Genesis 22:6 Daily Devotional & Meaning – Isaac Carried the Wood, Christ Bore the Cross, and the Shadow of Redemption
- Benjamin Michael Mcgreevy
- May 4
- 11 min read
Daily Verses Everyday! Day 91
“And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife; and they went both of them together.”
At a surface level, this verse simply describes the final part of Abraham and Isaac’s journey up the mountain. The servants have been left behind. The ass remains below. Abraham and Isaac now continue alone. Abraham takes the wood for the burnt offering and lays it upon Isaac his son. Abraham himself carries the fire and the knife. Then Scripture gives the quiet but powerful statement: “and they went both of them together.”
But when we slow down and sit with this verse, it becomes deeply sorrowful. Isaac is carrying the wood, but he does not yet understand what is coming. He knows they are going to worship. He knows they have wood. He sees that Abraham has fire and a knife. But he does not yet know that, according to the command Abraham has received, he himself is the intended sacrifice.
There is something heartbreaking about that. Isaac is not running from the mountain. He is not fighting his father. He is not suspiciously refusing to go forward. He is walking with Abraham. He is carrying the very wood that, from his limited perspective, is simply part of the worship. Yet from Abraham’s perspective, that wood is connected to the altar on which Isaac himself is to be laid.
That is a difficult image to think about for very long. A son carrying the wood for his own sacrifice. A father walking beside him with the fire and the knife. The son unaware of the full weight of what is happening. The father fully aware, yet still obeying God. Every step up that mountain must have been heavy. Every sound of the wood on Isaac’s back must have pierced Abraham’s heart. Every glance at Isaac must have reminded Abraham that this was the son he loved, the son of promise, the son through whom God had said the covenant line would continue.
And yet, when we say it plainly — Isaac carried the wood to the place of his own sacrifice — we immediately begin to hear something greater. That sounds like a shadow of Christ.
Genesis 22:6 is not merely sad; it is prophetic in shape. Isaac, the beloved son, carries the wood up the mountain. Centuries later, the Lord Jesus Christ, the beloved Son of the Father, would carry His own wood toward the place of His sacrifice. In John 19:17, Scripture says of Jesus, “And he bearing his cross went forth into a place called the place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha.” That means Christ carried the wood of the cross as He went toward the place where He would be crucified. Like Isaac, He went forward with the wood connected to His own offering. But unlike Isaac, Jesus knew fully what was coming.
That is where the comparison becomes both beautiful and sobering. Isaac carried the wood without understanding the full meaning of what was ahead. Jesus carried the cross knowing exactly what awaited Him. Isaac walked toward a sacrifice that God would ultimately stop. Jesus walked toward a sacrifice that God would not stop. Isaac would be spared by the provision of a ram. Jesus would be the provision.
This is why Genesis 22 is one of the clearest Old Testament shadows of the gospel. Abraham and Isaac are not identical to God the Father and God the Son in every detail, and we must be careful not to force every part of the story beyond what Scripture allows. But the pattern is unmistakable. A beloved son. A father willing to give him. A journey to the place of sacrifice. Wood laid upon the son. The son going forward. A substitutionary provision. A sacrifice connected to worship. All of it points beyond itself.
In Genesis 22:2, God had told Abraham, “Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest.” Those words matter because they emphasize Isaac’s beloved status. Isaac was not just any son. He was the son of promise, the long-awaited child, the son Abraham loved. In the New Testament, when Jesus is baptized, Matthew 3:17 says, “And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Isaac is the beloved son of Abraham. Jesus is the beloved Son of the Father. Isaac is a shadow. Christ is the substance.
That is why the wood in Genesis 22:6 carries such emotional and theological weight. Abraham “laid it upon Isaac his son.” The father places the wood upon the son. Isaac bears it up the mountain. This foreshadows Christ, who would bear the cross on the way to Calvary. But Christ’s burden was greater than wood. He bore shame. He bore rejection. He bore mockery. He bore the weight of human sin. In 1 Peter 2:24, Scripture says of Christ, “Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree.” That means the cross was not merely an instrument of Roman execution. It was the place where Christ bore the sins of His people. Isaac carried wood, but Christ carried sin.
