by
Damien F. Mackey
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Certain
questions or statements posed, but unanswered, in the Old Testament, such as
Isaac’s: ‘But where is the lamb?’ (Genesis 22:7), or Jacob’s (to the angel):
‘Please tell me your name’ (32:29), may not actually be accounted for until
much later, in the New Testament.
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The first one
of these, ‘But where is the lamb?’, is well-known, and its perfect link-up with
the New Testament has been explained by able commentators such as Archbishop
Fulton J. Sheen.
(i)
‘But where is the lamb?’
Deacon D.
McManaman, for instance, gives this account of it in “Behold the Lamb of God” (http://www.catholiceducation.org/en/culture/catholic-contributions/behold-the-lamb-of-god.):
Sometimes students will
ask: How is it that Christ dying on a cross forgives sins? What does it mean to
say that Christ died for our sins? How does a death forgive sins?
Over 2000 years before John the Baptist said those
words, God revealed himself to Abraham and made a covenant with him. He
promised Abraham that he would be the father of a great nation, that his
descendents would be as numerous as the stars of the sky. When Sarah finally
gave birth to Isaac, their first born son, God commanded Abraham to sacrifice
the child as an offering to Him. Abraham obeyed, and set out for the land of
Moriah: "Thereupon Abraham took the wood for the holocaust and laid it on
his son Isaac's shoulders, while he himself carried the fire and the knife. As
the two walked on together, Isaac spoke to his father Abraham.
"Father!" he said. "Yes, son," he replied. Isaac continued,
"Here are the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the holocaust?"
"Son," Abraham answered, "God himself will provide the lamb for
the holocaust."
The angel of the Lord stopped Abraham and revealed
that God was pleased with his faith. Instead, a ram was sacrificed.
But Abraham said to his son that God would provide
the lamb for the holocaust. That promise had to be fulfilled. It was not
fulfilled then. In this gospel, written 2000 years afterwards, John the Baptist
calls attention to the fulfillment of that promise [John 1:29]: "Behold
the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world".
The sacrifice of Isaac would not have taken away
the sins of the world, and neither would the sacrifice of the ram have done so.
The entire scene of the sacrifice of Isaac foreshadows the sacrifice that is to
come, and that future sacrifice would also be of a first born son, and he too
would carry the wood for the sacrifice on his shoulders, as Isaac did, and the
sacrifice will take place in the land of Moriah, on the Moriah mountain range,
which is where Mount Calvary is located.
Only the lamb of God could take away the sins of
the world.
[End of quote]
A brief comment on Isaac
This will have some degree of relevance for what will follow.
We read far less about Isaac in the Book of Genesis than we do about his
father Abraham, or about Isaac’s son, Jacob.
I tried to locate Isaac in a real historical context in my:
Pharaoh of Abraham and Isaac
And I also read recently an interesting journal article according to
which Isaac, but not Jacob, was a priest, and that it was through Isaac that
Jacob’s son Levi had attained to the priesthood.
Isaac’s son, Jacob, appears to have had many more children than had his
father.
We know from Genesis 27:1 that Isaac’s eyes became so weak when he was very
old that he could no longer see. Now blindness will be the subject matter of
our final consideration below, “(iii) Healing of Blindness”.
(ii)
‘Please tell me your name’.
The patriarch Jacob
famously wrestled with an angel, or a man, or God (Genesis 32):
24 So Jacob was left alone,
and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. 25 When the man saw that
he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his
hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man.
The Hebrew
word here means “man” (אִישׁ֙).
In the Book of Hoshea this person is variously called (12:4) “a
god-like being” (אֶת-אֱלֹהִים), or
(12:5) “an angel” (אֶל-מַלְאָךְ).
The patriarch
will baulk at letting go of the angel until the latter has blessed Jacob, who
then insists upon knowing the angel’s name:
26 Then the man said, “Let
me go, for it is daybreak.”
But
Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”
27 The man asked him, “What is your
name?”
“Jacob,”
he answered.
28 Then the man said, “Your name will
no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with
humans and have overcome.”
29 Jacob said, “Please tell me your
name.”
The
angel appears to withhold his identity from Jacob, however:
But
he replied, “Why do you ask my name?” Then he blessed him there.
30 So Jacob called the place Peniel,
saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.”
31 The sun rose above him as he passed
Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip.
Samson’s father, Manoah, will similarly
inquire of an angel, and with a like result (Judges 13):
17 Then
Manoah inquired of the angel of the Lord, “What
is your name, so that we may honor you when your word comes true?”
18 He replied,
“Why do you ask my name? It is beyond understanding.”
Answer in
Tobit?
I think that we have to wait until the New Testament
(Catholic) Book of Tobit to learn the answer to Jacob’s query.
Tobit, ageing and blind like Isaac - though Tobit
had become blind due to an accident - and well aware of Isaac and Jacob (Tobit
4:12):
‘Remember that Noah, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, our
earliest ancestors, all married relatives. God blessed them with children, and
so their descendants will inherit the land of Israel’.
would verbally wrestle with the angel Raphael prior
to the latter’s accompanying Tobit’s son, Tobias, on a long journey (Tobit 5):
11 Tobit said to
him, “Brother, which family and which tribe do you come from? Tell me,
brother!”
12 The young man
answered, “Why do you need to know about my tribe?”
Tobit replied, “I would like to
know in all honesty, brother, who your father is and what your name is.”
This time the angel will yield to the request, but
only to provide Tobit with a symbolic, not real, name:
13 Then he
answered, “I’m Azariah, the great Hananiah’s son, one of your relatives.”
