IV.
It was early in the morning, and everything in Abraham’s
and Eliezer, the faithful servant, accompanied him along
the road until he turned back again. They rode along in har-
many, Abraham and Isaac, until they came to Mount Mo-
riah. Abraham made everything ready for the sacrifice, calmly
and gently, but when he turned away and drew the knife,
Isaac saw that Abraham’s left hand was clenched in despair,
that a shudder went through his whole body — but Abraham
drew the knife.
Then they returned home again, and Sarah hurried to meet
them, but Isaac had lost the faith. Not a word is ever said of
this in the world, and Isaac never talked to anyone about
what he had seen, and Abraham did not suspect that anyone
had seen it.
When the child is to be weaned, the mother has stronger
sustenance at hand so that the child does not perish. How
fortunate the one who has this stronger sustenance at hand.
The biblical account of Abraham’s journey to sacrifice his only son according to God’s injunction to take his beloved son to offer him as a burnt offering begins with God speaking to Abraham. In the biblical account, the sureness of Abraham’s actions is in his confidence that God will provide the lamb for the offering. Kierkegaard refashions the biblical story in the following ways. The first variation is a story of an Abraham passionate in his faith and dedicated to his god. The second variation is a beleaguered man of faith. The third variation is a man filled with scruples. The fourth variation is a story of an Abraham, who has lost his faith. The last variation is saved for last because it reflects modern man. In the three subsequent variations, Kierkegaard offers variations on the man of faith. The last variation the man has no faith. Kierkegaard presents four variations, instead of one story, framed by a narrator, to show the stages of faith. In the first variation, it takes three days to travel to Mount Moriah, and in the second, four days, and the subsequent variations do not mention days. In the original King James translation, it takes three days to take the journey.
The first variation is the longest. The biblical version is longer than any of Kierkegaard’s version. Chapter 22 of the biblical text places little emphasis on Sarah’s position in the story. In fact, Sarah is not mentioned at all. In Kierkegaard’s first variation, Sarah places her hand on Isaac before he leaves, and Abraham places his hand on Isaac’s head to give a blessing to his son. The second and third variations, Sarah is figured differently in a textual parallelism. In the second variation, Sarah is the “bride of [Abraham’s] old age.” She is old. She kisses Isaac “who took away her disgrace, Isaac her pride, her hope for all generations to come.” Sarah’s word in the second variation is in parallel to the third variation where Sarah is not old at all, but a young mother and Isaac is her delight, “her joy forever.” The older Sarah is worried about the future generations for she realizes she will die soon, and she is worried about the journey, where in the third variation Sarah is filled with hope. In the last variation, Sarah, like in the biblical narrative, is not even mentioned. Isaac is figured differently in all four variations. In the biblical text, Isaac is dumb. Isaac asks his father where is the lamb for the offering. Isaac does not realize he is to be the lamb offered up to God. Isaac does not yell in protest when his father binds him to the altar. In fact, the biblical text depicts Isaac as completely compliant to his father’s will. In the first variation, Isaac plays a pivotal role in the story. He pleads to his father not to take his life. In the first variation, Isaac is a major actor in the story, very much more involved than any of the other variations, and especially more outspoken than the biblical account. Isaac, in the first variation, cannot be uplifted by the fate he is about to face. He clasps Abraham’s knees. He pleads at his feet. Isaac begs for his young life — “for his beautiful hopes; he called to mind the joy in Abraham’s house, he called to mind the sorrow and the solitude.” Later in the text, Isaac is visibly terrified.
The first variation is the only text that has Isaac cry out to God. Isaac pleads to God the Father, “‘God in heaven, have mercy on me, God of Abraham, have mercy on me; if I have no father on earth, then you be my father!'” In Kierkegaard’s first variation, Isaac is also transformed. Isaac is at first resistant to his father, but when his father does not relent, and shows himself as a “monster,” Isaac turns his faith to God the Father. In Kierkegaard’s version, this makes Abraham happy and content. Abraham does not hide his intentions to slaughter his son as Kierkegaard mentions in the first variation. In the biblical account, the reader is not sure whether or not Isaac knows of his fate. In the second variation, Isaac merely flourishes — but Isaac is unable to go through with God’s commands. The third variation is interesting because Abraham explicitly says he loves his son; he is conflicted by the love he has for his son, and the command to slaughter him. It is only in the third variation that Abraham thinks about his other son Hagar, whom he had to give up, and “drove out into the desert.” Abraham does not want to lose Isaac and suffer the same fate. In the fourth variation, Isaac sees that Abraham is in despair.
