Abraham turned to the angel in distress. "Why have you brought me up here? I cannot see anymore. I am already grown weak, and my spirit is departing from me."
The mortal body was failing. The heavenly light was too intense, too pure for human eyes. The same tradition teaches that Adam, before his transgression, could see by this primordial light from one end of the world to the other. But after the fall, it was withdrawn. Now Abraham, a man born into a diminished world, was staring directly into the withdrawn radiance, and it was breaking him.
Iaoel steadied him. "Remain by me. Fear not. He whom you see coming straight toward us with a great voice of holiness, that is the Eternal One who loves you. But Himself you cannot see."
The God of the universe was approaching. Not as a visible form, for no mortal can see God and live, but as a presence, a voice, a force of holiness so overwhelming that even the approach made Abraham's spirit drain from his body.
"Do not let your spirit grow faint on account of the loud crying," Iaoel said. "I am with you, strengthening you."
Abraham stood at the boundary between what flesh can endure and what only spirit can survive. The angel was the only thing keeping him on his feet.