Hebrews 11:19

Accounting. Or, “considering.” It was faith in the power of God to resurrect Isaac that gave Abraham the courage to set out to offer up his son. Only thus could the aged patriarch reconcile God’s promise that Isaac was to be his heir, with God’s mandate to take Isaac’s life. To have faith in the integrity of a person who makes a promise and a demand that seem to be so mutually exclusive is the ultimate in the perfection of faith. Abraham must have realized that God was testing him, and concluded that God would, if need be, raise Isaac from the dead. In view of the fact that, as yet, no human being had been raised from the dead, this was faith of the highest order.

Whence also he received him. So far as Abraham was concerned, his son Isaac was dead. And when God halted the test and restored Isaac to his father, it was as if Isaac had indeed returned from death.

In a figure. Or, “figuratively speaking.”