And the men rose up thence, and looked toward Sodom; and Abraham went with them to conduct them.
The meal at Mamre is over, the three visitors stand up, and their faces turn toward the city where Abraham's nephew lives. A host walks his guests a little way down the road. That short walk opens the door into God's plans for judgment.
Abraham does not just receive his guests. He walks with them. One writer contrasts that with the polite generosity of an important man.
Here is another beautiful feature in Abraham, which also had its reward. His was not a mere hospitality that receives like a patron without going any further. In Abraham there was nothing of what we may call the condescension of a great man. We can scarcely call that true hospitality, or at least Christian hospitality... Genuine humility was there. With it came an unmistakable dignity of character, and no less true kindness, and lowly, persevering love. So he stays close to their steps, and no wonder. It was not merely a ready heart for a stranger. He felt the glory of his visitors, and of One among them especially.
This look is not a casual glance. God looks at a place before He acts against it.
It is not simply that everything is under the eye of God, which is always true, but this is the look that comes before judgment. The Lord came down to see before the judgment at Babel. Again He looked toward Sodom before its destruction (Gen. 18:16); and again we read that the Lord looked on the host of the Egyptians before their overthrow (Ex. 14:24).
Yet the approach to the city comes in stages. Those stages show God's patience.
God waits and bears long with the wickedness of men, but He is not indifferent to sin. It cries out to Him until at last it is ripe for judgment. But even so, the Lord is slow to judge. First we read of the two angels that they "looked down toward Sodom" (v. 16). Then they "went toward Sodom" (v. 22). Finally, "the two angels came to Sodom in the evening" (Gen. 19:1).
Abraham sets out beside men on an errand of judgment, and that shared road is where God begins to speak.
The Lord directed them in judgment, and Abraham went with them to show them the way. He is here the companion of the Lord and the confidant of His thoughts. And to us the Lord is not only the eternal spring of blessing to our souls, but He makes His saints His companions; not always, it is true, but still He does so. He makes us His companions by what He tells us. There is no happier or surer way to show love to someone than to share your thoughts and feelings with them.
Another writer notes what changes once the guests rise.
But now the Lord has spoken that word of present fulfilment, and they rise up to go on their way. Now the Lord will deal with Abraham as a man deals with his friend. He speaks with Abraham about what did not concern himself but the world. It is not Abraham's needs, or even Abraham's walk, but the intention of God which He would have him know... It is communion, personal fellowship with God about what concerns Himself and His ways.
Abraham walks toward the doomed city with nothing of his own at stake there.
"Abraham went with them to set them on their way." That was all. He was entirely apart from the judgment about to fall on Sodom.
Lot, not Abraham, was the man with everything at stake in Sodom. Yet see who was told.
Here Abraham is seen as "the friend of God." "The servant does not know what his lord does." But the Lord told Abraham what He was about to do to Sodom. Lot was the one most deeply affected by that solemn event, yet he knew nothing of it.
The party that rises here will soon divide. Notice who deals with Abraham, and who deals with Lot.
One thing has struck me. Messages from angels never teach or help Abraham. The Lord Himself teaches him, or, what amounts to the same thing, the angel of the Lord does. But contact with Lot comes only through angels. So with the destruction of Sodom: the Lord appeared to Abraham, and the Lord spoke to Abraham. Only two angels visited Lot.
- The walk — Abraham's hospitality did not stop at the tent door. He stayed close to his guests' steps, and that persevering love had its reward.
- The look — before God acts in judgment, He looks: at Babel, at Sodom, at Egypt's army.
- The pace — looked down toward Sodom, then went toward Sodom, then came to Sodom in the evening. God is not indifferent to sin, but He is slow to judge.
- The confidence — as the Lord's companion, Abraham became the confidant of His thoughts. He heard about God's plans for the world, not about his own needs.
- The contrast — the friend outside the city hears everything, and hears it from the Lord Himself. The man inside learns nothing until angels shake him awake.
And Jehovah said, Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing?
Judgment is about to fall on Sodom. Before it does, God pauses and asks whether He should keep His plan from Abraham, who stands outside the city with Him.
The question assumes a relationship. One writer shows what kind by comparing two ways of talking.
