Neville Goddard on Genesis 22:7-13 - Mystical Bible Interpretation

Read Genesis 22 in context

Scripture Focus

7And 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?

8And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together.

9And they came to the place which God had told him of; and Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood.

10And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son.

11And the angel of the LORD called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I.

12And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me.

13And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son.

Genesis 22:7-13

Biblical Context

Isaac asks for a lamb; Abraham declares that God will provide one; they go to the place, prepare the altar, and bind Isaac. At the last moment, the angel halts them, and a ram is provided as a substitute.

Neville's Inner Vision

Within the story, Isaac is your present sense of self, and Abraham is the steadfast I AM, the attentive consciousness that holds to God as the only reality. The fire and wood are the thoughts you carry; the absence of the lamb points to the belief that you must supply your own rescue. When Abraham says, God will provide himself a lamb, he is not promising an external animal, but the discovery that your inner state can become the supply itself. The ‘ram in the thicket’ appears not as a separate creature but as the substitute consciousness that arises when faith is unwavering. The moment you stretch forth your hand to strike, you are testing your identification with fear; the angel calls, revealing that you have truly feared God in your heart only when you would withhold your most cherished self from the divine. Then, the ram is revealed—the inner resource caught by your own attention, ready to be offered in the stead of destruction. This is the literal act of knowing God in the I AM, where sacrifice means relinquishing identification with limitation and discovering provision as your authentic state.

Practice This Now

Imaginative act: Close your eyes, declare I am the I AM and that God provides; revise fear to faith, feeling it-real as you breathe; then imagine a ram within your chest, ready to be offered in place of fear.