Hospitality, Laughter and Intercession

“Unto him”: the chapter does not even name Abraham, running straight on from the circumcision. The heat of the day is noon, the hour when no one in that country travels, which makes three men on the road strange. The tent door holds the whole scene: he sits in it, runs from it, and Sarah listens behind it.

“Stood by him” is literally “standing over him”, as though they were suddenly there. He bows to the ground, the full prostration offered to a king; Lot will greet the two angels the same way in 19:1, and Joseph’s brothers will bow so before him in 42:6.

The Masoretes pointed “My Lord” as Adonai, the form reserved for God, rather than adoni, “my lord”, as if Abraham already knew whom he addressed; the Talmud records a debate over the reading. He speaks to one, “thy sight”, before turning to all three in the next verse.

The host sets out water and the guests wash their own feet, which is the custom Lot follows in 19:2. “Rest yourselves” means recline. Hebrews 13:2 has this scene in mind: “some have entertained angels unawares.”

“Comfort ye your hearts” is literally “sustain your heart”, the phrase of Judges 19:5, “comfort thine heart with a morsel of bread”, and of Psalm 104:15, “bread which strengtheneth man’s heart”. Abraham takes it for granted that the reason they passed his tent was to be fed.

Three measures, three se’ahs, is around twenty litres of flour, bread for a crowd. The “fine meal” is solet, the flour Leviticus 2:1 requires for the meal offering. Jesus’ woman who hides leaven in “three measures of meal” (Matthew 13:33) works exactly this quantity.

The calf is “tender and good”, chosen by Abraham himself before he hands it on. Rashi identified the young man who dressed it as Ishmael, brought in to learn the duties of a host; Genesis does not name him.

“Butter” is chem’ah, curds or soured milk, not churned butter. Meat served with milk troubled later Jewish readers. “They did eat” troubled others; the Talmud said they only appeared to eat, as the angel Raphael says of himself in Tobit 12:19.

The visitors know her name without being told, and they know the new name, Sarah, given only in 17:15. Genesis has asked “where” twice before, of Adam in 3:9 and of Abel in 4:9, and this time the answer is honest.

“According to the time of life” means when the season comes round again, next year. Elisha uses the same words to the Shunammite in 2 Kings 4:16: “About this season, according to the time of life, thou shalt embrace a son.” Sarah is behind the speaker, out of his sight.

“Well stricken in age” is literally “gone into days”. “The manner of women” is monthly bleeding, which Rachel calls “the custom of women” in 31:35; for Sarah it has stopped. Paul speaks in Romans 4:19 of “the deadness of Sarah’s womb”.

“Pleasure” is ednah, from the root of Eden, and the word occurs only here: shall I have delight? “My lord” is adoni, and 1 Peter 3:6 praises Sarah for obeying Abraham, “calling him lord”, taking the title from this very sentence.

The LORD repeats Sarah’s question but leaves out “my lord being old also”, reporting only her own age. The Talmud (Yevamot 65b) drew from the change that God altered the words for the sake of peace in the house.

“Too hard” is yippale, from pele, a wonder: is anything too wonderful for the LORD? Jeremiah 32:17 answers “there is nothing too hard for thee”, and the Greek of this verse lies behind Gabriel’s words to Mary in Luke 1:37, “with God nothing shall be impossible.”

The only words Sarah ever speaks to God in Scripture are a denial. “For she was afraid” is the reason Adam gave in 3:10, “I was afraid”, for hiding. The reply is two words in Hebrew, lo ki tsachaqt: “No, you laughed.”

“Looked toward Sodom” is hishqif, to look down from a height; from the hills near Hebron the land falls away toward the Dead Sea basin. Abraham will stand and look down on the same view in 19:28, when it is smoking. “Bring them on the way” is to escort guests off.

The LORD deliberates aloud. Amos 3:7 states the principle: “Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.” Abraham is later called the friend of God (Isaiah 41:8, James 2:23), and this is the scene that shows what it means.

“Surely become” doubles the verb. The promise of 12:2 gains a word, “mighty”, atsum, the word Pharaoh uses in Exodus 1:9 when he fears that the children of Israel are “more and mightier than we”.

“I know him” uses yada in the sense of choosing, as in Amos 3:2, “You only have I known of all the families of the earth.” “The way of the LORD” is the first time Scripture calls a manner of life a way belonging to God.

A cry implies someone crying: the wrong of Sodom is done to people. Later Jewish tradition, recorded in the Talmud (Sanhedrin 109b) and by Rashi here, told of a girl put to death in Sodom for giving bread to a poor man, whose cry was the one that rose.

“I will go down now, and see” is the language of 11:5 and 7, when the LORD came down to see Babel. “Altogether” is kalah, which can also mean destruction, so the Hebrew may be read: if they have done according to the cry, destruction.

This is one of the places where Jewish tradition says the scribes changed the text out of reverence. Genesis Rabbah reports that it once read “the LORD stood yet before Abraham”, God waiting on the man, and was altered so that Abraham stands before God.

“Drew near” is nagash, the verb for approaching to plead a case, used when Judah comes near to Joseph in 44:18. “Destroy” here is safah, to sweep away. The righteous and the wicked, tsaddiq and rasha, stand side by side as a pair for the first time.

“Peradventure” is simply perhaps, ulay. “Spare” is nasa, to lift or bear, the verb Hebrew uses for bearing away guilt, for forgiving. Abraham asks not only that the fifty be kept safe but that the place be forgiven for them.

“That be far from thee” is chalilah, from the root for profane: it would be a profanation for you. “Do right” is literally “do mishpat”, the “judgment” of verse 19. The Judge is asked to do the very thing he wants Abraham’s children to be taught.

The few saving the many becomes a thread in Scripture. Jeremiah 5:1 brings the number down to one: “if ye can find a man, if there be any that executeth judgment … I will pardon it.”

“Dust and ashes” is afar va’efer, a pair that chimes in Hebrew; Job uses it twice, in 30:19 and in his last speech, “I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (42:6). The dust recalls 2:7 and the promise of 13:16 alike.

Abraham does not say forty five. He says fifty lacking five, so the question becomes whether a whole city will be destroyed for the lack of five. The answer turns his phrasing back into a plain number: “If I find there forty and five.”

The question is shorter now, with no “wilt thou destroy”, and the answer changes too: “I will not do it”, the word destroy dropped. From here the steps grow from five to ten.

“Oh let not the Lord be angry” is the first time Abraham asks for this. He addresses Adonai, the Lord, not the covenant name, throughout this stretch of the exchange. No anger is ever recorded.

“I have taken upon me” is ho’alti, I have made bold, the word used of Moses when he “began to declare this law” in Deuteronomy 1:5. The answer brings back the verb dropped in verse 29: “I will not destroy it for twenty’s sake.”

Gideon will use nearly these words in Judges 6:39: “Let not thine anger be hot against me, and I will speak but this once.” Ten is the last number asked. The next chapter finds four people in Lot’s house.

It is the LORD who ends the conversation; Abraham does not. The next morning he goes back to “the place where he stood before the LORD” (19:27) and looks down toward Sodom.