Did God Learn Something?

Troubling verses are the biblical scholar's bread and butter. And it is amazing to me how a single verse or even a single word in the verse can be used (or maybe exploited) in opening up whole new vistas in thinking.

Here is one that I have been chewing on for the last few years: Genesis 22:12. Here is the scene: Abraham is obeying God on Mt. Moriah and offering up his son Isaac as a sacrifice. God tells Abraham to stop and provides a substitute ram. God comments on Abraham's obedience by saying, "Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God..." What?!? Now God knows that Abraham fears? This little, normal, common, everyday word, "now", causes the reader to pause and ask a question: did God learn something that day?

So how should we understand this verse? If God learned something that day, then we need to factor that into our traditional theologies which state that God is omniscient. This also impacts our views on whether God is "in" time or "outside" of time. It also impacts our views on whether God has direct, causal control over every detail in the universe. Here are three options for understanding this verse that I have considered.
1) One Option - Perhaps God did learn something that day and we should reevaluate our theologies on God's foreknowledge (as Open Theists do), God's sovereignty versus human free will, and also God's relationship with time. This has enormous ramifications.
2) Another Option - Perhaps God is using anthropomorphic language. In other words, God is communicating using human colloquialisms, and we should not read more into the word "now" then is needed. This opinion glosses over the word "now" and basically begs the reader to ignore it.
3) Another Option - Perhaps there is some literary purpose behind God/Moses inserting the word "now" in this place. Maybe if we were to read the preceding Abrahamic narratives and the remaining Abrahamic narratives, we would see that this word "now" functions to link segments together or to provide some rhetorical element. Perhaps someone who has spent some time in Hebrew narrative could shed some light on this (Coney, this is your open door :) )

I am a firm believer in hearing the voice(s) of the community of believers in regards to understanding a verse. So here is the question for readers of this blog: In what ways can this verse be legitimately understood? You are welcome to give your view and defend it, but I am also looking for legitimate options to understanding this verse. I have listed three ways to understand this verse above. Feel free to beat up on them or tweak them. I should also point out that in the Hebrew there is nothing fishy going on here. The word for "know" and "now" are common words that any first year Hebrew student would "know" "now" (sorry for the terrible word play).