The mountain, and the ram
“Abraham called the name of that place Yahweh Will Provide. As it is said to this day, “On Yahweh’s mountain, it will be provided.””Genesis 22:14 · WEB
This is the hardest story in Genesis and it is meant to be. God asks Abraham for Isaac — the son of the promise, the one everything depends on. Abraham says nothing to argue with, and sets out. Three days of walking. Isaac carries the wood and asks where the lamb is, and Abraham answers, God will provide himself the lamb. The knife is raised, and the voice stops him, and there in the thicket is a ram. Abraham names the place The LORD will provide. Read it as a test and you miss half of it: it is also a revelation. Every other god in that world wanted a child; this one refuses the child and supplies the substitute himself. Centuries later, on a hill near the same range, a Father did not withhold his son, and there was no ram.