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King James Version (en)

King James Version (en)

Genesis, Chapter 18, verses 32-33

²³ Abraham maketh intercession for the men thereof

³²And he said, Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak yet but this once: Peradventure ten shall be found there. And he said, I will not destroy it for ten's sake.

³³And the LORD went his way, as soon as he had left communing with Abraham: and Abraham returned unto his place.

Read more:Genesis, Chapter 19

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18 We have an account in this chapter of another interview between God and Abraham, probably within a few days after the former, as the reward of his chearful obedience to the law of circumcision.Here is,

The visit which God made him, Gen 18:1-8.
The matters discoursed of between them,
1. The purposes of God's love concerning Sarah, Gen 18:9-15.
2. The purposes of God's wrath concerning Sodom.
  1. The discovery God made to Abraham of his design to destroy Sodom, Gen 18:16-22.
  2. The intercession Abraham made for Sodom, Gen 18:23-33.

18:33 Abraham returned into his place - To wait what the event would be; and it proved that his prayer was heard, and yet Sodom not spared, because there were not ten righteous in it.

NOTES

Abraham's meeting with the angels has always raised many questions, and the answers to them have produced many different commentaries, not only literary ones: one need only recall Andrei Rublev's "Trinity," which is also a kind of commentary on the story of this meeting, though not a literary one...

Abraham's meeting with the angels has always raised many questions, and the answers to them have produced many different commentaries, not only literary ones: one need only recall Andrei Rublev's "Trinity," which is also a kind of commentary on the story of this meeting, though not a literary one but an iconographic one. It should be noted here that the Bible speaks of meetings with angels in general not so rarely, although such a meeting can hardly be called an ordinary event.

For all the unusualness of the events described in the story, one thing is clear: this or something like it could have happened only in a world undamaged by the fall, not even because there is no sin in such a world, but because it is one, not broken into separate little worlds isolated from one another and separated from God. The most remarkable thing about the story of the angelic visitation is that it is completely alien to any mysticism. There is no mention here of ecstasies, illuminations, or some special spiritual or ascetic practices. There is none because all of those things are needed in order to peer from one world into another. But God did not create the world in such a way that one would have to peer from one part of it into another as if through a keyhole. He created the world one and whole, and this world was pierced by light on the very first day of creation: the light of God's presence. All divisions came later, and all of them became the consequence of wills acting in the world in opposition to God. Their action divides the world, destroying its fullness; and then, in such a world torn into pieces, one has to look for ways to peer from one of its parts into another.

A meeting like the one described in the Book of Genesis was possible only there and then, where and when, at least locally and for a short time, the wholeness of creation had been restored. The world again became one, and in this one world people and angels once more began to walk the same roads. The world again became God's Kingdom, if only at one point and for a very short time, but it still became so. Someday it will become the Kingdom again, all of it. When the time of the Messiah comes.

Today's reading consists of two very important passages. The first is the three Visitors at Abraham's home. This is one of...

Question about the ten righteous men arises each time, when we read the story of the visit of the angels to Abraham. In fact: why particularly ten? Only one righteous man does not deserve salvation, quite as ten? And if there is only one righteous man in a city, why such a city does not deserve indulgence, as well as that, in which remained ten? One can think that ten is a magic number...

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