Fear No Fear

(All scripture from the World English Bible, ebible.org, all rights reserved)

“Yahweh said, “Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous, I will go down now, and see whether their deeds are as bad as the reports which have come to me. If not, I will know.””
(Genesis 18:20-21)

God is a MERCIFUL God. He KNEW what was happening on the Earth – He always does (1 John 3:20; Proverbs 15:3; Hebrews 4:13). So this journey wasn’t about ‘discovering’ anything. This journey was yet another step in His mercy, giving the inhabitants of the valley (there were more cities than just the two mentioned, but they were the largest) yet another chance to repent and turn back to Him before they got the judgment their behaviour was insisting on. God ALWAYS gives us chance upon chance upon chance to turn to Him (Genesis 15:16).

God was serious about their behaviour because it was a VERY serious thing. While He was not happy about the immorality going on in those cities, they were not the foundation of the sin. When we choose to be sinful, everything erodes. Sin is a slippery slope where everything around our rebellious decision gets dragged down. It does NOT stay compartmentalized. God was very clear about the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah: ““Behold, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: pride, fullness of bread, and prosperous ease was in her and in her daughters. She also didn’t strengthen the hand of the poor and needy” (Ezekiel 16:49). These are foundational attitudes. We were told to be a BLESSING. We were told to MULTIPLY. We were told to WORK. These were among the very first commandments God gave us and the first positions God put us in (Genesis 1:26-28; 2:7-8). They were reflections of God’s own nature and moral character. By rebelling against that, the residents of this valley were sinning against God. After they made that decision to rebel, everything else started to slide too. The foundation of their lives and characters was sand. Everything shifted. Everything began to fall. And everything about their lives got corrupted. The problem wasn’t their immorality (which is highlighted because it was the OBVIOUS sin and showed how far they had moved from the principles God laid down). The problem was their abandonment of the values and purpose that informed them about whether their behaviour was or wasn’t immoral.

The residents of this valley were sinners. We all sin. What made them different is that they FLAUNTED their sin. They were PROUD of their attitudes and decisions and feelings. They enjoyed the harvest of their REPUTATION. They indulged in it so much that even God heard indirectly from other people about the behaviour of these people. God knew what was really going on, but it seemed the whole region was talking about them and what kind of people they were. They were ARROGANT in their sin.

The sage Ibn Ezra writes: ‘[VERILY THE CRY OF SODOM.] Either the cry of its blasphemy or the cry of those victimized by its violence. AND, VERILY, THEIR SIN IS EXCEEDINGLY GRIEVOUS. And the earth cannot bear it.’

The sage Ramban writes: ‘THE CRY OF SODOM AND GOMORRAH. This is the cry of the oppressed, crying out and begging for help from the arm of their wickedness. It would have been proper for Scripture to say, “The cry of Sodom and Gomorrah I heard because it is great” or “The cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very heavy.” But the purport of the verse is to state that “I will go down and see the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah and their sin which have become very great. If they have all sinned, I will bring the law to bear down on them, and if not, I will know who are the sinners.” Concerning the matter of “going down and seeing,” Rashi said by way of derash: “This teaches that judges are not to give decisions in cases involving capital punishment except after having carefully looked into the matter.” According to the simple meaning of Scripture, the explanation is as follows: Since the Holy One, blessed be He, wished to reveal to Abraham the matter of Sodom and to inform him that there was none among them who did good, He said to him “Because it is great, the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah will I go down to see, meaning I have come to judge. If they have sinned, I will make an end of them, and if not, I shall know what I shall do to them: Then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with strokes.” He thus informed him that their judgment was not yet complete for now He will visit their sin and judge them. This is like the verse: The Eternal looketh from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any man of understanding, that did seek after G-d. They are all corrupt; they are together become impure. Now Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra said concerning this [“going down and seeing”] a mystery [i.e., a mysterious explanation], pleasing himself with foreign offspring. I shall now intimate to you the opinion of those who received the truth. Our Rabbis have exposited from the verse, For behold, the Eternal cometh forth out of His place, and will come down, and tread upon the high places of the earth: “He cometh forth and goeth from attribute to attribute; He cometh forth from the attribute of mercy, and goeth to the attribute of justice.” We interpret this matter similarly. And the Eternal said in His heart, “The cry of Sodom and Gomorrah, because it is great, I will go down from the attribute of mercy to the attribute of justice, and I will see in mercy if they have done according to the cry of it which is come unto Me through the attribute of justice, and if so, punishment; and if not, I will know and I will show mercy,” just as in the verse, And G-d knew. Now after Scripture tells of the knowledge of the Most High, it returns to the first matter and relates the story of how the men who glanced towards Sodom with the intention of going there and whom Abraham sent away arrived there. And Abraham, from the moment they left him until they arrived there, still stood before the Eternal for He called him and told him that the angels were those messengers who would destroy the place, as He had said. It was not necessary for Scripture to explain when Abraham stood before Him for from the moment He said, Shall I conceal it from Abraham, it is known that He told him.’

The sage Sforno writes: ‘I will descend now. I will plumb the depths of their wickedness to see what will come of it in the end. And see. I will allow their true colors to be seen by allowing them to attack Lot for his generosity. Then the world will know that it was not for naught that they were punished. If their wailing … is indicative … destruction [shall come]. Alternatively, “If all of them participated” — I will see whether any of them protests’