The chapter ends with descent. They went together — יַחְדָּו (yachdav). This word appeared twice on the way up: in v.6, “and the two of them went together,” and in v.8, “and the two of them went together.” On the ascent, the phrase covered the silence between Isaac’s question and Abraham’s answer, and the silence after. Here, on the descent, it reappears. They are still together. Whatever happened on the mountain — and the text does not narrate what passed between them after the ram was offered — they descend together.
The verse is strikingly spare given what preceded it. No record of Isaac’s response. No conversation with the young men who had waited below. No mention of how long the journey down took or what was said. Abraham returned to his young men. They rose. They went. They went together to Beer-sheba. Abraham dwelt in Beer-sheba. Five verbs and a location. The narrative closes in the same measured pace in which it opened.
The last word of the verse is Beer-sheba — the same place where Hagar found the well in chapter 21, the same place from which Abraham sent Ishmael into the wilderness the same morning he prepared for a different kind of departure with Isaac. Genesis returns its characters to the place of water and oath. Beer-sheba means both “well of seven” and “well of oath.” Abraham dwells in the place of oath, after the oath of oaths. The naming is not accidental.