That difference is important. Isaac’s carrying of the wood was innocent and unaware. Christ’s carrying of the cross was deliberate and redemptive. Jesus was not surprised by Calvary. He was not trapped by events beyond His control. He knew why He had come. In John 10:18, Jesus says concerning His life, “No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself.” That means Christ’s death was voluntary. Though wicked men crucified Him, they did not overpower Him against His will. He laid down His life in obedience to the Father and love for His people.
This helps us understand the deep gospel beauty behind the sadness of Genesis 22:6. Isaac does not know what is coming, and that makes the scene sorrowful. But Jesus did know what was coming, and that makes the gospel astonishing. He knew the betrayal. He knew the scourging. He knew the nails. He knew the cross. He knew the darkness. He knew the wrath-bearing work He had come to accomplish. And still He went.
That is why Luke 9:51 is so powerful. It says, “he stedfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem.” Jesus did not drift accidentally toward the cross. He set His face toward it. He moved deliberately toward the place of sacrifice. Like Isaac, He went toward the appointed place. But unlike Isaac, He knew the full cost and willingly embraced it.
When Genesis 22:6 says, “and they went both of them together,” we should feel the tenderness of that line. Abraham and Isaac are walking together. Father and son. The father carrying fire and knife. The son carrying wood. There is unity in the movement, even though Isaac does not yet understand the full reality of the moment.
This also points us toward the unity of the Father and the Son in redemption. The cross was not the Son trying to persuade an unwilling Father to love sinners. Nor was it the Father acting cruelly against an unwilling Son. Scripture presents the work of salvation as the united purpose of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son.” The Father gave the Son in love. Yet the Son also gave Himself willingly. Galatians 2:20 says of Christ, “who loved me, and gave himself for me.” The Father gave the Son, and the Son gave Himself. Redemption flows from divine love, not divine reluctance.
That matters because some people misunderstand the cross as though the Father is loving and the Son is unwilling, or the Son is loving and the Father is harsh. But Scripture does not divide God that way. The Father loves. The Son loves. The Spirit applies that love to the hearts of believers. At the cross, we are seeing the united will of God to save sinners.
In Genesis 22, Abraham and Isaac go together. In the gospel, the Father and the Son are united in the work of salvation. The Son is sent by the Father, and the Son willingly obeys. In John 6:38, Jesus says, “For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.” This does not mean the Son is opposed to the Father’s will. It means that, in His incarnate mission, Christ perfectly obeys the Father. His obedience is willing, holy, and complete.
That helps us see Isaac’s quiet submission as another shadow of Christ. Isaac is not recorded as resisting in Genesis 22:6. He walks with Abraham. Later in the passage, when Isaac is bound and laid upon the altar, the text still does not describe him fighting or fleeing. We should be careful here because Scripture does not explicitly tell us every detail of Isaac’s thoughts or actions. But the silence is still striking. Isaac appears as a submissive son in the hands of his father.
Christ fulfills that picture perfectly. In Isaiah 53:7, the prophet says of the suffering servant, “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth.” Then Isaiah says, “he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter.” This means the Messiah would not resist the suffering appointed for Him. He would not rebel against the saving mission. He would submit Himself to the will of God. Isaac is silent in the narrative. Christ is the truly silent Lamb.
And that brings us to another important detail in Genesis 22:6. Abraham carries the fire and the knife. These are instruments of judgment and death. The fire would consume the offering. The knife would be used to slay the sacrifice. Isaac carries the wood, but Abraham carries the instruments that make the sacrifice possible.
This again adds sorrow to the scene. Abraham is not ignorant. He knows exactly what the fire and knife are for. He is the father, and he is carrying what is necessary for the sacrifice of his son. The emotional weight is almost unbearable. Yet Abraham continues because he trusts God.
But when we look forward to Christ, we see something even greater. At the cross, the judgment did not fall upon a substitute animal beside Jesus. The judgment fell upon Christ Himself. He was not merely near the sacrifice. He was the sacrifice. He did not merely carry wood to an altar. He became the offering upon the wood.
In Ephesians 5:2, Paul says that Christ “hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour.” That means Christ’s death was not meaningless tragedy. It was a true sacrifice, offered in love, pleasing to God, and given for us. Jesus was not only the priestly giver in one sense; He was also the offering itself.
That is why the sadness of Isaac carrying the wood must eventually lead us to worship. It is sad to think of Isaac walking without knowing what was coming. It is sad to picture Abraham watching his son carry that wood. But the sadness becomes holy wonder when we realize that God was using this moment to prepare our minds for the greater sacrifice to come.
