Fear No Fear

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

“The men turned from there, and went toward Sodom, but Abraham stood yet before Yahweh. Abraham came near, and said, “Will you consume the righteous with the wicked? What if there are fifty righteous within the city? Will you consume and not spare the place for the fifty righteous who are in it? May it be far from you to do things like that, to kill the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous should be like the wicked. May that be far from you. Shouldn’t the Judge of all the earth do right?””
(Genesis 18:22-25)

The two angels left, heading to fulfill their assignment. The lead angel (or pre-incarnate Jesus) stayed behind with His friend Abraham, but clearly action was about to be taken by God regarding Sodom and Gomorrah.

Abraham shows the same heart for the inhabitants of the valley that God has for them. His compassion for their salvation gave him the courage to speak up to God, not in an argumentative way but appealing to God’s compassion. The fact that Abraham immediately started asking for mercy when just before this God had said they were going to find out IF Sodom and Gomorrah were worthy of judgment shows the reputation the cities in the valley had. Abraham already knew they deserved judgment.

God didn’t have to listen to Abraham. He could have cut Abraham off. God was clearly making space for this audacious request because God was seeking someone to intercede on behalf of these people. Since Abraham had fought a war to get the people back and had personal interactions with their kings (Genesis 14), Abraham was well positioned to ask for mercy.

Fifty isn’t a large number to ask for in a successful city. Abraham had asked for a SMALL percentage of people.

The sage Sforno writes: ‘Avraham was still standing. Even after the angels arrived in Sedom he did not give up but remained standing in prayer and supplication. האף תספה צדיק עם רשע, Avraham felt that the way G’d had worded the decree with the word כי רבה, that what G’d might have meant was that as long as the majority of the people were guilty this would justify eliminating the entire city, including the innocent. In that event G’d would not be perceived as meting out justice. ?האף תספה ולא תשא למקום, even though You are justified in destroying the wicked on account of the righteous, far be it from You to kill the righteous. והיה כצדיק כרשע, subject to chance, being in the wrong place at the wrong time. השופט כל הארץ, seeing that You are the judge of the whole earth, if You will judge people based on the conduct of the majority You would eventually be forced to destroy mankind, seeing that most people everywhere are wicked.’

The sage Gur Aryeh writes: ‘It would be sacrilege. Although there were no truly righteous individuals in these cities there were some that appeared so. And since Hashem had already brought destruction to the world twice before, people would attribute their deaths to vindictiveness on His part rather than to their own insincerity. To kill the righteous. Their hypocrisy is hinted at in the spelling of the word tzaddikim — “righteous ones” — which is written defective (i.e. missing a yud) throughout this passage.’