The Abraham Saga– Part Eight

Last updated on: January 19, 2025 at 1:35 am by Ben Witherington

The Abraham Saga– Part Eight 2025-01-09T09:48:39-05:00 Ben Witherington

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The story in Gen. 18 is famous for various reasons, not the least of which is the Orthodox commentators have suggested that Abraham entertained the Holy Trinity in this story. But a careful reading of this story will not allow this conclusion, there is ‘the Lord’ and there is also two men, whom in this case amount to avenging angels. And they all have dinner with Abraham and Sarah. This adventure takes place at Abraham’s tent under the Oak at Mamre. Abraham was minding his own business sitting outside of the tent because it was hot. Notice that during the encounter, Sarah stays within the tent but near enough to the entrance to hear what was being said. This was typical male-female protocol in a patriarchal setting when entertaining guests. The men did the entertaining proper, particularly if it was only men involved. The women stayed off the scene.

Commentators have noted the similarity of this story to the Ugaritic Tale of Acquat (tablet V.6-7) including the details of: 1) sitting by a tent flap under a tree; 2) being visited by a god, the craftsman god Kothar, 3) the man who owns the tent, Dan’el is childless like Abraham; 4) both stories have the phrase he lifted up his eyes and saw ; 5) the request that the wife prepare a meal. Our story could be an adaptation or echo of the Ugaritic story.

Notice again the piety of Abraham– he runs towards the divine visitors and bows down before them. The Hebrew is clear enough that Abraham addresses initially only the one ‘my Lord’ suggesting he recognizes God, as distinguished from his companions, the angels of destruction. Only at vs. 4 does Abraham switch to the plurals. Throughout this tale, and without being told, Abraham intuits that those avenging angels are heading down to the Jordan plain to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, and Abraham’s primary concern is to rescue his relatives from disaster of course.

ANE hospitality was legendary, and so Abraham bids the guests to stop for a while, have the dust washed off their feet, and have some food to refresh themselves (the Hebrew says a morsel of bread, but it turns out to be a feast). And the guests say ‘go ahead’. Abraham then tells Sarah ‘hurry up and knead the dough and make 3 loaves of bread and he runs to get a tender calf and gives it to one of his young herdsmen to prepare it for a meal. He also fetched curds and milk, and so they all had a proper meal. The terms fetch and hurry are repeated indicating the haste with which the meal was prepared. And Abraham stood under the tree and oversaw their consuming of the meal. But then they ask ‘where is Sarah your wife’? As Alter says, this is the first clear signal to Abraham that he was not dealing with ordinary guests.

Notice what a difference there is between this annunciation of a coming surprising pregnancy and birth and the one to Mary in the Gospel. Here only in the Bible the announcement comes to the husband, not to the woman involved who only eavesdrops, only here in the OT is the barren woman post-menopausal (cf. the story of Elizabeth in Luke 1), and only here is there a long delay in the fulfillment of the promise, which does not come until Gen. 21. The upshot is that this is the most patriarchal of such stories, addressed to Abraham himself, and the miraculous nature of the pregnancy is emphasized by Sarah’s reaction to what she hears— she laughs to herself, and says ‘will wrinkled old me have such pleasure, and besides my husband is too old’. This is followed by the Lord asking Abraham– why exactly did Sarah laugh and say what she did? Is anything too hard for the Lord? In due time, at this very time of year, I will return to you and Sarah shall have a son’. And Sarah denied laughing, but the Lord said ‘Oh yes you did!’. Abraham had already laughed in Gen. 17 about this, and now his wife also laughs at the improbable notion, but this prepares us for Sarah’s laugh of joy in Gen. 21 for the naming of her son ‘she laughed’– i.e. Itzak=Isaac.

When we get to vs. 16 the meal and chit chat is over, and the two angels are about to go off to Sodom for the task of demolition, and then we have this remarkable inward dialogue by God– ‘shall I conceal from Abraham what I’m about to do, since after all he and his progeny will become a great and mighty nation?’ God’s concern is that he has already embrace Abraham and charged Abraham and his offspring to do right and render justice. i.e. sedeq and mishpat the two things the prophets would reiterate again and again was demanded of God’s people –to do right, and render justice and walk in the ways of the Lord (i.e. follow God’s righteous example). ‘The outcries (literally shrieks of horror) of Sodom and Gomorrah is great. Their offense is severe (very grave). The angels are going down to see if justice has been done to those crying out, and if not to ‘deal destruction’. The angels head down, but God stays with Abraham, and here is where the famous haggling or bargaining scene takes place. Abraham is incredulous— will the just God of all the earth judge the innocent with the guilty, the righteous with the wicked? Far be it from the righteous God to do that. So Abraham first proposes no judgment if their are 50 innocent in those cities, then 45, then 40, then 30, then 20, then 1o. But the reality is there is not even 10, so Lot and his kin will have to flee the destruction. Notice how along the way Abraham realizes he is but ‘dust and ashes’ and is being unbelievably bold to make this request of God. The point of this scene is to make clear that God’s inclination is to be merciful to a group, even when many deserve justice.

Now one thing that needs to be said about this whole anthropomorphic scene, namely that the God of the Bible is deliberately depicted as having human features, which one should not take literally, and surely God knew in advance what Abraham would say and do, but as is typical of God, he wants his people involved in carrying out his will of both justice and mercy. So God knew where this dialogue would end and what he would and would not do. This is not an example of God having either changed his mind or not made up his mind. Rather God has made room for Abraham to participate in God’s will. But in the end, Lot’s people amount to less than 10 persons. An anthropomorphic scene like this, with God having lunch with his people, must be normed by the many later scenes, for instance in Hos. 11 where we are told by God himself— ‘I am God and not a human being, I will not renege on my promises’.

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