| | We have two different episodes in this chapter. First, God and Abraham have dinner together with Sarah (and a few men?), then Abraham tries to plead with God not to kill an entire city.
In the first part, God appears by Abraham's tent with three men. It's unclear to me, even after consulting several versions of this chapter, who is who at some points due to unclear pronouns and references to who is speaking to whom. But the general idea is God stop by, Abraham invites him in, Sarah prepares bread, milk, and beef (the SAB points out this isn't kosher, but I'm sure some would argue that's because God hadn't arbitrarily decided what was and wasn't kosher yet) and they chat.
God says that Sarah will have a son, but she laughs. Abraham and Sarah like laughing at God apparently (since Abraham did the same in the last chapter on this subject), but this time the Lord calls her on it. She lies and says she didn't laugh, but shouldn't she know you can't lie to an all-knowing being? She isn't punished here, I guess we'll see if it comes up later or not.
In the second part, God's deciding whether or not to tell Abraham about his upcoming mass murder of Sodom and Gomorrah. Since Abraham is so great, God decides to go ahead and tell him his upcoming project. Abraham is taken aback and says (Gen 18:23-25, New King James version: NKJV)
"Would You also destroy the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there were fifty righteous within the city; would You also destroy the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous that were in it? Far be it from You to do such a thing as this, to slay the righteous with the wicked"
Abraham must not know Yahweh very well if he thinks God will have any problem whatsoever killing whomever he pleases. So anyway, Abraham starts to plead with God, asking God if he can find 50 righteous people there, will God still kill the whole city? God says no, he will spare "all the place" for the sake of the 50. He'll mosey on down to Sodom and Gomorrah to see what they're up to. (So much for an omniscient God!) Abraham haggles with God all the way down to 10 people. If even 10 people are righteous, S & G will be spared. After this, the Lord goes on his merry way.
Isn't there something wrong with a God when his creation is more just and compassionate than he is? I'm sure some would argue God is just testing Abraham, or proving a point that not even 10 people were righteous there.
Instead, one could argue that this is a sign that people should not just blindly follow what God says. God left on his own apparently would have just killed an entire people without even looking into whether or not he'd killing innocents, too. Acceptable losses, I guess. Guess we know now who many military leaders look up to...
PS Here is the copyright notice for the New King James Version. "Bible text from the New King James Version® is not to be reproduced in copies or otherwise by any means except as permitted in writing by Thomas Nelson, Inc., Attn: Bible Rights and Permissions, P.O. Box 141000, Nashville, TN 37214-1000." I am putting this here on my own initiative even though I do not believe such a lengthy copyright notice should be necessary, especially since according to their guidelines, if I were a church I wouldn't have to put this here...
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| | Posted 1/9/2009 12:24 PM - 36 Views - 0 eProps - 0 comments
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