258 JEAN LOUIS SKA II. God or YHWH? Let me start with a first question that has a bearing on the exegesis of the text. For a long time, Genesis 22 was considered as a typical Elohistic text. The main reasons are three: (1) the use of Elohim in 22,2.3.8.9.12; (2) the theme of the “fear of God” in 22,12, and (3) the avoidance of an- thropomorphic representations of God. The problem was of course the ap- pearance of the name YHWH in 22,11 and 14. Some have attempted to brush aside the difficulty and attribute these two exceptions to redactional inter- ventions. But then, why do we find these two names only in these two verses? The redactor could have been more consistent and spoken of “fear of YHWH” in 22,12 or, say, in 22,14, “God is seen” since the verse is a clear allusion to 22,8 “God will provide” where the appellative Elohim is used. The question is thus the following: why do we find YHWH only in 22,12 and 14? First, one has to admit that there is complete identity be- tween the “God” that puts Abraham to the test in 22,1-2 and the “angel of YHWH” that puts an end to this same test in 22,11-12. The angel of YHWH, in 22,12, says this: “He said, ‘Do not lay your hand on the boy or do any- thing to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not with- held your son, your only son, from me’” (NRSV).The end of the sentence “since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me”, and not “from God”, clearly implies that the angel of YHWH that intervenes at this moment in the scene is the same as the “God” who required the sacrifice in 22,2. As for the use of “Elohim” instead of YHWH in the expression “fear of God” at the beginning of the sentence, it can be explained as a literary convention. Twice in the Book of Job, YHWH himself uses the ex- pression when he speaks of Job to Satan: “There is no one like [Job] on the earth, a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil” (Job 1,8; cf. 2,3). The use of YHWH in 22,12.14 can be explained in several ways 5. In my opinion, the rabbis of old proposed an interesting solution. “God” is the universal and anonymous divinity, whereas YHWH is the personal and na- tional God of Israel. It was therefore fitting to make the “angel of YHWH”, and not the “angel of God”, intervene at the crucial moment in the narrative. In the same way, the name YHWH was more appropriate than Elohim in the etiology in v. 14 since it is linked with a cultic place, and most probably to Jerusalem, albeit in a veiled way. For a summary, see E. BLUM, Die Komposition der Vätergeschichte 5 (WMANT 57; Neukirchen-Vluyn 1984) 320-331, 323. For him, the name YHWH appears as soon as the divinity shows a more positive disposition to- wards Abraham. © Gregorian Biblical Press 2013 - Tutti i diritti riservati