Desi Ana Sartini

POETRY

Yahweh Yireh

Genesis 22:1-19

Three days, the journey was,
and heavy.

Father,
pensive,
silent.
Me,
aching to break the tension,
stir the silence,
but Father’s face
stopped me short
every time.

Walking,
his eyes fixed firmly on the unseen —
distant,
lips straight-pursed —
or else on his feet,
brow furrowed,
lips pursed harder still,
down-turned.

Stopping,
he’d take my hand
or hold me to his chest.
He’d try to speak,
clearing,
clearing his throat,
then give it up
with a nod.

Sacrifices are solemn occasions,
but somehow
this feels like more.

At last,
the mountain.
Father says it’s the one.
God told him so.

Father knows these things.
He says God’s voice is unmistakable,
that someday I will hear it too,
and when I do,
I must obey,
no matter how hard.
Because everything always
works out best in the end
when we do.
Father says.

Right now, obeying
means taking up this wood to follow Father,
and that seems hard enough.
Father places it on my back.
I will carry the wood,
he the fire and knife.
The lamb?
Father says
God will provide.

We climb.

Now I, too, am focused,
bearing my burden up that hill,
keeping an eye out for lambs.

At the top,
we gather stones,
build the altar,
arrange the wood.

I look around.
“Where is the lamb, Father?”

Tears pour
from Father’s eyes.
“You are the lamb, my son.”

He takes my hand,
holds me close
as it all sweeps over me:
Yahweh has asked him for my life,
and Father must obey.

Sick and numb all over,
I weakly sink to sit.

Father ties my trembling hands,
his speechless grief three days prepared,
unwavering in its task.

My own tears
bring more of his,
yet still he lays me down.

So, I think,
swallowing hard,
It’s like that village boy.
Yahweh is no different, then,
than all the gods of Canaan.

I hear my father draw the knife.
He lays a warm and trembling hand
so gently on my eyes.
He rests the other on my chest,
steadying the knife,
readying his sorrowed heart,
bracing for the slit.

“Abraham! Abraham!” —
a clear and mighty Voice.
“Do not harm the boy!
Now I know you have become
a true God-fearer.
For you have not withheld your son,
your only son, from Me.”

Then:
the bleating of a ram,
the clatter of a knife;
Father falls upon my chest
and weeps with all his might.

So this is Yahweh, then, at last.
The God who calls for all we have,
then provides for it Himself.

Desi Ana Sartini writes from SE Asia, where she has immersed herself in language. She studies Malay literature by day, Hebrew poetry by night, and cake-making on the weekends. You can read more of her work at www.breathanddust.com.

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Image: Abraham and Isaac by Gainsborough Dupont (1787).