Genesis 18:16 - 19:29
As Abraham is talking with God in Genesis 18, asking if God would spare the city of Sodom if there were 50 righteous people in the city, then 40, then 30, then 20, and then 10 I don’t believe that he is pleading with God. Abraham said “Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep ir away and not spare the place fir the sake of the fifty righteous people in it? (25) Far be it from you to do such a thing - to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?” Though many have seen this as Abraham challenging God, I believe that Abraham is trying to understand the character and consistency of God. Abraham has been taught of God’s unfailing love and God’s righteous judgment. I believe that Abraham was questioning God for the sake of understanding and in a way of seeking wisdom, not in a challenge. When I think of a plea I think of someone getting on his/her knees and pleading and begging for something to not be done (or maybe to be done). A plea, to me, would have been more like “God, would you please NOT destroy the city of Sodom. My family, whom I love, resides there and they are righteous and I do not wish for them to be destroyed.”
Instead, Abraham is seeking of God. Seeking to understand what would God allow, and confirming that God would not allow the righteous to be destroyed. Though Abraham asks God ‘will you…’ He never says ‘God don’t, or God do this instead’ nor does Abraham bring his family (lot) up in the conversation that he has with God. Rather, I believe that Abraham was doing just as God calls us to do today - to question and be a steward (breatheren ??) of The Word.
And God continues to demonstrate his character as he patiently talks with Abraham. God never yells at Abraham, he never tells Abraham to stop asking questions and the scripture ends leaving the feeling that Abraham was satisfied with God’s responses. “When the LORD had finished speaking with Abraham, he left, and Abraham returned home”.
The end result was that Sodom was still destroyed, along with Gomorrah. Yes, Lot and his family were rescued from the destruction of the city - but I don’t believe we have evidence that God planned on destroying Lot and his family from the start. In 19:29 when it says that “So when God destroyed the cities of the plain, he remembered Abraham and he brought Lot out of the catastrophe that overthrew the cities where Lot had lived” I do not read it to mean that God remembered Abraham’s “pleading” so He spared Lot. Rather I think God remembered Abraham in passing, in the way that passing a toy store reminds you of childhood memories. Not in the way that God did something solely because of Abraham’s “pleading” because that in itself would go against God’s all-knowing character. Only God can see the bigger picture of our lives and this universe- so no matter how much pleading was done, had it not been for the better of those involved and the rest of civilization then God still would not have done it. But, as demonstrated by God’s patience, I believe that He still wants us to voice our ideas, thoughts, concerns and questions regardless of the outcomes that will still come.
Is it possible that the conversation with Abraham was just another test from God, to see if Abraham cared enough about his family to ask God if He would destroy the righteous?
I also wonder what kept Lot from returning to Abraham - if he wasn’t ready to meet his brother? Why did he ask to run to flee to a different location? Verse 19 says “Your servant has found favor in your eyes, and you have shown great kindness to me in sparing my life. But I can’t flee to the mountains, this disaster will over take me, and I’ll die” What was this disaster that he was talking about? The disaster of having to flee his town and it being burnt? The disaster of losing his stuff? The disaster of facing Abraham? What was that disaster and why did the angel, whom Abraham was talking to, allow him to change his fleeing location? Maybe Zoar is really where God wanted Lot to take his family and God knew that if He had told Lot to go to Zoar that Lot would have asked to go to the mountains. I mean Lot was living with a pretty nasty group of people, maybe God knew that too many demands at once would throw Lot off and cause another rebellion. Maybe God knew that Lot needed to still feel some sense of power and control in His life to help him keep pushing along. Had Lot not gone to Zoar, his daughters might not have slept with him and created the leaders of the Moabites and Ammonites??