In the first variation it is important that Isaac actually sees his father’s lack of faith, and he does not speak a word of what he saw to anyone, and Abraham has no idea that his son noticed his despair. If the first variation is about the father giving up his role of earthly father, and the second variation is the inability to fulfill his role, the third variation is about the silent communication between father and son about failure. In all four variations, Abraham and Isaac set off to Mount Moriah. The journey motif is present in all versions. In the first variation, Abraham gets up early in the morning, and notably Sarah watches them, as both father and son depart. Sarah watches them until they disappear. Abraham and Isaac do not speak during the journey. In all four variations, Abraham takes out his knife to kills his son. In the first variation he turns from loving, admonishing father to a wild man. He has no qualms about what he is to do, and his son is undoubtedly terrified, begging for his young life. In the second variation, Abraham is more subdued, but he carries out the plan to sacrifice his son, until he is interrupted by the ram that comes out of the forest. But in the second variation, Abraham is troubled. He is troubled by the fact that he would have carried out the deed and Kierkegaard describes this version of Abraham as one whose eyes are darkened and does not experience joy. The third variation is similar to the second, except that Abraham is already racked with feelings guilt even before he arrives at Mount Moriah, and he topples to the ground in despair. He believes that what he is doing is a sin, and God will not condone his actions. He is crippled by the thought that by sacrificing his only son he would be transgressing. In the final variation, Abraham hand trembles in fear, and he is unable to go through with the act, and Isaac notices Abraham’s despair. Each variation ends with a passage about a mother’s relationship to her child when the time for breastfeeding is to stop. Kierkegaard wants to make a literary connection between Abraham’s role as the father and Sarah’s role as the mother. In the first variation, Kierkegaard talks about how the mother has to “blacken her breast” to make breastfeeding look less inviting to the child, so he can successfully be weaned. The child has to give up the breast, and not see it anymore as important, but the mother remains the same.
It is the same transformation that is recounted in more horrific style in the story. Isaac has to see his father as horrible, in order to see God as loving. In the second variation, the mother conceals her breast. Concealment, in Kierkegaard’s thinking, means abdicating one’s role. The father conceals his intentions to his son, and just does his duty. The mother, in parallel, conceals her breast, but in doing this, is no longer a mother. But, then the “child no longer has a mother.” In the third story, just as in the story of Abraham, the mother is conflicted by giving up her breast. She has cherished the time and intimacy shared between mother and child. She is just as sad to give up this connection with her child, as she perceives her child is also aggrieved to give her up. Kierkegaard writes, “they grieve together the brief sorrow.” The fourth variation is radically different. It does not talk about weaning at all, and simply declaims that the mother who has stronger sustenance will have a stronger child in the end. The point is that if the mother has not stronger willpower, the child will not survive. If the breastfeeding is the strongest sustenance she has, then when it is time to wean the child, and there is nothing stronger, the child will perish. The reflection is on death. It is obvious, then that Kierkegaard is thinking hard about sacrifice, but in terms of parental roles, but also in terms of a child’s relationship to his parents. How the parent treats his role determines the outcome of their faith. Or, to put it differently, faith, and one’s living out of their faith seems to determine the outcome. The first variation is certain. But there is no qualm about ceding the role of earthly father, for there seems to be a supernatural conviction that despite the horrific elements of the story — slaughtering one’s son — God will provide a ram for the sacrifice. The text does not falter, even when Isaac is terrified of who is father has become. When Abraham tells Isaac, “Stupid, body. I am an idolator,” it is because Abraham would rather Isaac see him as a monster rather than perceive God as a monster. He says these words softly. Isaac cannot hear him. Abraham whispers that it is better for his son to believe him to be a monster than to lose faith in God. Interestingly, this is how variation one ends. There is no indication of a ram that comes out of the woods to substitute for the slaughter, nor is there any detail about Abraham and Isaac’s journey back home. If the last variation is important, it is because all of the elements of faith have been taken out of it. It is the story of despair. In this version of Abraham, he cannot take the leap of faith that Kierkegaard wants to espouse. I think of the first variation as the father who makes a decision not knowing what the outcome will be but he does it anyway even if it means his son will radically change and forever see the father as radically different. It is the leap of faith that a father has to make when the father realizes he has to make a decision that he ardently believes is the right choice to make even though there is no guarantee that the results will be a good one. As a reader, we know that God will provide the ram for the sacrifice, but we are readers, and not Abraham. It is only when we are Abraham, in terms of living out our lives, we never know that God will provide the ram. In the first variation, Abraham acts as if God will provide without really ever knowing — in the second variation, Abraham just does his duty like going to Church on Sunday — and in the third variation the man cannot act because he is conflicted — and in the fourth variation you have a man who is in the throes of despair and cannot even talk about it.
