Isaac's death was never a possibility - not as far as Abraham was concerned, and not as far as God was concerned. Rabbi Ari Kahn (on the Orthodox Union website) elaborates this view as follows: In The Binding of Isaac, Religious Murders & Kabbalah, Lippman Bodoff argues that Abraham never intended to actually sacrifice his son, and that he had faith that God had no intention that he do so. Mosaic on the floor of Beth Alpha depicting the Akedah
