What Does Genesis 22:13 Mean in the King James?
And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The Hebrew calls the burnt offering עֹלָה (ʿōlāh, “that which ascends”), and here the ram rises in the fire in place of the son.
THE MEANING
The scene places you before a life spared because another life occupies its place: the ram is caught, brought, and offered where the son would have been. A life is still consumed by fire; what changes is which life stands at the altar. The verse holds rescue and cost together in one image.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the assumption that the child on the altar must be the one consumed: the ram takes his place.
THE ROOT
עֹלָה
ʿōlāh ascending offering
GROWS FROM
עלה
ʿ-l-h
Go up, ascend.
“burnt offering” in this verse is ʿōlāh ascending offering. The offering is named by motion: it is what goes up. Beneath the exchange, the son remains below while the substitute ascends in flame.
ALSO GROWS
ʿālāh: Go up, ascend.
עָלָה
The verb makes the offering’s name a movement, not merely a ritual category.
maʿălāh: Ascent, step, or degree.
מַעֲלָה
This related word keeps the sense of rising present in the offering’s name.
תַּחַת
taḥat beneath in
GROWS FROM
תחת
t-ḥ-t
Beneath, underneath; in place of.
“In the stead” is spatial language: the ram occupies the place where the son would stand. The substitution is marked as an exchange of location at the altar.
ALSO GROWS
mittaḥat: From beneath, below.
מִתַּחַת
It preserves the root’s concrete sense of one position lying beneath another.
taḥton: Lower, underneath.
תַּחְתּוֹן
This related form makes the spatial sense of “in the stead” visible.
נֶאֱחַז
neʾĕḥaz caught or
GROWS FROM
אחז
ʾ-ḥ-z
Grasp, seize, hold.
“caught” in this verse is neʾĕḥaz caught or. The ram is not merely near the thicket; its horns are held fast in it. The same root can name grasping and possession, making the offered substitute a life already seized by the scene before Abraham takes it.
ALSO GROWS
ʾāḥaz: Grasp, seize, hold.
אָחַז
This verb names the grip that has caught the ram.
ʾăḥuzzāh: Holding, possession, or holding of land.
אֲחֻזָּה
The noun carries the same root sense of something held or possessed.
THE PATTERN
A threatened life is spared when another is provided to take its place.
And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together.He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?THE THREAD
And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together.“Burnt offering” here is עֹלָה (ʿōlāh, an ascending offering), the same Hebrew word used in the promise of Genesis 22:8. That earlier line names what this verse makes visible: the offering is provided, takes the son’s place, and ascends on the altar.
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