Through this faith we have fellowship with God, with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ our Lord. He is not ashamed to call us His friends, as Abraham was called the friend of God. In business with the world, we say what has to be said about the matter in hand, as politely as we can. Once that is said, it is finished. With a friend, we open our minds. We speak of things that have nothing to do with business, of everything that is in our hearts. When Abraham was called the friend of God, God was not talking with him about the promises made to him. He was telling him all His intentions about the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Notice what God shares. It is news about a city Abraham has nothing to do with.
So the Lord makes His ways and thoughts known to Abraham, as a man would to his friend. He reveals secrets to him that do not concern him. If they did concern him, Abraham would in a sense have a right to hear them, and the Lord would surely tell him. But he has no personal interest in the matters communicated. They are the Lord's thoughts and purposes about a city and a people Abraham had no contact with whatever. They were strangers to him and he to them — and that quite deliberately. So the Lord now deals with Abraham as a friend — not even as a disciple, much less as a sinner, but as a friend.
God then gives His reason, and it is a household one.
Here it is not a question of salvation, but of communion with the mind and purposes of God. Let Christian parents notice and seriously weigh this. When God was looking for a man to whom He could disclose His secret counsels, He chose one marked by the simple trait of "commanding his children and his household."
Another writer sees the same trait linking Abraham to a whole line of men God spoke to in advance.
Do we not also see the connection between the man of God and the prophet? Men of God was their standing title, and Abraham too is called "a prophet." Amos says, "For the Lord GOD does nothing without revealing his secret to his servants the prophets." To be with God is the way to see into the reality of things — even of the world itself.
Knowing God's plan does not leave Abraham a spectator. It turns into prayer for others.
Abraham enjoys the most intimate communion with the LORD, who reveals His counsels to him as to His friend. Intercession is the fruit of this revelation. Judgment falls on the world. Abraham stands on the top of the mountain and talks with God about the judgment that was to fall on the world below, where he was not. Lot had taken his place in that world, and he is saved, but only as through fire.
God holds no such conversation with Lot. One writer gives the reason.
Lot could not intercede with God as Abraham did. He did not know what it was to draw near to God. He was too deeply caught up in Sodom's affairs to have communion with God. We cannot intercede with God on behalf of wrongdoers unless we are separate from them and know the intimacy of communion with God.
One writer treats God's question as a standing principle, not a one-off favour, and applies it to what God has told us about the future.
Man is naturally a great planner for the future down here. Knowing God's plan for the future is a fine antidote to man's planning and plans. And "Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?" contains one of God's ways in His dealings with the members of the household of faith, as much as with the father of the faithful. If the things which must soon take place are known to you and stay with you, the flesh will be judged. The world will be spoiled for you, and the very hope of the coming glory will break its gripping power over the natural mind.
- Friendship. God speaks to Abraham the way a person speaks to a friend, not the way we handle business. He opens His mind about matters that do not concern Abraham at all.
- Ground. God's reason is that Abraham will command his children and household after him. The issue is not salvation but who can be trusted with God's counsels.
- Height. Abraham hears because he is outside Sodom, on the mountain. Lot settled inside, and he gets no such visit — God only rescues him.
- Fruit. The secret turns into intercession. Knowing what God is doing makes Abraham plead for others instead of watching.
- Reach. One writer applies the same question to us. God still tells His friends what He is about to do, and that knowledge loosens the world's hold.
Since Abraham shall indeed become a great and mighty nation; and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him.
God is about to destroy Sodom. First He asks whether He should hide the plan from Abraham, and the reason He gives is the promise He had made to him.
Commentators point to the difference between a servant and a friend.
The heavenly visitors set out toward Sodom, and Abraham went with them for some distance. That led to the incident in which we see Abraham as the friend of God. A mere servant does not know what his Lord is doing, as the Lord showed in John 15:15. A friend, though, has access to things kept secret from others.
Friendship shows in what people talk about. Notice what God chose to talk about here — not Abraham's own affairs.
In business with the world, we say what has to be said about the matter in hand, as politely as we can. Once that is said, it is over. With a friend, we open our minds. We speak of things that have nothing to do with business, of everything that is in our hearts. When Abraham was called the friend of God, God was not talking with him about the promises made to him. He was telling him all He intended to do in the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah.
This is not a new promise. It is one link in a chain that runs through Abraham's life, and the chain has a destination.
God gave the promise of blessing when His call first reached Abraham. That is in Genesis 12:3. Then in Genesis 18:18 He confirms it to him. Again, in Genesis 22:16-18 He enlarges the promise, and we find that it will be carried out through "the Seed," who is Christ... Once the Seed is introduced, He is never left out, because everything in the way of fulfilment depends on Him.
