Isaac's Death & Resurrection

The following excerpt is taken from the article, Isaac Dies in the Akedah: From Bible to Midrash to Art.

But Then Why Does Abraham Return Alone?

Yet Isaac is absent when Abraham returns to his servants.

^{בראשית כב:יט} וַיָּשׇׁב אַבְרָהָם אֶל נְעָרָיו וַיָּקֻמוּ וַיֵּלְכוּ יַחְדָּו אֶל בְּאֵר שָׁבַע וַיֵּשֶׁב אַבְרָהָם בִּבְאֵר שָׁבַע.

^{Gen 22:19} Abraham then returned to his servants, and they departed together for Beer-sheba; and Abraham stayed in Beer-sheba.

The midrash Genesis Rabbah (mid-1st millennium C.E.) notes Isaac’s absence, and imagines that Abraham sent him to study Torah:

^{בראשית רבה נו:יא} וַיָּשָׁב אַבְרָהָם אֶל נְעָרָיו, וְיִצְחָק הֵיכָן הוּא, רַבִּי בֶּרֶכְיָה בְּשֵׁם רַבָּנָן דְּתַמָּן, שְׁלָחוֹ אֵצֶל שֵׁם לִלְמֹד מִמֶּנּוּ תּוֹרָה.

^{Bereshit Rabbah 56:11} “Abraham returned to his young men” – and where was Isaac? Rabbi Berekhya in the name of the Rabbis from over there (Babylon): He sent him away to Shem to learn Torah from him.^[5]

A more straightforward explanation is suggested, for example, by the Radak (Rabbi David Kimhi, 1160-1235 C.E.):

^{רדק על בראשית כב:יט:א} ואין צריך לומר כי יצחק היה עמו, אלא זכר אברהם שהוא העקר.

^{Radak on Gen 22:19a} There was no need to mention that Isaac accompanied him. Rather it mentioned Abraham, because he was the principal.^[6]

Still, this troublesome verse gave rise to the exegetical possibility that Isaac was actually in some sense slaughtered.

Isaac Was Sacrificed: Projecting Grief in the Present into the Past

The introduction to the midrash Eichah Rabbah (5^th century C.E.) has Abraham challenging God for destroying the temple, the place where he brought Isaac as an “olah” (burnt offering) sacrifice:

^{איכה רבה, פתיחתא כד} רִבּוֹנוֹ שֶׁל עוֹלָם מִפְּנֵי מָה הִגְלֵיתָ אֶת בָּנַי וּמְסַרְתָּן בִּידֵי הָאֻמּוֹת וַהֲרָגוּם בְּכָל מִיתוֹת מְשֻׁנּוֹת, וְהֶחֱרַבְתָּ אֶת בֵּית הַמִּקְדָּשׁ מָקוֹם שֶׁהֶעֱלֵיתִי אֶת יִצְחָק בְּנִי עוֹלָה לְפָנֶיךָ.

^{Lamentations Rabbah Petichta 24} Master of the world, why have you exiled my children and given them over into the hands of the nations who have killed them with all manner of strange deaths? And you destroyed the Temple, the place where I offered my son as a burnt offering before you.^[7]

Similarly, the kinnah (lament) Az Behalokh Yirmiyah, “Then as Jeremiah Walked,” recited on Tisha B’Av and written by Byzantine liturgist Elazar Hakalir in the 6th-7th century C.E., describes the different patriarchs and matriarchs pleading for mercy on behalf of their descendants. In the lament, Isaac asks,

^{קינות ליום תשעה באב כו} לַשָּׁוְא בִּי טֶּבַח הוּחַק וְהֵן זַרְעִי נִשְּׁחַק וְנִמְחַק

^{Kinnot for Tish B’av Day, 26} Have I been butchered in vain, that my children are being killed?”^[8]

The chronicle of Solomon bar Samson (ca. 1140 C.E.) describes the massacre of Jewish communities during the First Crusade in terms of the Akedah:

^{גזרות ד'תתנו לרבי שלמה ב"ר שמשון} האם היו אלף ומאה עקידות ביום אחד כולם כעקידת יצחק בן אברהם. על אחד הרעיש העולם, אשר נעקדה בהר המוריה, שנאמר . . . ו [רעשו] שמים [שמש וירח] קדרו [וכוכבים אספו נגהם]. מה עשו, למה השמים לא קדרו והכוכבים לא אספו נגהם...

