The Binding of Isaac (Akedah)

Genesis 22 tells that God tested Abraham: "Take your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah," to offer him there as a burnt offering. After three days' journey Isaac, carrying the wood, asked, "Where is the lamb?" On the mountain Abraham built an altar, bound his son on it and raised the knife, until an angel called out to stop him. A ram caught by its horns in a thicket was offered instead, Abraham named the place "the Lord will see," and the promise was renewed: his descendants would be as the stars of heaven and the sand on the seashore. By the traditional count Isaac was 37 years old (Seder Olam).

2 Chronicles 3:1 identifies Mount Moriah with the hill on which Solomon built the Temple, and Jewish tradition places the altar at the Foundation Stone. The Akedah is read on the second day of Rosh Hashanah, and the ram's-horn shofar recalls it. Its theme of complete devotion runs through later Jewish martyrdom, and the scene was laid in the 6th-century mosaic floor of the Beit Alpha synagogue.