THE REWARD OF A PROMISE

"....there is a story told in the Midrash. It begins with Abraham sitting in the door of his tent in the plain of Mamre in the heat of the day...it said it was a day like the breath of Gehinnom. Like the breath of Hell was coming out, and you can see the kind of country it was, and is, when this is, the heat and the dust and the sand...that's utter desolation. And he was worried, of course, because he says some poor stranger might be lost out there. Someone might have lost his way, and be perishing, because you're not going to last an hour in this. So he sent his faithful servant Eleazer out to look everywhere. He sent him out in all directions and he came back, "No, I can't find anyone anywhere." He was still worried. He says, "There might be someone out there"....So he went out himself, though he was very sick at the time. He was sick and ailing, and old, and he went out into that Hell. And he looked and searched, but he found no one. And at the end of the day he came back exhausted toward his tent. As he approached the tent the three strangers were standing there. It was the Lord and the two with Him. Because the Lord goes with His two counselors so to speak. He throws himself down on his face, and then it is that He promises him Isaac. As a reward for what he had done. This supreme offering. It's a very moving story. He's gone out to look for his fellow man and....out in that dusty hell, you see, all alone. Eleazer couldn't find any, and he said, "I think I can find someone". Well he found something. He found the answer to the thing he'd prayed for all his life. His son Isaac. It's a beautiful story."  ("The Faith of an Observer-Conversations with Hugh Nibley", pp 28-29)