14 Tobit said to
him, “May you come in health and safety, brother! Don’t be offended, brother,
that I wanted to know the truth about your family. But you happen to be a
relative, and you are from a good and honorable heritage.
The Hebrew name, “Azariah” is nevertheless an
appropriate description of the angel, as it means,
“God (יה) helped (עָזַר, azar)”. He
is son of “Hananiah” about which name we read (http://www.abarim-publications.com/Meaning/Ananias.html#.VfJclGcVg_w):
“… it's probably a pretty safe bet to assume that Ananias is the same as
Hananiah. And the name Hananiah consists of two part, the final end being יה (Yah), which is an abbreviated form of the
Tetragrammaton יהוה, YHWH, or Yahweh. The first part of Hananiah
comes from the verb חנן (hanan), meaning
to be gracious”.
Finally, only after the angel and Tobias have
completed the journey, and the angel, thought to be Azariah, has cured Tobit of
his blindness, will the angel will divulge “a king’s secret” (Tobit 12):
11 I have already told you that a
king's secret ought to be kept, but the things God does should be told to
everyone. Now I will reveal to you the full truth and keep nothing back. 12 Tobit,
when you and Sarah prayed to the Lord, I was the one who brought your prayers
into his glorious presence. I did the same thing each time you buried the dead.
13 On the day you got up from the table
without eating your meal in order to bury that corpse, God sent me to test you.
14 But he also sent me to cure you and to
rescue your daughter-in-law, Sarah, from her troubles.
The angel’s real name is “Raphael”:
15 I am Raphael, one of the seven
angels who stand in the glorious presence of the Lord, ready to serve him.
16 Tobit and Tobias were terrified and
fell to the ground, trembling with fear. 17 But Raphael said
to them, Don't be afraid; everything is all right. Always remember to praise
God. 18 He wanted me to come and help
you; I did not come on my own. So sing God's praises as long as you live.
19 When you thought you saw me eating, I did
not really eat anything; it only seemed so. 20 While
you are on this earth, you must praise the Lord God and give him thanks. Now I
must go back to him who sent me. Write down everything that has happened to
you.
21 Then Raphael disappeared into the
sky. Tobit and Tobias stood up, but they could no longer see him. 22 They
began to sing hymns of praise, giving thanks for all the mighty deeds God had
done while his angel Raphael had been with them.
And I wonder if that, ‘I am Raphael’, might also be, finally, the answer to Jacob’s
insistent, ‘Please tell me your name’.
One might also like to read my related article:
Tobit, a new Isaac perhaps, certainly has various likenesses
to the patriarch, including a lamb (kid or sheep) motif (2:19-23; 7:9);
steadfastness and righteousness; an intervention by an angel of the Lord
(Genesis 22:11-12); and the aforementioned blindness.
And Greek drama may, in turn, have picked up on the
blind holy man, Tobit, and ‘re-issued’ him as the blind seer, Teiresias. For, as I wrote in:
Similarities to The Odyssey of the Books of
Job and Tobit
…. some readers have found in Tobit similarities to still other pagan themes,
such as the legend of Admetus.
….
More convincing, I believe, however, are
points of contact with classical Greek theater. Martin Luther observed
similarities between Tobit and Greek comedy … but one is even more impressed by resemblances that the Book of Tobit
bears to a work of Greek tragedy — the Antigone of Sophocles. In both stories the moral stature of the heroes
is chiefly exemplified in their bravely burying the dead in the face of
official prohibition and at the risk of official punishment. In both cases a
venerable moral tradition is maintained against a political tyranny destructive
of piety. That same Greek drama, moreover, provides a further parallel to the
blindness of Tobit in the character of blind Teiresias, himself also a man of
an inner moral vision important to the theme of the play. ….
[End of quote]
(iii)
Healing of blindness.
Tobit, as we found, was temporarily afflicted with blindness, and later
cured by the angel Raphael in his guise of “Azariah”.
And blindness will be the temporary fate also of Saul (later Paul),
famously converted on the way to Damascus (Acts 9).
3 As he neared
Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. 4 He
fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul,
Saul, why do you persecute me?”
5 “Who are you, Lord?”
Saul asked.
“I am Jesus, whom
you are persecuting,” he replied. 6 “Now get up and go
into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”
7 The men traveling
with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not see anyone. 8 Saul
got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. So
they led him by the hand into Damascus. 9 For
three days he was blind, and did not eat or drink anything.
I think that we may again be meant to make a connection with the Book of
Tobit, for just as Saul will be cured of his blindness by one Ananias (Acts 9):
10 In Damascus there
was a disciple named Ananias. The Lord called to him in a vision, “Ananias!”
“Yes, Lord,” he
answered.
11 The Lord told him, “Go to the house of
Judas on Straight Street and ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul, for he is
praying. 12 In a vision he has seen a man named Ananias come
and place his hands on him to restore his sight.”
13 “Lord,” Ananias
answered, “I have heard many reports about this man and all the harm he has
done to your holy people in Jerusalem. 14 And he has come
here with authority from the chief priests to arrest all who call on your
name.”
15 But the Lord said
to Ananias, “Go!
This man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their
kings and to the people of Israel.
16 I will show him how much he must suffer for
my name.”
17 Then Ananias went
to the house and entered it. Placing his hands on Saul, he said, “Brother Saul,
the Lord—Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here—has
sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” 18 Immediately,
something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he could see again. He got up
and was baptized, 19 and after taking
some food, he regained his strength.
so - as we have read - was Tobit himself cured by one who had claimed to
be a son of Ananias (or Hananiah).
