What Does Genesis 22:7 Mean in the King James?
And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?
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 word for “burnt offering” is olah, “that which ascends,” so Isaac is asking which living creature will be brought up as the offering.
THE MEANING
You can see the fire and wood and still be unable to see the lamb. The verse gives that absence a voice: the question is spoken plainly, and the next line begins its answer.
THE ROOT
עֹלָה
olah
GROWS FROM
עלה
to go up, ascend
The Hebrew word rendered “burnt offering” is olah, from alah, “to go up.” The offering is named by its upward movement, so Isaac’s question asks which life is to be brought up in the fire.
ALSO GROWS
alah: to go up, ascend
עָלָה
This verb carries the movement contained in the offering’s name.
ma'aleh: ascent, going up
מַעֲלֶה
This related noun keeps the upward motion audible in olah.
יִצְחָק
Yitzchak
GROWS FROM
צחק
to laugh
Isaac’s Hebrew name grows from the root for laughter: “he laughs.” Here that name stands beside a stark question about the absent lamb, holding laughter and unknowing in the same scene.
ALSO GROWS
tzachaq: to laugh
צָחַק
The verb names the action carried in Isaac’s name.
tsechoq: laughter
צְחֹק
This noun makes laughter itself a branch of the seed in Isaac’s name.
THE PATTERN
The lamb becomes the visible life through which an offering and deliverance are named.
And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together.Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for an house:The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.THE THREAD
And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together.The verb translated “provide” comes from רָאָה (ra’ah, “to see or perceive”), so provision is phrased through seeing to the need. The next line answers the absence Isaac names with a lamb, carrying the question from lack toward the one who sees.
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