^{Chronicle of R. Solomon bar Samson} Were there ever 1,100 Akedot on one day—all of them like the Akedah of Isaac, son of Abraham? The earth rumbled over just one Akedah that was bound on Mount Moriah, as it is said, “And the heavens [trembled, the sun and moon] grew dark, [and the stars gathered in their brightness]” (Joel 2:10). What did they do now? Why did the heavens not grow dark and the stars not hold back their splendor?^[9]

These texts of grief and lamentation project the horror of the present moment into the past, where Isaac died like his descendants. Paradoxically, however, they are also texts of hope, because Isaac did not in fact die but rather lived to have descendants.

Isaac Died and Was Resurrected

While these texts poetically evoke Isaac as being sacrificed, but not necessarily dying, Pirkei de Rabbi Eliezer (8^th century C.E.) explicitly records Isaac’s death:

^{פרקי דרבי אליעזר לא:י} רַבִּי יְהוּדָה אוֹמֵר: כֵּיוָן שֶׁהִגִּיעַ הַחֶרֶב עַל צַוָּארוֹ, פָּרְחָה וְיָצְאָה נַפְשׁוֹ שֶׁל יִצְחָק. וְכֵיוָן שֶׁהִשְׁמִיעַ קוֹלוֹ מִבֵּין הַכְּרוּבִים וְאָמַר לוֹ ״אַל תִּשְׁלַח יָדְךָ״, נַפְשׁוֹ חָזְרָה לְגוּפוֹ, וְקָם וְעָמַד יִצְחָק עַל רַגְלָיו. וְיָדַע יִצְחָק שֶׁכָּךְ הַמֵּתִים עֲתִידִים לְהֵחָיוֹת, וּפָתַח וְאָמַר: ״בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה' מְחַיֵּה הַמֵּתִים״.

^{Pirkei de R. Eliezer 31:10} Rabbi Jehudah said: When the blade touched his neck, the soul of Isaac fled and departed, (but) when he heard His voice from between the two Cherubim, saying (to Abraham), “Do not lay your hand upon the lad” (Gen. 22:12), his soul returned to his body, and (Abraham) set him free, and Isaac stood upon his feet. And Isaac knew that in this manner the dead in the future will be restored to life. He opened (his mouth), and said: Blessed are you, O Lord, who restores the dead to life.^[10]

This midrash here imagines that the second blessing of the Amidah, reviving the dead, was proclaimed by Isaac.^[11] The Shibbolei Ha-Leket (a work by Zedekiah ben Abraham Anav, Italy, 13th-Century) has God resurrecting Isaac with dew:

^{שבלי הלקט יח} כשנעקד יצחק אבינו על גבי המזבח ונעשה דשן והי' אפרו מושלך על הר המוריה מיד הביא עליו הקב"ה טל והחיה אותו לפיכך אמר דוד כטל חרמון שיורד על הררי ציון וגו' כטל שהחיה בו יצחק אבינו מיד פתחו מלאכי השרת ואמרו בא"י מחיה המתים.

^{Shibbolei Ha-Leket 18} When our father Isaac was bound on the altar and reduced to ashes, and his ashes were cast on to Mount Moriah, the Holy One, blessed be He, immediately brought dew upon him and revived him. Therefore David said, “Like the dew of Hermon that falls on the mountains of Zion, etc.” (Ps 133:3) Like the dew that revived Isaac our father. Immediately the ministering angels began to recite “Blessed are you, God, who revives the dead.”^[12]

The Midrash HaGadol, a midrashic collection from 13^th/14^th century Yemen, has Isaac living in the Garden of Eden three years:

^{מדרש הגדול בר׳ כב:יט} ד״א וישב אברהם. ויצחק היכן הוא? אלא שהכניסו הקב״ה לגן עדן וישב שם בה שלוש שנים.

