18:1–8 The chapter opens by the oaks of Mamre, at Hebron, where Abraham has been sojourning for a while (v. 1; cf. 13:18; 14:13). While there, one day Abraham looks up and sees three figures coming out of the shimmering heat of the midday. Although there are three of them, and they appear in human form, one of the three is clearly their leader, while the other two are his attendants.265 The text alternates between singular and plural, reflecting this imbalance in authority. The latter two figures will be sent to Sodom to investigate and at that point be identified as “angels” (19:1). The exact time of their arrival at Abraham’s tent is not specified, as is typical of texts from a time before clocks became ubiquitous. However, the noontime heat means that this is not a pleasant time for travel in that area, and it would be common for travelers to seek some kind of shelter in which to rest before going on with their journey as the day cooled. The impression that the narrative gives is that they appear suddenly, right in front of Abraham (18:2). Perhaps surprisingly for people on a lengthy journey, there is no mention of any beasts of burden (contrast Judg. 19:19–21, a passage with strong links to Genesis 19). All these elements combine to suggest the unusual nature of these visitors.

Abraham runs to greet the men and make them welcome, persuading them to break their journey with him, as any good ancient Near Eastern host would. The text repeatedly stresses the depth and extent of Abraham’s hospitality. He runs to them and humbly prostrates himself before them (18:2). He speaks with deeply deferential language, persuading them to stay and rest under the shade of a nearby tree while a servant washes away the dust of the journey from their feet (vv. 3–5). Abraham hurries into the tent to inform Sarah, runs to fetch a tender young calf, and serves a meal of royal richness, with meat, bread, and goat milk (v. 7). Three seahs is an enormous amount of flour (v. 6), perhaps as much as six gallons, and Abraham specifies that it must be the highest grade of flour! The meal that Abraham presents is far more elaborate than the “morsel of bread” that he had offered them, involving the preparation and serving of an abundance of tasty foods.266

Abraham’s generous and respectful welcome to his heavenly visitors can be both compared and contrasted with the experience awaiting the angels in Sodom in the following chapter. Lot too is sitting down at an entrance when they arrive (19:1); he too offers them water to wash their feet and food to eat, though his provision of unleavened bread cannot match Abraham’s extravagant welcome (19:2–3). But the key difference comes in what occurs thereafter: Abraham’s invitation ushers his guests into a place of safety, comfort, and provision, while Lot’s invitation brings them into a place of danger and disrepute. Sodom’s “welcome” is the antithesis of Abraham’s hospitality.

Although the readers are informed immediately that this is a divine visitation, it is not clear at what point the true identity of these visitors becomes clear to Abraham. It seems likely that Abraham understands the significance of this event quite early, as he addresses one of them as “My Lord,” marked in English with a capital L, which implies God and is not merely the form of polite address to a stranger.267 This may help to explain Abraham’s outrageously extravagant hospitality and his deferential posture of remaining standing like a servant while his guests sit down and eat (18:8).

18:9–15 The first item on the visitors’ agenda is to confirm the promise of a child to Abraham and Sarah (v. 10). In Genesis 17 the promise had been conveyed to Abraham, causing him to laugh and request that Ishmael fill that role (17:16–20). Is it possible that he has not relayed the substance of that conversation to Sarah, fearing to raise her hopes only for them to be cruelly disappointed? Or perhaps he has told her but she has refused to believe him. The Lord’s words rebuking the unbelief in Sarah’s laughter might support the latter view (18:13–14). She has come to doubt that the Lord would fulfill his promise, as if this promise were unbelievable, beyond even the unparalleled power of the Lord. But God does not need her faith in order to do the unthinkable and give her a child. Whatever the reason for her unbelief, the visitors are determined that this time Sarah herself should hear the good news.

As is customary in that culture, the men have eaten privately, apart from the women, and they ask after Sarah’s location—which, of course, the Lord has known all along, just as he knew Adam’s location while he hid in the garden (3:9). Even if Abraham has not already guessed the identity of his mysterious visitors, it becomes clear when the leader makes a promise to Abraham that only the Lord can carry out: “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife shall have a son” (18:10). A powerful king might promise to give land and riches to his favorites, but only God is able to guarantee offspring, because he alone holds the power of conception in his hands. Nothing is too difficult for the Lord (v. 14).

What is more, this stranger knows everything; he demonstrates his omniscience by uncovering Sarah’s secret laughter of doubt. While Sarah thinks she is safely concealed in the inner part of the tent, observing everything without being observed, this stranger knows her most private thoughts (vv. 12–13). He even knows exactly when this child of promise will be born—in about a year (v. 10; cf. 17:21), something no one but the Lord could know. The miraculous nature of the birth is underlined by the fact that Sarah has ceased her menstrual cycle (18:11; cf. 31:35). It is no surprise, then, that this mysterious visitor is identified explicitly as the Lord (18:13).

Sarah not only laughs in unbelief but also lies about having done so (v. 15). She is afraid, a common enough response when we are confronted with our sin by humans, let alone by God himself. But her fear is misplaced. The God who said “Fear not” to Abraham (15:1) is a kind and gracious God, to whom we may confess our fears and our sins and be forgiven for them (1 John 1:9).

Throughout their encounter the Lord treats Abraham as his personal friend. He shares an intimate meal with him. This is a unique privilege for Abraham. It is the only case prior to the incarnation in which the Lord eats food set before him. On many other occasions the Lord appears to people and they offer him food (e.g., Judg. 6:17–21) or eat in his presence (Ex. 24:11). However, on those occasions the Lord does not eat, though he sometimes turns the food into a sacrifice. But with Abraham he sits down and eats with him as part of their special relationship.

