Chapter 18

Abraham sees three men.  He recognizes that they are not ordinary men.  He begs them to stay a while, and he has food prepared for them.  This verse:

1 And the LORD appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the door of his tent in the heat of the day. [Gen 18:1 ESV]  (2025 - In Hebrew, it says Jehovah.  I think we should go with that and not try and twist it into meaning Jesus.  Not unless we can find another place where Jehovah is indisputably used of the Son.)

The implication is that one of the three men is Jehovah.  But we know that no one has seen God the Father.  So is this Jesus appearing - pre-incarnation?  Was the Jehovah in 17:1 also Jesus? 

In vs 2, it seems that Abraham didn't really see these men coming.  He looked, perhaps from dozing, and he sees the three already there, at the door of his tent. 

2021 - The word for "were standing" is Strong's H5324.  It has an odd sound to it, not similar at all to English.  It has a wide range of possible translations that seem to be based on context.  It is translated simply "stand" 34 of the 75 times it is used.  But reading the definitions, that "stand" can also mean "stationed", as in "took up the position".  I don't think it is critical to understand this, but the fact is, these men were there for a purpose.  They were standing in front of Abraham, because there was a purpose in their appearance, and it had to do with Abraham. 

The last part of this verse:  2 He lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, three men were standing in front of him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the earth [Gen 18:2 ESV]  The interesting part of this is that none of the men immediately told Abraham to get up.  But...when they do that, there is usually a specific statement that the person bowed and worshiped.  It does not say here that Abraham worshiped the men.  But he obviously recognized that these were not ordinary men.

Food is prepared, and the three strangers eat. These are glorified bodies.  Perhaps Jesus and two angels.  They all eat physical food.  Immortal bodies still enjoy food.

2025 - Probably this is wrong.  Jesus did not yet have a physical body, he doesn't get that until the incarnation.  I am not sure  you can touch an angel.  But I do think that God can decide what we are allowed to see, and how we perceive it.  Should we believe that the eating that went on here was "fake", or that in some way God portrayed these angels - and perhaps the Son - in physical form with all that goes with that?  We really have no way of precisely saying what happened here.

The Lord says Sarah will have a son in a year.  She laughs at it, because she is past "the way of women".  Abraham had laughed earlier, but he does not seem to have gotten in trouble over it.  Sarah does though.  Here are the verses:

9 They said to him, "Where is Sarah your wife?" And he said, "She is in the tent." 10 The LORD said, "I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife shall have a son." And Sarah was listening at the tent door behind him. [Gen 18:9-10 ESV]  Looking at the interlinear on Blue Letter Bible, vs 9 seems a good literal translation.  The verb for "said" is amar.  It seems to be a word that is showing up a lot.  A very common word.  In the BLB interlinear, it does not say that the word is singular or plural, nor does it say whether it is verb or noun.  It says that the word is quite often used to mean "say".  It is used at the beginning of the verse, and it used of Abraham at the end of the verse.  So why did the translators use "They said" at the first of the verse and "he said" at the end?  Surely only one of the three men spoke.  They didn't all ask in unison.  The answer I think comes at the beginning of vs 10:  10 The LORD said, "I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife shall have a son." And Sarah was listening at the tent door behind him. [Gen 18:10 ESV]  Once again, for the third time in two verses, the word in Hebrew is "amar".  KJV translates it "he said".  NKJV translates it "He said...".  ESV translates it "The Lord said..."  All the dynamically translated versions say "One of them said..."  I find myself agreeing with the dynamic translations.  The word Jehovah does not appear anywhere in these verses.  Scholars believe this is a theophany and the translators of the ESV have both translated AND interpreted for us that one of these men is the pre-incarnate Jesus.  But the words don't really say that.  In reality, one of the men asked where Sarah was, Abraham answered that one, and then that one replied.  It should be up to us poor readers to decide who the men might be.  And after all, the one that replies says he will be back next year about this time.  There is no account of that return in the Bible so far as I know.   Ahh...in vs 17, the word Jehovah shows up in the Hebrew.  So possibly the translators are just projecting backward in the conversation as to whom was speaking.  But really...they only sort of half did that, too.  They decided which things were said by Jehovah and which might have been said by one of the others, and they shaded the translation that way.  So for the record, vs 17 is the very first verse where we are sure that it was Jehovah speaking.  vs 20 also says Jehovah.  In verse 27, Abraham addresses the person he is speaking to as Adonai.

