Fear No Fear

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

“Abraham went up early in the morning to the place where he had stood before Yahweh. He looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and saw that the smoke of the land went up as the smoke of a furnace. When God destroyed the cities of the plain, God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the middle of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in which Lot lived.”
(Genesis 19:27-29)

Abraham must have been so disappointed that morning. He interceded for the sparing of the cities of that valley if only ten (10) righteous people could be found in them. He must have thought that Sodom at least would be spared because of Lot. There was Lot, his wife, two married daughters, two unmarried daughters, two sons-in-law, and possible grandchildren. That made eight (8) confirmed people connected to a righteous man (Lot – 2 Peter 2:7). Abraham probably assumed that Lot made a priority of sharing his knowledge of God with his family as Abraham himself did (Genesis 18:19). I don’t think Abraham held anything against Lot, since Abraham would have known none of the details. But I do think Abraham was disappointed and sad in the result.

Lot was not saved because of his own righteousness, but because of Abraham’s relationship with God. That says a lot. Relationship makes ALL the difference when it comes to God. Jesus warns us about the same thing (Matthew 7:23). It isn’t our behaviour that matters because our behaviour comes out of our relationship. If our focus is our behaviour, we can end up outwardly good and inwardly bad (Matthew 23:25). If our focus is our relationship with God, our behaviour will reflect that (James 2:17; Matthew 15:19).

The sage Sforno writes: ‘אל המקום אשר עמד שם את פני ה, to the place to which he had accompanied the angels. This is where the punishing hand of G’d had first appeared to him. Since he had not been able to save the inhabitants of Sodom legally, he prepared to intercede for them by asking G’d s mercy for them. וישקף, a hostile kind of looking, motivated by their excess wickedness. קיטור הארץ, when he saw the smoke he realised that it was too late to pray on behalf of these people. מתוך ההפכה בהפוך את הערים, seeing that he had escaped by the merit of Avraham from the destruction of these cites, a process which had begun even before Lot had been outside the outer perimeters of the valley due to his laziness. (compare verse 16) As a result, he was afraid to settle in Tzoar thinking that its destruction had been delayed only on account of his having taken refuge there.’

The sage Radak writes: ‘וישכם…אל המקום אשר עמד שם, this is similar to 18,22 where we were told that Avraham was still standing in the presence of the Lord. This was the place where the angels had parted from him in his vision. Our sages (Berachot 26) state that Avraham initiated the morning prayer shacharit, as whenever the word עומד is used it refers to the amidah, the principal prayer. David makes reference to this in Psalms 106,30 where he said ויעמוד פנחס ויפלל, that Pinchas stood and prayed, meaning that it behooves man to recite prayers in the morning in which he gratefully acknowledges the daylight in the universe which was provided for him before he set out to go to work. They also add (on folio 6) that it is appropriate for a person to select a specific place where he offers up his prayers on a regular basis. וישקף…קיטור הארץ, smoke, from the fire which had burned the earth. הכבשן, a sort of kiln in which one fires stones and loam into earthenware. Alternately, this kiln is used to wash earthenware vessels. ויהי בשחת, the reason why the Torah phrases this thus is to remind us that Lot’s having been saved was due to the merit of Avraham. Even though, by comparison to the people of Sodom he was relatively righteous, he was not righteous enough to have deserved G’d extending Himself to save him as a result of his own merits. G’d now wanted to put Avraham’s mind at rest by indicating to him that Lot had indeed been saved from this conflagration. וישלח את לוט מתוך ההפכה, He had sent away from the midst of this upheaval, i.e. immediately preceding it. בהפך את הערים, when He was about to turn these cities inside out, for the angel had told Lot that he could not carry out his task until he had brought Lot to safety. (verse 22).’