The promise has two halves. One is about a nation. The other reaches past that nation to everyone.
He was given the privilege not only of becoming a great nation, but also of being the forefather of the Messiah, in whom all the nations would be blessed.
The blessing travels in a set order, and much of it is still future.
God gave the promise to Abraham, and He will carry it out in his seed on earth in days to come. "I will make of you a great nation … and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." Here room is left for blessing to go out to the Gentiles. But note this: they are to be blessed in Abraham, and afterwards in his seed.
Later Scripture tells us what God was doing through this promise.
We know the use that the Spirit of God makes of this promise. He says, "The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, 'In you shall all the nations be blessed'" (Galatians 3:8). Abraham did not, and could not, foresee how far the faith he acted on would reach when he answered God's call. But God foresaw that it was the one way of blessing for all the families of the earth. So now, in our small measure, only God can foresee how far the blessing to others may reach when one soul answers the call of God in simple, whole-hearted faith.
God's reason was an ordinary one: the way Abraham ran his own home.
This is not a question of salvation, but of sharing the mind and purposes of God. Let the Christian parent notice this fact and weigh it. When God was looking for a man to whom He could reveal His secret counsels, He chose one who had this simple mark: he was "commanding his children and his household."
Abraham could have used this nearness to God for his own advantage. He did not.
So he did not spare a thought for himself or his house. Like a true man of faith, he used his place in the presence of God to plead for a brother — a man whose love of the world had plunged him into the very middle of the place that God was about to give over to everlasting destruction.
- Friendship — a master does not tell a servant his plans. God told Abraham, because He treated him as a friend.
- Promise — Genesis 18:18 confirms what God first said in Genesis 12:3. Later chapters name "the Seed," who is Christ, as the one who carries it out.
- Reach — the blessing travels in order. Abraham first, then his seed, then all the families of the earth.
- Reason — God chose a man who commanded his own household. The door into His secret counsels was faithfulness at home, not high position.
- Result — Abraham used his nearness to God to plead for someone else in danger, not to secure his own future.
For I know him that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of Jehovah, to do righteousness and justice, in order that Jehovah may bring upon Abraham what he hath spoken of him.
God has just promised Abraham a son. Now, on the road toward Sodom, He asks Himself whether to tell His friend what He is about to do. The reason He gives is not Abraham's greatness but his home.
The phrase does not mean God had gathered information about Abraham. It carries warmth, and it explains why the coming judgment on Sodom was disclosed to a man rather than kept among angels.
"For I know him": was that ever said about Lot? It would have had a sorrowful meaning in Lot's case; it has a blessed one in Abraham's. For this is the knowledge of approval, of divine delight. It is the knowledge that prepared the way for Jehovah to trust him with His secrets. Abraham was the one to whom He could tell what no angel knew. Only the angels who had their orders from Him knew, and they were about to carry out His judgment.
God let one man into His plans, and the reason He gives is plain and ordinary. Notice what He did not name.
Here it is not a question of salvation, but of communion with the mind and purposes of God. Christian parents should note and weigh this. When God was seeking out a man to whom He could disclose His secret counsels, He chose one with the simple mark of "commanding his children and his household."
The word "command" can sound like barking orders. What God notices in Abraham runs deeper than that.
More than this, the Lord knew Abraham well, and knew that Abraham would command his children and his household. This is just what God Himself does. Great numbers of people, by contrast, act irresponsibly in so serious a matter. And Abraham did not merely give orders to his children. His character and conduct were such that they respected him.
A household in Abraham's day included servants as well as children. The verse covers all of them, and it does not wait until everyone believes.
The Lord does look for the household to reflect the ways of God with the head of it… And I do not mean only the children, though the children have the nearer place. I mean servants too, if there are any in the house… where there are such servants, the same should be true of them. For what brings blessing among the children secures blessing among the servants. At any rate there should be godly order, even if the children or servants have not yet come to know God.
The verse sets the aim of Abraham's rule. His household is to keep the LORD's way "by doing righteousness and justice." A parent has a model to copy here, not a style to invent.
When I look at the whole record of God's dealings with His house, I find one constant mark. He uses power on the principle of righteousness. He set up His holy authority and has carried it out without ever backing down… Now the servant must always take his Master as his model. If God rules His house with power used in righteousness, so must I. If I differ from Him in any single detail of my conduct, I am wrong in that detail.