2025 - First, if both Jehovah and Adonai are used of this one of the three, why do we think it was a pre-incarnate Jesus?  It has to be because "no one has seen God at any time".  This verse must be true, and "Adonai" must be true, so we go to the second person of the Trinity to make it work.  God doesn't need our help to make his word true.  We have already seen that spirits don't eat - probably - and yet in the scene at the tent, all three of the "men" eat.  Two of them are angels, so God has temporarily given them all the appearance - and likely the fact - of eating physical food.  But we balk at saying that the Father can appear in the form of men and interact with men.  He - the Father - has spoken to Abraham before.  Jehovah will later appear as a burning bush.  I am going with God appearing as a man - appearing separately from the glory that surrounds him in heaven - to tell Abraham that he will have a son, and down in vs 19, to tell us why Abraham was separated out from the rest of mankind.

2025 - Vs 14 is our built-in answer to all these questions about how spirits can eat food and how God can appear before men:

14 Is anything too hard for the LORD?..." [Gen 18:14a ESV].  It says Jehovah appeared.  God can do what He wants.  I'm going to believe it as written, just as I believe the creation took only 6 days.

2025 - If I am not mistaken, in vs. 15 Sarah lies to God, directly and to his face.  She claims she did not laugh.  Can one lie directly to God - or the pre-incarnate Jesus for that matter - and live?  Yet she does.  We have many indications that the appearance of these three men is a unique event, perhaps never again repeated.

2026 - This verse:

19 For I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice, so that the LORD may bring to Abraham what he has promised him." [Gen 18:19 ESV]. 

This is about the conditional nation-covenant.  Wielding the sword is given to Abraham and his descendants as a nation.

2023 - This verse:  22 So the men turned from there and went toward Sodom, but Abraham still stood before the LORD. [Gen 18:22 ESV].  Look at the details...the men- the two men - headed on towards Sodom, but one - Jehovah - stayed because Abraham was talking to him.

19 For I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice, so that the LORD may bring to Abraham what he has promised him." [Gen 18:19 ESV]

The reason Abraham was chosen.  So that there would be a group of people that would keep the way of the LORD, so the promises could be kept.  In Noah's day, with none really chosen, there were none left that God could have or would have blessed because all had turned into evil people.  Maybe this is the way God prevents that from happening again?  Second time - yes, I believe this is a new work, another "try", another test to see who can remain faithful to God.  Perhaps a special people, a subset of all creation, can do so where mankind as a whole had failed.  There are also some responsibilities implied here in the phrase "...so the promises could be kept."  It isn't as if God is saying "either/or", but He is clearly saying "not unless/until" they keep the way of the Lord.

2025 - Here too is the reason Satan is so anti-Semitic.  Whatever else we might say, to believe the Bible is to believe that God is preserving the Jews to fulfill the promises made to Abraham.  The Jews MUST SURVIVE for God to keep his promises.  He will therefore preserve them though all that Satan may devise to bring about their genocide.  This is why they are the focus of repeated attacks throughout history.  This is why the so often rebel and revolt - of course they do because Satan devotes the energy of his entire intellect and of the angels and demons that followed him to reducing the number of Jews who follow Jesus to zero.  He must either turn them all to unbelief or he must kill them all.  Perhaps idol worship was a wonderfully successful strategy to turn them away...up until Babylon when God quashed idol worship from the minds of the Jews.  They just never were taken in by it after that.  So when he could no longer turn their worship from God to idols, he began to try genocide. 

As they leave, the Lord tells Abraham his plan - to see for Himself if Sodom and Gomorrah are as bad as the prayers imply.  If so, then Sodom and Gomorrah will be destroyed. 

2026 - Look at this verse:

23 Then Abraham drew near and said, "Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? [Gen 18:23 ESV]. 

This is a huge deal.  Abraham is asking whether a situation can be so overwhelmingly bad - yet not completely so - that the good done from wiping out the evil justifies the injustice to the good trapped within it.  That is the question here.  This does not seem fair to Abraham. 

