Daily Devotion for 16 August 2023 (12th Wednesday after Pentecost)

• Psalm 11
• Psalm 84
• 2 Samuel 6:1–19
• 1 Corinthians 9:1–23
• Apology of the Augsburg Confession, V, 119–123

Commemoration

Today we commemorate Isaac. Born to Abraham and Sarah when they were, respectively, one hundred years old and ninety-one years old, Isaac (whose name means ‘laughter’), would go on to father Jacob (who would become Israel) and Esau. Taken to Mount Moriah by his father to be sacrificed at the command of God, Isaac was spared at the last moment by the provision of a ram caught in a thicket — this episode pointed forward to the substitutionary sacrifice and atonement of Christ.