[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Morthoron

I liken it to the biblical story of Abraham offering his son Isaac as sacrifice to Yahweh. Abraham raised his knife, but Yahweh took mercy on Abraham and rewarded his faith by not allowing Isaac's sacrifice.

It is not a one-on-one comparison, but Eru forbade the sacrifice faithful Aule was willing to make and rewarded him by breathing life into the Dwarves.

Morthoron, you seem like a Hobbit to me - "You can learn all that there is to know about their ways in a month, and yet after a hundred years they can still surprise you at a pinch" Well, maybe the first part is an exaggeration, but still, great point. I was thinking of the same parallel myself, it crossed my mind in comparison to the fact that the story shows the same pattern at the "culminating point" - the one who is offering his future/creation listens to the divine command, not only once (and then it would end up with him destroying his "progeny" in blind obedience to previous order), but continuously (when the other one speaks for the second time in order to make him stop from what he's about to do). As to what Zil said, of course, the difference is that in the case of Abraham it's meant to be a test, but then again, for all practical purposes Aulë's case is the same. (Of course, for Aulë it also doesn't have such an existential meaning - he's not throwing away his only future. Though, what do we know about how much the Dwarves meant for him?)

Originally Posted by Inziladun

I hadn't thought of that before, but that's intriguing also. A little humility and knowledge of one's ultimate place goes a long way.

There's the obvious contrast too with Morgoth, who wanted to have his own subjects to rule, not students to teach, as Aulë.

I think the main, obvious contrast is, like Inzil said, with Melkor, who also became impatient (already before Ainulindalë, with the emptiness of the Void). This, by the way, also shows, in my opinion, how close Aulë was to Melkor in certain ways of thinking, and shows why Aulë's former Maiar (Sauron, Saruman) were the ones most prone to fall: the lack of the humility, which is shown here by Aulë, basically breaks all the differences between Aulë and Melkor (or their servants). In other words: the story also means to show the difference between Aulë and Melkor; it is fine to be impatient with the Creator's slow-moving plan and it is not a terrible and unforgivable transgression, it's the arrogance and stubborn rebellion (with no logical cause, since this story proves that eventually, Eru even let Aulë's designs enrichen Arda in the way Aulë would have wanted to) that is the core problem of the whole... well, the whole Eä.