The Binding of Isaac and the Death of Sarah

"Take your son, your only one, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah." Each word delays the blow and deepens it. Abraham rises early, saddles his own donkey, splits the wood and travels three days. Isaac is thirty-seven — no child, and he goes willingly; the famous exchange, "here is the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb?" and "God will provide for Himself a lamb," is a conversation between two men who understand. On the mountain Abraham builds the altar, binds his son and stretches out his hand, and a voice stops him: "Do not lay your hand upon the lad… for now I know that you fear God." A ram caught by its horns is offered instead. The place is the Temple Mount. The binding becomes the central image of Jewish prayer, recalled by the ram's horn on Rosh Hashanah. Immediately after, Sarah dies at a hundred and twenty-seven, and Abraham buys the cave of Machpelah from Ephron for four hundred silver shekels.