The verse ends by linking Abraham's household to God bringing about what He had spoken. Does a parent's faith then cover the children?
A believer's family is not exempt from the need of faith. The father's faith cannot stand in for the child's… Here is not a promise but an assurance. It rests on what his faith produced in practice, in this Old Testament example of faith. God had called him out of the idolatry around him to keep the way of the Lord. So he owned Him as the God of his household, and not only as his own God. With such purpose of heart, his house would prove the wise man's proverb true: "Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it."
- Known. "I know him" is approval, not information. God could never have said it of Lot.
- Trusted. That approval is what opened God's secret counsels to Abraham; God confides in the man whose home He can point to.
- Chosen. God did not look for greatness. He looked for one plain thing: a man who commanded his children and his household.
- Copied. The way of the LORD in a house is righteousness. God rules His own house that way, and the servant copies his Master.
- Fulfilled. The closing clause is assurance, not a bargain. Faith that trains a household is never wasted.
And Jehovah said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grievous,
God has just renewed His promise of a son to Abraham. Now He speaks about the cities on the plain below, and His words raise two questions: how does sin reach God's ears, and why does a God who knows everything say He will go down and see?
The verse does not say God noticed Sodom's sin. It says a cry came up from it. One writer finds the same cry before Sodom and long after it:
It is a solemn truth, reader, that sin has a voice which cries to heaven for God's righteous retribution. The word of God, in both the Old Testament and the New, confirms it. God says to Cain, "What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground." God then pronounces judgment on Cain. … Further, in the New Testament: "Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts" (James 5:4).
Sodom sat in rich farmland. Scripture names that wealth as the root of its ruin.
With such a rich hinterland, Sodom no doubt became prosperous, and its prosperity was the cause of its downfall. The Lord makes this clear through the prophet Ezekiel. He says to Israel, "Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy" (Ezekiel 16:49). God in His goodness had given them prosperity to relieve those in need. Instead, they used their wealth to gratify themselves in gross wickedness.
Genesis had already described the men of Sodom. What is new is that their sin now calls for a verdict — and even then God is in no hurry:
Already we have learned that "the men of Sodom were wicked, great sinners against the LORD" (Genesis 13:13). Now we learn that their sin cried out to the Lord for judgment, for it was "very grave." God waits and bears long with the wickedness of men, but He is not indifferent to sin. It cries out to Him until at last it is ripe for judgment. But even so, the Lord is slow to judge. First we read that the two angels rose up and looked toward Sodom (v. 16). Then they "went toward Sodom" (v. 22). At last we read, "the two angels came to Sodom in the evening" (Genesis 19:1).
God does not need to investigate anything. So why does He talk this way?
He is speaking here just as men speak. The Lord adopts the familiar language of everyday life, and stoops to fit Himself to what anyone could understand in a man. How God knows all things at once, without inquiry or investigation, is far beyond us. He condescends to speak this way so that Abraham might be fully at ease in His presence.
The same writer draws a lesson for us from God's unhurried manner:
God would give us the serious lesson of never being hasty in judging evil; He knows well how quick we often are. Even God Himself will go down and see. Appearances deceive men at least, and God would teach us how to guard against mistakes. He loves patience in judgment.
God did not owe Abraham this news. See what it produced in the man who received it:
When a soul is confident before God, He shares His thoughts, as here He treats Abraham as a friend, telling him even what concerns the world. With a friend we do not speak of mere business, but of what we have on our heart. Intercession is the fruit of divine revelation and fellowship. Abraham, separate from the world and with the Lord on the mountain, talks over the judgment that was about to fall on the world below.
Abraham's first reaction was not detached interest. He had family down there:
In a moment Abraham had the sense — that is a doomed place. I must get my nephew Lot out of it. He had relatives there. If you have Christian relatives, dear unsaved sinner, do not be amazed when they press you hard about the salvation of your soul. Why? Abraham knew in his day that Sodom was doomed. He knew the judgment of the Lord was about to fall on that godless place. In the same way, we Christians know that the very next thing for the world is judgment.
- The cry. Sin is not silent. A brother's blood, Sodom's outcry, wages held back from workers — each sends up a voice that reaches God.
- The cause. Sodom's outcry grew out of plenty — prosperity, ease and pride spent on self instead of on the poor and needy.
