traditional reading of the Akheda. Namely, it is unclear why this test is needed at all. The Abraham story gives absolutely no evidence that Abraham has any special attachment to Isaac, such that giving him up would prove a commitment to God.

Rather, Abraham is attached to Ishmael, his older son. That's very clear from Genesis 17 and 21. When God tells Abraham that Isaac, not Ishmael, is the one through whom the covenant will be passed, Abraham pleads for God not to forget Ishmael, or that Ishmael might live in your sight. Later, in chapter 21, Sarah sees Ishmael doing something that's often translated in our Bibles as playing or laughing.

with or at Isaac, often interpreted as taunting him. The verb is derived from Isaac's name, which means laughter. And the Hebrew does not have Isaac as an object of the verb that is supplied from the Septuagint, the Greek Septuagint. What Sarah sees is Ishmael, that is Abraham's favorite child, Isaacing, that is in competition with her own son. That's why she tells Abraham, send Hagar and Ishmael away.

Get rid of that slave woman and her son, for that woman will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac." But Abraham values Ishmael. We are told that the matter was very distressing to Abraham on account of his son, that is Ishmael. But Abraham expresses no distress whatsoever about Isaac's impending death in Genesis 22. He is concerned about one son, but not about the other.

In fact, the account of what happens in Genesis 20 suggests that Abraham is so attached to Ishmael, the older son, he just doesn't care about the replacement son that is promised. You know that Abraham passed Sarah off as a sister in Egypt back in chapter 12 of Genesis, and the Pharaoh as a result took her into his harem. Well, Abraham does this again in chapter 20, this time with the king of Gerar, takes her into his harem, but this comes after

God announced the covenant heir would be born to Sarah. It also comes after God predicted that this would happen shortly, presumably in the next year. And yet, knowing that, Abraham still goes ahead and passes Sarah off as a sister a second time, not caring that he might lose her and the promised heir. In fact, she might even have been pregnant at this time.

Given that it isn't clear to me and to many right readers of scripture that Abraham is attached to Isaac, could it be that Abraham is being given a chance in chapter 22 to prove his love for his remaining son? After all, God's instructions to Abraham in verse 2 contains this description of Isaac, your son, your only one, whom you love, Isaac. So maybe Abraham's love for Isaac is being tested.

or at least maybe this is part of the test. Abraham's love for Isaac is not actually stated as a fact by the narrator, as is typically assumed by readers of this text. It occurs in what is effectively a parenthetical description of Isaac in God's instructions to Abraham. In fact, the Hebrew syntax changes from the rest of the sentence with the phrase, whom you love. I won't bore you with the technical details.

but it makes the phrase, whom you love, stand out of the sentence as different from every other phrase in the sentence. The question is this, what rhetorical force does that phrase have? Is it a declarative statement of fact, or could it be suggesting that Abraham loves Isaac? Could it be attempting to evoke Abraham's love for Isaac in the sense of, you love him, don't you? So, prove it by your response to this test.

Could it be that Abraham's actions are meant to reveal whether or not he loves Isaac?

Now, what would be evidence of that love? I suggest that he could prove his love for Isaac by speaking out and protesting God's command to sacrifice him. Speaking out on behalf of Isaac might well extend and deepen Abraham's incipient love for his son because testing often brings out and makes actual what is only potential. It's significant, you know, that when the phrase, your son, your only son, is repeated in the story,

spoken by the angel of Yahweh in verses 12 and 16, we don't find a repetition of the phrase, you love. These verses affirm that Abraham is a God-fairer and he has been obedient to God's word in that he did not withhold his son, his only one. But given that he just attempted to sacrifice his own son, it makes sense that this God-faring obedience would not qualify as love for his son. So that phrase is omitted.

So we may need to rethink what the Lord says when he says through the angel, now I know that you're a God-fair since you've not withheld your son, your only son from me. This statement describes what was discovered through the testing. Now I know. I think it's a logical fallacy to infer that this was necessarily the purpose of the test, especially if you've got reason to believe otherwise. Here's an example from my own experience.

A student submits a test and I say, now I know you're a C student. That doesn't mean that was the purpose of the test and I was hoping he'd be a C student. I was hoping the student put some effort into it and get an A, but I found out he was a C student. With this in mind, I'm going to suggest that Abraham was not being tested for his unquestioning obedience. That's not something God ever wants, but rather for two things. First, he's being tested for his discernment of God's character.

I agree that he was being tested for his trust in God, but genuine trust is not equivalent to blind faith to do anything a voice from heaven tells you. Trust in God requires knowledge or discernment of what sort of God this is. And secondly, I'm going to suggest that Abraham was being tested for his love of Isaac. Because if he trusted God enough and understood the character of God enough to know God would have welcomed that question,

He would have spoken up on behalf of his son, and this may have strengthened the somewhat tenuous bond between them, and his trust in God would then have shown and deepened his love for his own son.

When we come back together, I will go to the next part of my presentation, but now we have some time for Q &A.