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1 And the LORD appeared unto him by the oaks[a] of Mamre, as he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day;

2 and he lifted up his eyes and looked, and saw three men standing before him; and when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself to the earth,

3 and said, “My lord, if I have found favor in your sight, please stay a while with your servant;

4 let now a little water be fetched, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree;

5 and I will fetch some bread to strengthen your heart; after that you shall pass on: for as much you have come to your servant.” And they said, “So do, as you have said.”

6 And Abraham hastened into the tent unto Sarah, and said, “Make ready quickly three measures[a] of fine meal, knead it, and make cakes.”

7 And Abraham ran unto the herd, and fetched a calf tender and good, and gave it unto the servant; and he hastened to dress it.

8 And he took butter, and milk, and the calf which he had dressed, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree, and they did eat.

9 And they said unto him, “Where is Sarah, your wife?” And he said, “She is over there in the tent.”

10 And he said, “I will certainly return to you when the season comes round; and, you shall see that Sarah your wife shall have a son.” And Sarah heard from inside the tent door, which was behind him.”

11 Now Abraham and Sarah were old, and well stricken in age; it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women.

12 And Sarah laughed within herself, saying, ‘After I am waxed old shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?’

13 And the LORD said unto Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh, saying, ‘Shall I surely bear a child when I am old?’

14 Is anything too hard for the LORD? At the set time I will return to you, when the season comes round, and Sarah shall have a son.”

15 Then Sarah denied, saying, “I did not laugh;” for she was afraid. And he said, “No, but you did laugh!”

16 And the men rose up from there, and looked toward Sodom; and Abraham went with them to bring them on the way.

17 And the LORD said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing,

18 seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him?

19 For I known that he will command his children and his household after him, to keep the way of the LORD, to do righteousness and justice; to the end that the LORD may bring to effect all the things he has spoken unto him.”

20 And the LORD said, “Because[f] the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous;

21 I will go down now, and see whether they have done according to the cry I have heard, which has come unto me; and if not, I will know.”

22 And the men turned from thence, and went toward Sodom: but Abraham stood yet before the LORD.

23 And Abraham drew near, and said, “Will you also destroy the righteous with the wicked?

24 Perhaps there are fifty righteous within the city: will you destroy and not spare the entire city, even though there would be fifty righteous people found therein?

25 Far be it from you to slay the righteous with the wicked, that the righteous should be as the wicked; that is unlike you; shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?”

26 And the LORD said, “If I find within Sodom fifty righteous people, then I will spare the whole city for their sake.”

27 And Abraham answered and said, “Behold now, I have taken it upon myself to speak to the Lord; I who am but dust and ashes:

28 perhaps there are just five less people from the fifty righteous: will you really destroy the city for lack of five?” And he said, “I will not destroy it, if I find there forty-five.”

29 And he spoke to him yet again, and said, “Perhaps there shall be forty found there?” And he said, “I will not do it for the forty’s sake.”

30 And he said, “Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak: perhaps there shall thirty be found there.” And he said, “I will not do it, if I find thirty there.”

31 And he said, “Behold now, I have taken it upon myself to speak unto the Lord: What if there shall be twenty found there?” And he said, “I will not destroy it for the twenty’s sake.”

32 And he said, “Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak just once more: What if only ten are found there?” And he said, “I will not destroy it for the ten’s sake.”

33 And the LORD went his way as soon as he had finished talking with Abraham; and Abraham returned unto his place.

[1a] KJV 'in the plains'; DRA 'in the vale'; ASV 'by the oaks[a]' a. or, terebinths

[3b] Or, O Lord

[5c] Or, for therefore

[6a] lit. ‘seah’, one seah being about 7 liters.

[10d] Hebrew liveth, or, reviveth.

[11] Sarah had passed the age of childbearing.

[14e] Or, wonderful

[18] If the thought should occur that this remark refers to someone or something being promised to all nations in and of itself, one must only realize that Abraham cannot hear God's thoughts at this moment. This is a part of the Torah which God gave to Moses; it was not written down by Abraham. Secondly, the intent is not to introduce any new promise or covenant but to reiterate what was said before: therefore on it's own this passage does not show any such promise, but only points to the promises which were made before.

In fact this is a reference to 17:27 in which anyone among the nations who becomes a member of Abraham’s household (‘all the men of his house’) may become a convert. See: 17:12, 17:27.

[20f] Or, Verily

[32] A worthy (proper) community is at least ten righteous men. Therefore, an authoritative Noachide court of justice must involve at least ten righteous men. This doesn't mean that every hearing must be heard by two people, probably three would suffice, or a single judge, but that at least ten people should be involved in the whole of the matter or have equal responsibility and authority in the court. Perhaps an assignment system for single judges or triple judges depending on the case with others being expected to veto themselves in to an equal position should they so desire, for certain cases.

Q: My Christian friend told me the LORD was one of the three men who appears to Abraham. How can we know this is true or false?

A: As it turns out, the only way you can know it is true is to be told as much by a Christian. As it turns out, thre is nothing in this passage which indicates that the LORD is appearing the form of a man, or that one of the 'Angels' was Jesus. The way a Christian knows that this is true is because “three men” appear to Abraham, and therefore this must refer to the Christian “Holy Trinity”; one personage of course, being Jesus. Any reader of this passage who did not know anything about Christianity would never assume that one of the people Abraham was speaking to was the LORD.