- The patience. God is neither indifferent nor hasty. He bears long, and moves toward judgment step by step, only when evil is ripe.
- The manner. "I will go down and see" is God speaking in human terms. He stoops so Abraham can be at ease with Him, and teaches us never to be quick in judging evil.
- The friendship. God tells a friend what is on His heart, even what is about to fall on the world. The friend's answer is intercession — and urgency for those still inside the doomed city.
I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come to me; and if not, I will know [it].
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
And the men turned thence, and went towards Sodom; and Abraham remained yet standing before Jehovah.
The men who had eaten at Abraham's tent now set off for Sodom, and one of the three stays behind. Abraham is left standing before God while judgment moves toward a city — so who is this One who stays, and what does a person do with such a moment?
Earlier in the chapter God hides who He is. Yet Abraham's own words show he already knew his guest.
The Lord was there incognito, as we say, until the tent scene is over and the angels are gone, and then it is all open. While in the tent, Abraham speaks to Him with deep respect, but the Lord does not tell the secret until He is alone with him... Abraham says, My lord, not My lords. He is fully aware that One of them is greater, and his faith sees through it all... He sends on these two angels, and we find them at Sodom right afterwards.
With the messengers gone, Abraham and God are left in each other's company.
The two men go on towards Sodom; and Abraham and the Lord remain together. What a place of privilege and blessing! It is not worship. It is not a call to follow when the Lord led. All of that had its place. It is communion — personal fellowship with God about what concerns Himself and His ways.
Scripture uses the same words of Elijah, Elisha and other men of God. That place brings something with it.
Above all, Elijah stands before God. "The LORD, the God of Israel," he says, "before whom I stand"... Like Elijah, Abraham "stood yet before the Lord" (Gen. 18:22). Elisha likewise (2 Kings 3:14), and so many other prophets and men of God. When someone stands before God, God shares His thoughts with him. "Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?" says the Lord.
God had a purpose in telling Abraham what He was about to do.
And now Abraham takes the place of intercession. Surely one part of the purpose of this gracious message was to put him there. Our characters are to be formed by understanding Christ, and we know Him now in this very place of intercession. So how important it is to realize what is before us here! It is His people for whom the Holy Spirit intercedes below.
The pleading that follows steps down from fifty to ten, and God grants every step. What stops the descent is worth noticing.
Each time God, in His grace, gives him what he asks. At last it is Abraham's faith that fails to draw on that grace of God — for where sin abounds, grace abounds much more.
The next chapter opens with Lot sitting in the gate of Sodom, and only the two angels arrive there.
In the preceding chapter the LORD appeared to Abraham accompanied by two angels. Here it is only the angels that come to Sodom. Abraham, in the outside place with his tent, enjoys sweet communion with the LORD. Lot, sitting in the gate of Sodom, will have no visits from the LORD. His soul may be troubled by the filthy conduct and lawless deeds of the wicked, but he will enjoy no communion with the LORD.
Yet Abraham's separation was not indifference.
We observe in it a man pleading with God in a most urgent way for one who had turned his back on him, and chosen Sodom as the place to live. Abraham's soul must have been lifted far above "the things that are seen." He could forget the strife and the departure, the worldliness and evil of Lot, and still plead for him as "a righteous soul."
The exchange changed Abraham himself, and the next morning found him back on that spot.
Abraham persevered in intercession, though he stopped short of the fullness of God's mercy. We do not know, as God knows, all He is going to do. Still, we may intercede with faith. Abraham grows bold as he goes on; his confidence increases. As a result he knows God much better than before. The peace of God kept his heart. The fruit of it all is seen in Genesis 19:27-28, where Abraham gets up early in the morning and goes to the place where he stood before the Lord, and looks down on the plain, now smoking like a furnace.
- Stand. Abraham stayed where he was when the messengers left. Scripture says the same of Elijah, Elisha and other men of God.
- Hear. God tells His thoughts to the one who stands before Him. "Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?" belongs to that place.
- Plead. Knowing God's mind put Abraham in the place of intercession. Believers now know Christ in that same place, and the Spirit intercedes for them.
- Reach. His pleading reached the man who had turned his back on him. It stopped when his faith stopped drawing on God's grace, not when the grace ran out.
- Rest. He came back to that same spot and looked down on the smoking plain — bolder in prayer, knowing God better, and kept in peace.