They walked together for forty days and forty nights. Abraham ate no bread and drank no water. His food was the sight of the angel beside him. His drink was Iaoel's speech.
This was no metaphor. For forty days Abraham sustained himself on nothing but the presence of a heavenly being, a detail that echoes Moses on Sinai (Exodus 24:18) and Elijah's journey to this same mountain (1 Kings 19:8). The body could survive on divine proximity alone.
They arrived at the Mount of God, the glorious Horeb.
Abraham looked around and saw a problem. "Singer of the Eternal One! I have no sacrifice with me, and I see no altar on this mountain. How can I bring a sacrifice?"
Iaoel told him to look behind them. Abraham turned, and there they were: all the prescribed sacrificial animals following them as if they had been there the entire journey. The young heifer. The she-goat. The ram. The turtledove. The pigeon. Everything God had commanded in the vision (Genesis 15:9).
"Slaughter all of these," Iaoel commanded. "Divide the animals into halves, one against the other, but do not sever the birds. Give the animal halves to the men I will show you standing beside you, for they are the living altar upon the Mountain. But the turtledove and the pigeon, give to me."
The reason was breathtaking. "I will ascend upon the wings of the bird, in order to show you in heaven and on earth, in the sea and in the abyss, in the underworld and in the Garden of Eden, in its rivers and in the fullness of the whole world and its circle. You shall gaze upon it all."
The sacrifice was the key. The birds were the vehicle. Abraham was about to ride on wings into the cosmos.