In light of that covenant in Chapter 17, though, we know that God is not dealing with individuals now, he is dealing with nation-states as a whole, and it will be staying this way for a very very long time.

I have not noticed before that Gen 17 is precisely where the change occurred.

2026 - Now here is an interesting thought.  Might it be so that God's unconditional promises, made to the physical offspring of Israel, are the promises that will still be kept, but the promises made to national Israel are no more, and are replaced by the church?  It would be complicated.  It would also explain why there is so much disagreement about whether or not the church replaces Israel - because it might replace it as a nation without replacing it as "sons of Abraham". 

The church does not enforce justice because that responsibility, that judgment, is placed now in the hands of Jesus Christ, and Jesus will exercise judgment when he comes the second time and assumes the throne in Zion.  But make no mistake, Jesus will take that authority to himself alone. 

We would expect then, that the physical descendants of Abraham would return to the land as a people, not as a nation.  They will live in the land, but the head of the church will rule the nation. 

2026 - Think of all that is explained by the ending of these negotiations!

32 Then he said, "Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak again but this once. Suppose ten are found there." He answered, "For the sake of ten I will not destroy it." [Gen 18:32 ESV].  For Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham gets God down to only 10 good men.  Imagine how many evil, corrupt, and unsalvageable men get spared to continue the horror, the atrocity, and the corruption they are practicing just for the sake of those few 10.  Now think of how bad God allowed Samaria to get before Assyria took them all away.  And we know also that Jerusalem was even worse before Babylon came.  And how bad did Jerusalem get after the return and up to the time of Jesus' appearance?  This is the explanation of why God let's things go so very far before his wrath is let loose.  It is because Abraham negotiated the setting of the bar of justice so extremely low that almost any good at all in an entirely corrupt nation - and we are talking nation-states here - is enough to hold back wrath.

Abraham negotiates at length with God, so that even if there are only 10 good men found in them, they will not be destroyed.   So think about how thoroughly, completely, and wholly corrupt these places were if not even 10 good men lived there?  This is how long God will be, or at least can be, patient towards cities, and toward nations.  A few bad people don't lead to destruction.  The place has to stink with corruption.  This verse:

26 And the LORD said, "If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will spare the whole place for their sake." [Gen 18:26 ESV]

Here, perhaps, is the reason that God waits until things are so irreparably, completely awful before He acts against peoples and nations.  For the sake of just a few, He will allow evil to continue, to get still worse.  Think of the suffering and woe of the righteous who find themselves in this "aside" before justice is dispensed.  They have nowhere to turn, they are alone.  They will be brutalized and hated for their righteousness in such a depraved culture.  Did Abraham really do Sodom and Gomorrah a favor with his request?  What of the 10 good men that continued there also? 

Even 10 though would have been a lot better than the days of Noah.

2024 - These verses introducing the negotiation:

24 Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city. Will you then sweep away the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous who are in it? 25 Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?" [Gen 18:24-25 ESV].  I note that "the LORD" never agrees that he would never do such a thing.  We know that it rains on the wicked and the good...but that is qualitatively different certainly.  So what are we to learn from this negotiation?  That God wouldn't be there in the first place if there were ANY good people in this town?  Does he wait until there is just nothing salvageable before he sends destruction?  God knew there were no good men in Sodom and Gomorrah the whole time Abraham was talking him down.  Would it have been justified to wipe out those two places, even if 50 good men had to go with it?  Wouldn't the world have been better off to make this trade?  Or is this telling us that God would never...what?  Never wipe out a city or a kingdom if there were 10 good men left in it?   I don't understand what is going on here.

Look at vs 19:15 though:

15 As morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, "Up! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be swept away in the punishment of the city." [Gen 19:15 ESV].  If Lot stayed knowingly, he would be taken out with the evil that were already there.  At this point, I am not sure Lot would be classified a good man.  He did a good thing taking in the strangers, but how does offering his daughters to be raped fit into that?  Influence of bad bad place?  His compass was broken from long association with such evil?

Begs the question of just how many will be raptured at the end?  Will there be so many good men left on earth at that time that their loss is a big deal?  Or will we be down to just a few hundred, or a few dozen in the whole world?  I guess there could be any number - even millions - since they won't be left to endure the judgement about to come.  I think it is implied that the number will be noticeable.