Genesis 18:22 Commentary and Bible Study

The Lord turns away towards Sodom, and Abraham is dismissed, but he hasn’t gone. He knows his nephew Lot is living in the city and he is fearful because of the Lord has said he is going to examine the city. Abraham knows how wicked they are and that they deserve to be destroyed, and he knows that the Lord has revealed to him what he is about to do, for a reason, so his intercession begins, and he makes this great prayer, which is very famous. ‘Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked?’ He is thinking of Lot and his wife and his daughters and his sons-in-law: will they be destroyed also? And the people who they went into Sodom to influence. Let us give the largest credit to Lot we can and say that he went into Sodom to reach others. Did he succeed? Some have concluded that Abraham thought Lot must have been successful in his witness by now, but Abraham doesn't seem to rate his success very highly. As it turned out he hadn’t got anywhere. He lost even his own children. We know the prayer. He begins with 50. ‘Will you save the city for 50 righteous?’ and he gets it down to 10. Lot has gone into Sodom and is tangling with that culture. He has been utterly unsuccessful. In fact, the culture was influenced him, as we shall see, far more than he has influenced it. ‘Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked?’ Now Abraham knew that God couldn't do that ultimately, certainly not eternally. A righteous God will not destroy the saved or the righteous along with the wicked. But this question is building up to a point. It's almost as if Abraham is saying, ‘Surely it isn't possible that you would destroy the righteous with the wicked.’ It is a reverent question, not an impertinent one. It could sound as though Abraham is rather impertinent and is telling God how he should behave if he is a righteous God. But of course, this is not the right way to read it. What Abraham is effectively saying is this: ‘Is it legitimate for me to pray what I am about to pray?’ It is as though he says – if we may radically recast it – ‘O Lord, art thou not a righteous judge? You have taught me, my Lord, that thou art a righteous judge, so I need to understand: is it right for me to ask thee as a righteous judge, to distinguish between the righteous and the wicked in judgment?’ There are question marks through this prayer, all over the place. Abraham is venturing gently. He is coming very humbly to a God of perfection and righteousness, of holiness and judgment . ‘Dare I ask, is my understanding correct?’ And so he pitches his number higher at first. ‘Could I ask for a reprieve for the city if there were 50 believers there? In those circumstances may I ask for a reprieve?’ And the Lord grants it to him. So with great relief, he says to himself, ‘I am on the right track. I am not being impertinent; I am not telling a sovereign God what to do; it is permissible for me to ask. I have been granted 50. The trouble is there are not 50. I have tested the principal; I have discovered it is legitimate and acceptable to pray along these lines. Now I will reduce the figure, and I will reduce it further.’ This is his procedure. It is not a matter of somebody bartering, but of somebody in great humility who is scared of going too far with the Lord out of reverence and godly fear. That is the ethos of the prayer. ‘That is a terrible place,’ Abraham says to himself. ‘Lot should never have gone there’, so the figure is reduced, and reduced, and reduced until Abraham comes down to ten.