18:16–21 This special relationship of friendship extends beyond the shared meal. As the three men set out, presumably as the day has begun to cool a little, Abraham accompanies them to make sure they find the right road to their destination, Sodom (Gen. 18:16). As they travel, we are given a brief insight into the Lord’s inmost thoughts in the form of a rhetorical question that provides the rationale for the discussion to follow. Elsewhere the Lord reveals his purposes ahead of time to his servants the prophets as a means of vindicating his actions (cf. Amos 3:7); here he reveals his thoughts to Abraham as his “chosen”268 channel of blessing to the nations (Gen. 18:18; cf. 12:1–3). However, whereas the Lord often reveals his purposes ahead of time to Israel through his prophets in order to allow time for the preaching of repentance, in this case no repentance is possible. The time for judgment has come, as it will later in Israel’s own history; there is no more time for repentance. However, the revelation to Abraham will allow him to intercede on behalf of Sodom.

Since Abraham will become the father of a mighty nation, through whom blessing will come to the world, it is also necessary for him to understand the Lord’s retributive justice and his mercy, which are about to be displayed in his judgment upon Sodom. In this way he will be able to teach his children and his household to follow the way of the Lord after he is gone, pursuing righteousness and justice, the antithesis of the wicked behavior of the men of Sodom (18:20; cf. 13:13). Righteousness and justice (Hb. tsedeq umishpat) are essential characteristics of the Lord himself (cf. Pss. 33:5; 89:14) and are to be pursued by his followers as well (Prov. 2:9; 21:3). Otherwise, if they reject that pathway and pursue the lifestyle of the men of Sodom, they may face a similar fate, and the Lord’s promised blessing might be thwarted (Gen. 18:19). Of course, such an outcome is unthinkable; the Lord’s promised blessing cannot fail to come to fruition. However, the Lord ordains the means to accomplish the end as well as the end itself. Abraham’s faithful instruction will be the means of directing his descendants in the Lord’s righteous and gracious character and purposes (“the way of the Lord”; v. 19). Election can never be divorced from its goal, which is that the Lord would create a holy nation, set apart to serve him in righteousness and justice (Ex. 19:6; Eph. 1:4).

In contrast to the righteousness (tsedaqah; Gen. 18:19) to which the Lord calls Abraham and his descendants, Sodom is characterized by a “cry” (tseʿaqah; v. 21)—or, as we might say, an “outcry” to the Lord. This is the cry of the powerless and oppressed who have no advocate to speak for them except the Lord (Deut. 15:9; Job 34:28; Ps. 9:12). The Lord has heard their cry and seen the “great” and “very grave” sin of Sodom and Gomorrah, terminology echoing the description of the world of Noah’s day (Gen. 6:5) and calling for a similar act of comprehensive judgment. This suggests that the sin of Sodom is not limited to (though is certainly not less than) the attempted homosexual rape of Genesis 19 but includes many other acts of social injustice as well (cf. Ezek. 16:49). As a just judge, the Lord does not rely on hearsay or secondhand testimony; before he delivers his sentence he is determined to investigate the situation thoroughly by sending his own representatives to visit Sodom and report to him (Gen. 18:21; cf. 11:5).

18:22–33 While the two angels go on ahead to investigate the state of affairs in Sodom, Abraham remains with the Lord and seeks to intercede on the city’s behalf. Other prophets intercede on behalf of God’s own people, but Abraham intercedes on behalf of wicked foreigners.269 In his petition Abraham does not claim any merit or standing of his own before God as the reason his requests should be granted. He humbly recognizes that he has none; even though he is God’s friend, he is but “dust and ashes” in the presence of his great Creator (18:27). Whereas in his high priestly prayer Jesus refers to his own authority and glory in the presence of the Father (John 17:2, 5), Abraham appeals simply to God’s just character: “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” (Gen. 18:25).

Although Abraham expresses his concern that the Lord should not sweep away the righteous with the wicked, he is not simply worried that a few good people might get caught up in the fall of Sodom. That injustice could be prevented by removing the righteous from the scene of the destruction, as eventually occurs with Lot and his family (19:15–22).270 Moreover, the righteous do suffer alongside the wicked in both “natural” and man-made disasters all too often. Rather, Abraham’s hope rests in the possible leavening influence of the righteous on the wider community. As long as a sufficient number of righteous people remain in Sodom, the possibility of the conversion of the wicked and the restoration of the city remains open. As in the parable of the wheat and the weeds (Matt. 13:24–30), Abraham’s concern is that a premature destruction of the city might root out the Lord’s harvest.

It seems likely that this is why Abraham stops his intercession at ten righteous men (Gen. 18:32). He argues the Lord down from a minimum of fifty righteous men to ten but then stops. Ten men is the number later laid down in Judaism as the minimum necessary to form a synagogue, a holy community shining the light in the midst of darkness. Of course, a city can be so far gone that, even if the most righteous of people were to dwell in its midst, they could not save it. In Ezekiel’s time even the presence of such luminaries as Noah, Daniel, and Job would not have saved Jerusalem (Ezek. 14:12–23). As Zvi Adar summarizes,

So long as there are righteous men, the wicked may be pardoned in the hope that good will eventually prevail. In the absence of any righteous man, mercy shown to the wicked would only encourage and reinforce their wickedness.271

If even Sodom, for all its wickedness, need not have been destroyed had only ten righteous men been found in it, how much more hope is there for our contemporary cities? Sadly, though, here not even such a basic quorum of righteousness is to be found in Sodom, and so after Abraham and the Lord go their separate ways the fate of Sodom is sealed (Gen. 18:33). Yet the reader is assured that in judging Sodom the Judge of all the earth indeed does what is right, demonstrating the righteousness and justice that embody his way (cf. v. 19). The same will be true of his final judgment on the last day.