^{Midrash HaGadol Gen. 22:19} Another interpretation: And Abraham returned... And where was Isaac? The Holy One brought him into the Garden of Eden and he dwelt there three years.^[13]

Isaac Actually Died

Perhaps the clearest evidence that some interpreters believed that Isaac actually died and Abraham went back alone can be found in Ibn Ezra’s (1089–1167) dismissal of this reading:

^{אבן עזרא על בראשית כב:יט} וישב אברהם. ולא הזכיר יצחק, כי הוא ברשותו והאומר ששחטו ועזבו, ואח"כ חיה אמר הפך הכתוב.

^{Ibn Ezra on Gen 22:19} So Abraham returned. Isaac is not mentioned because he was under Abraham’s care. Those who say that Abraham slaughtered Isaac and left him on the altar and following this Isaac came to life are contradicting Scripture.^[14]

Indeed, some modern scholars argue that there was an early version of the story in which Isaac actually dies and Abraham leaves him, which was later redacted so that Isaac is spared.^[15] Thus it is not surprising that later generations intuited this earlier version of the story with Isaac actually dying.

[5] The translation is from Sefaria Midrash Rabbah, 2022.

[6] Mikraot Gedolot: Multi-commentary on Torah: Hachut Hameshulash, translated by Eliyahu Munk (Jerusalem: Lambda Publishers, 2006).

[7] Lamentations Rabbah Petichta 24 (author’s trans.). Editor’s note: For more on Eichah Rabbah, see the discussions in Edward L. Greenstein, “Where are God’s Tears in Lamentations?” TheTorah (2021) and Hagith Sivan, “Rachel Weeps in Ramah: Of All the Patriarchs, God Listens Only to Her,” TheTorah (2019).

[8] Kinnot for Tisha B’Av Day chapter 26 (author’s trans.). The Koren Mesorat HaRav Kinnot, second edition (Koren, 2013), p. 470.

[9] Shlomo Eisenberg, The Jews and the Crusaders: Hebrew Chronicles of the First and Second Crusades (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1977), 33. See also Shalom Spiegel, The Last Trial: On the Legends and Lore of the Command to Abraham to Offer Isaac as a Sacrifice: The Akedah, trans. Judah Goldin (Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights Publishing, 1967; originally published in Hebrew, as Me-Aggadot ha-Akedah, Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1950). Editor’s note: For more on the account of the first Crusade in The chronicle of Solomon bar Samson, see Jennifer Seligman, “To Explain the First Crusade, Jews and Christians Turned to the Bible,” TheTorah (2024).

[10] Pirkei de Rabbi Eliezer, translated by Rabbi Gerald Friedlander (London: Kegan Paul, 1916), 228, with modifications.

[11] According to the Beit Yosef (112.1) this second blessing was recited by the angels at the time of the Akedah. For more on the history of the connection between Isaac and the second blessing of the Amidah, see Spiegel, The Last Trial, 29-32.

[12] In the same way Isaac's descendants will be revived in the future resurrection of the dead (see, e.g., Shabbat 88b, Chagigah 12b). Translation from Spiegel, The Last Trial, 33, with modifications.

[13] R. David Adani (13th/14th century), Midrash Hagadol to Genesis 22:19.

[14] Ibn Ezra's Commentary on the Pentateuch, translated and annotated by H. Norman Strickman and Arthur M. Silver (New York: Menorah Publishing Company, 1988), 226-227. Editor’s note: For a discussion of how Ibn Ezra and other medieval commentators grappled with problematic aspects of this story, see Devorah Schoenfeld, “Akedah: How Jews and Christians Explained Abraham’s Faith,” TheTorah (2017).

Further Reading

Akedah: What Could It Mean?