Abraham Pleads for Sodom

Early in the morning, an old man climbs to a ridge and looks east toward the plain. Where cities stood the day before, thick smoke is rising, like smoke from a furnace. He had asked God for mercy. Now he waits to learn what mercy looked like.

The three visitors who ate at Abraham’s tent stand up and look toward Sodom, and Abraham walks with them to see them on their way. Sodom and Gomorrah lie down on the plain by the Jordan, rich and well watered. Abraham’s nephew Lot lives in Sodom. And the Lord says, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?” The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah, he says, is great, and their sin is very grievous. He will go down and see. Two of the visitors set off toward the city. But Abraham stays standing before the Lord.

Abraham steps closer. “Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Far be it from you to treat the righteous and the wicked alike. Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” The Lord answers, “If I find fifty, I will spare the whole place for their sake.” Abraham keeps going. “I am only dust and ashes, but what if there are forty-five?” Then forty. Then thirty. Then twenty. Each time the Lord agrees. At last Abraham says, “Let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak just once more. What if only ten are found there?” And the Lord says, “For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it.” Then the Lord goes his way, and Abraham returns home.

That evening the two angels reach Sodom. Lot is sitting at the city gate. He bows and begs them to stay at his house, and they do. But before bedtime, the men of the city, young and old, surround the house. They shout for Lot to bring the strangers out to them, so they can abuse them. Lot goes out, shuts the door behind him and pleads with them. Desperate, he even offers them his two unmarried daughters instead, an offer no father should make. The crowd will not listen. They press forward to break down the door. Then the visitors reach out, pull Lot inside, shut the door, and strike the men outside with blindness, so they grope in the dark and cannot find the way in.

“Who else do you have here?” the angels ask. “Get them out. The Lord has sent us to destroy this place.” Lot runs to the men engaged to his daughters. “Get up! Get out!” But they think he is joking. At dawn the angels urge him on. “Hurry! Take your wife and your two daughters, or you will be swept away.” And still Lot lingers. So the angels take him by the hand, and his wife and his daughters, and lead them out of the city. Genesis says why: the Lord was merciful to him. “Run for your lives! Don’t look back.” Lot begs to flee to a small town nearby, and he is allowed. The sun has risen when he reaches Zoar. Then the Lord rains burning sulphur and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities and the whole plain are overthrown. But Lot’s wife, behind him, looks back. And she becomes a pillar of salt.

Early the next morning, Abraham goes back to the place where he had stood before the Lord. He looks down toward the plain and sees the smoke rising. Ten righteous people had not been found. But Genesis ends this part of the story with a quiet sentence. When God destroyed the cities of the plain, God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the middle of the overthrow.

Genesis places these cities in the valley near the Dead Sea, a region of salt and tar. Earlier, in chapter fourteen, it mentions that this valley was full of tar pits. Even today the southwestern shore has a ridge of rock salt called Mount Sodom, where pillars of salt stand out from the cliffs. Scholars still debate exactly where the cities stood. As for their sin, Genesis shows violence against strangers, and the prophet Ezekiel later adds that Sodom had pride, plenty of food and comfortable ease, but did not help the poor and needy.

Abraham’s plea for Sodom, and Lot’s escape, are found in Genesis chapter eighteen, verse sixteen, to chapter nineteen, verse twenty-nine. It is a hard story. God takes injustice seriously. And Abraham shows us that we may plead with God for others. So here is a question to sit with. Who would you be willing to stand before God and plead for?