Fear No Fear

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

“Yahweh said, “If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare the whole place for their sake.””
(Genesis 18:26)

God did not reprimand Abraham. He clearly wanted Abraham to mediate for the people – which is an excellent Old Covenant attitude, but in the New it is Jesus who is our mediator (1 Timothy 2:5) and we get into alignment with Jesus.

Although the people of the Sodom and Gomorrah valley DESERVED judgment for their rebellious attitude toward God, He was willing to spare them ALL for the sake of a few. God truly does NOT want us to perish. God – even the God of the Old Covenant – wants us to SURVIVE and THRIVE. The thing is, however, we can ONLY do that when we are in alignment with God’s point of view and God’s moral character.

The sage Rashi writes: ‘אם אמצא בסדום וגו’ לכל המקום IF I FIND IN SODOM … FORGIVE ALL THE PLACE — all the cities, but because Sodom was the capital city of the district and the most important of all, Scripture subordinates the order cities to it.’

The sage Ramban writes: ‘WITHIN THE CITY. Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra explained that [these men for whose sake the cities were to be saved] fear G-d publicly. In a similar sense is the verse: Run ye to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem. The correct interpretation appears to me to be that Abraham said, within the city, meaning that even if they are strangers therein, it is fitting that they save it. He said this on account of Lot, and he thought that perhaps there are others there.’

The sage Or HaChaim writes: ‘ויאמר ה׳ אם אמצא…ונשאחי לכל המקום. G’d said: “If I find fifty ….inside the town, I will forgive the whole place on their account.” G’d answered only Abraham’s last request. It goes without saying that He would not kill the innocent. We know that G’d saved Lot who was not righteous because he was a relative of Abraham.’

The sage Rav Hirsch writes: ‘V. 26. God answered: If there are still, in a state like Sodom, fifty righteous men who not only publicly live a moral and just life, but who even can stand up for morality, justice and humaneness, then, not only למענם, not only out of consideration of, for the sake of, these righteous ones, but בעבורם through them, because these righteous ones exist and are tolerated, the whole city deserves forgiveness. (in the same sense as בעבור דוד (Ps. CXXXII.10, בעבור טמאה, Micha II.10). Their existence and being tolerated would itself be a proof that the degeneration had not yet reached the lowest depth. We find it described similarly in ת״כ on בחקתי, that the progressive development of depravity has not yet reached its lowest depth where the God-fearing righteous ones and goodness is only derided. As long as they are tolerated, publicly tolerated, even though mocked at and scoffed, as long as fearing God and goodness are only regarded as folly but no crime evil has not yet reached its worst. The worst has arrived only when one no longer laughs but grinds one’s teeth at the righteous, and practising goodness is forbidden as a crime against the system of public welfare and stopped and punished accordingly, — אינו מניח אחרים לעשות. Thus the sum of the sins of the Amorites was not yet “full’ as long as an Abraham and his household could publicly and unhindered erect there an altar to Truth and Goodness. And Sodom too, only went to ruin when this ultimate depth of depravity had been reached in the valley.’