Isaac would not die that day. God would stop Abraham. The knife would not fall upon Isaac. The beloved son would be spared. But on Calvary, the beloved Son of God would not be spared. Romans 8:32 says, “He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all.” That verse reaches directly into the emotional center of Genesis 22. Abraham’s son was spared. God’s own Son was not spared. Isaac had a ram take his place. Jesus took our place.
That is the gospel. The Son of God carried the wood. The Son of God went to the place of sacrifice. The Son of God gave Himself. The Son of God bore sin. The Son of God died so that sinners might live.
This should make us read Genesis 22:6 with reverence. It is not merely an ancient father and son walking up a mountain. It is a shadow of the cross. It is a picture, dim but powerful, of the saving work of Christ. Isaac carrying the wood points us toward Jesus bearing the cross. Isaac walking in innocence points us toward Jesus, the sinless One, walking knowingly toward death. Isaac’s near-sacrifice points us toward Christ’s actual sacrifice. Isaac’s deliverance points us toward the substitution God provides. Abraham’s anguish points us toward the unimaginable gift of the Father.
And still, the verse ends with togetherness: “and they went both of them together.”
That phrase is repeated in this chapter, and it carries deep emotional force. Abraham and Isaac are united in the journey, though not equally aware of its meaning. There is tenderness in it. There is sorrow in it. There is obedience in it. There is trust in it. The father and son walk together toward the place of worship.
For the believer, that phrase can also remind us that obedience is often walked step by step. Abraham does not leap to the end of the story. Isaac does not yet ask the full question. The two simply go together. Sometimes faith looks like that. It looks like walking forward with what God has placed on your back, even when you do not yet understand what He is doing.
Isaac carried the wood without knowing the full story. We often carry burdens without knowing the full story too. We carry responsibilities, griefs, callings, trials, and seasons of uncertainty. We wonder why this weight has been placed upon us. We wonder where the path is leading. We wonder what God is doing as we climb.
But unlike Isaac in that moment, we are able to look back from this side of the cross. We know that God is not careless with sacrifice. We know that the Lord provides. We know that the greatest burden was not placed upon us, but upon Christ. We know that the wood Isaac carried pointed forward to the cross Jesus bore. And we know that because Christ carried His cross, those who believe in Him are given life.
That does not mean our burdens are painless. It does not mean the road is easy. Abraham’s road was not easy. Isaac’s road was not light. Christ’s road was full of agony beyond our comprehension. But it does mean that God is working with purpose even when His servants do not understand the full picture.
So Genesis 22:6 invites us to feel the sadness of the scene, but also to see the Savior through it. Isaac carrying the wood is heartbreaking because he does not know what is coming. Yet it is also beautiful because it foreshadows Christ, who did know what was coming and went willingly anyway. Isaac carried the wood of a sacrifice that would be stopped. Jesus carried the wood of a sacrifice that would be completed. Isaac was spared by God’s provision. Jesus became God’s provision for us.
And this is where the verse becomes personal. If Christ carried the cross knowingly and willingly for us, then how can we treat His sacrifice lightly? How can we rush past the cross as though it were only a doctrine to affirm and not the very center of our hope? The Son of God bore the wood. He bore the shame. He bore the sin. He bore the wrath. He bore what we could never bear, so that we might receive what we could never earn.
In Genesis 22:6, Isaac goes up the mountain with wood upon his back. In John 19:17, Jesus goes forth bearing His cross. The first son is spared. The greater Son is sacrificed. The first mountain reveals a shadow. Calvary reveals the substance. The first story asks us to tremble. The gospel asks us to worship.
Genesis 22:6 therefore is not only a sad verse. It is a gospel-shaped verse. It shows us a beloved son carrying wood toward sacrifice, and it prepares our hearts to behold the beloved Son of God carrying the cross toward Calvary. Isaac did not fully know what was coming, yet he carried the wood. Christ knew exactly what was coming, and still He carried the cross. That is love. That is obedience. That is redemption.
If you would like to explore Genesis in a sustained, verse-by-verse way with space to reflect, journal, and trace how these foundational truths unfold through Scripture the Verse by Verse book expands these reflections into a unified reading experience. The book gathers these meditations into a structured journey through Genesis, designed to help readers linger in the text and engage God’s Word more deeply over time.
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