Here is a non-exhaustive list of a few of the more obvious concerns one would have with the Christian position on this passage.

a) This passage does not exist in a vacuum. Existing tradition states that of the three angels who appeared to Abraham, one was a Seraph (an angel of Prophecy) sent to give news of the birth of Issac. The other two were the angels of judgement and destruction, who went on to Sodom (19:1). This is a fully accepted Christian tradition until only recently. In fact, the heading for the GNV states “Abraham receiveth three Angels into his house.” Also see Ellicott's commentary (e. below).

b) We know that all three men were of the angelic class because they were not differentiated by in any way when spoken of as a group. Ex. 19:1 vs 'three men' and 'they/them' being used to refer to three men, while the pronoun 'he' was only used to refer to the LORD.:

• The three men
  • 18:2; three men –> them, –> 5; your, –> 8; them, –> 9; they said,
• The LORD
  • 10: and he said –> I, 13; the LORD said –> 14; I
• The three men
  • 16; the men rose up –> them –> them
• The LORD
  • 17; the LORD said –> I, 19; for I –> 21; I
  • 26; the LORD said –> I
  • 28, 29, 30: I
  • 33; the LORD went –> his

This list shows that whenever the LORD is mentioned by name, all the following pronouns are singular (I or he) until the three men are next mentioned, all of the pronouns are plural (until the LORD is again mentioned). This indicates that Abraham was talking with both the LORD and the three men at the same time, because there is no confusion in the text with whom Abraham is speaking at any time.

c) Counterpoint: Why didn't God do what he said? Why didn't God go to Sodom? Since it is too convenient to state that in 18:22 “the men” refers to only two of the men while in 18:16 it refers to all three, Christians point out that the LORD says he is going to Sodom (which it does say), then the men get up to leave and Abraham goes with him, but in the end the LORD goes 'his way' after 'the men' go on to Sodom. And then, only two Angels appear in Sodom in 19:1. The problem with this reading is that it ignores that one of the angels was an angel of Judgement (or Justice) and it begs the question, where is the LORD? Why didn't he go to Sodom to judge them, and why is it the angels themselves who seem to have gone to witness the depravity of Sodom?

God specifically said that he would go to see for himself before passing judgement. Did God just lose track of time while he was talking with Abraham? Of course not. Therefore the Christian reasoning that the LORD stayed behind then 'went his way' (18:33) and thus not to Sodom and Gomorrah, no longer makes sense.

And as an aside, if the Christian states that the Lord is a type of Claus who can travel around faster than anything, then why not also the angels? Especially those in human form upon which no differentiation was made? Also see 19:16 where the angels literally teleport Lot and his family outside the city.

Therefore when it says 'the men' in 18:22 we can only assume it means all three men, and not only two of them and the reason only two went to Sodom is because one of the angels (likely Gabriel, an angel of Prophecy or Revalation) was not needed in Sodom.

d) In addition to the above, it is not only convenient to assume too much about angels and God and pronouns, to choose two or three, but that the angels themselves declare that they are not the LORD in Genesis 19. Unfortunately most Christian isogesis ends with Genesis 19:1 to show that one of the men is missing. But if we keep reading until Genesis 19:13 we see “…the LORD hath sent us to destroy it.” Therefore the three men who were sent to Abraham first were not the LORD, but are confirmed to have been Angels. This was obvious from the grammar of 18, but having it stated plainly is also nice.

e) Ellicott's Commentary states as follows;

(2) Three men. — Jewish commentators explain the number by saying that, as no angel might execute more than one commission at a time, one of the three came to heal Abraham, the second to bear the message to Sarah, and the third to destroy Sodom. More correctly one was “the angel of Jehovah,” who came as the manifestation of Deity to Abraham, and the other two were his companions, commissioned by him afterwards to execute judgment on the cities of the plain, The number three pointed also to the Trinity of Persons in the Godhead, and is therefore read by our Church as one of the lessons for Trinity Sunday. But we must be careful not to use it as a proof of this doctrine, lest the inference should be drawn of a personal appearance of the Father and of the Holy Ghost, which would savour of heretical impiety.

f) Due too (e.) above, and considering verses such as John 1:18 for confirmation of the Christian Position, we must remind any Christian that because the specific name used here is Yaweh and not Jesus (Yeshua) Abraham would have known him as Yaweh and would NOT have referred to Yaweh as someone who appeared to him in a mortal form (Exodus 33:20). To posit any other situation is a heresy against both Old and New Testament theology. THEREFORE in no case may we assume that “Jesus” appeared to Abraham, nor whomever the LORD was, appeared to Abraham in a physical form. Rather, for the answer, see g. below

g) As it turns out. quite often the Bible will refer to those who wield the power of God by the name of God. The Christian position confirms this, for Jesus says “Is it not written 'I said: you are Gods'” (John 10:34, referencing Psalm 82:6). For an example of the same theology in the Old Testament, see Exodus 7:1 h. nə-ṯat-tî-ḵā “I have made you” ’ĕ-lō-hîm “God” lə-p̄ar-‘ōh; “To Pharaoh” (and Aaron your brother shall be your prophet). Also see: Exodus 21:6, 22:8-9 and 22:28. But for the local context we are concerned with Genesis 19:24, 25 (he), 19:29 and similar; for how can it say the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah if in 19:13 the angels said “We will destroy it… the LORD has sent us to destroy it.”? Obviously this is a similar case. Therefore it is possible that when the angels appeared to Abraham it is written that the LORD appeared to Abraham, but even if we were to make this assumption based on a careful reading of the passages above (and not merely as a claim, without evidence) then based on both Old Testament theology and New Testament theology (ex. Ellicott's in e. above) we may never draw a conclusion about a “trinity” or “Jesus” from this passage – to do so would be a heresy in any case.