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The Torah reading וירא Vayera (“he appeared,” Genesis 18–22) is packed full of some iconic events:
- Abraham and Sarah hosts Adonai and His cohort of angels
- Abraham haggles with God for Sodom and Gomorrah
- Lot tries to offer up his daughters to the Sodomite mob
- Destruction of Sodom, Gomorrah and surrounding cities
- Exile of Lot and his daughters
- Birth of Yitzkhak (Isaac) to Sarah
- Expulsion of Hagar and Ishmael
- Sacrifice of Yitzkhak
- Introduction of Yitzkhak’s wife, Rivkah (Rebekah)
Genesis 18: Hospitality in a hostile world
One of Abraham’s main positive attributes is his hospitality. When he saw the strangers come towards his home, he called them to his home. He offered them food and drink.
Abraham took care of their physical needs without asking anything of them in return. He offered them bread and water but actually gave them bread, meat and cheese, a full meal. Abraham went above and beyond for his guests.
Now, keep in mind that Abraham and Lot were Gentiles, not Israelites. God did not hold Abraham or Lot, for that matter, to the same rules that He later gave to Moses at Sinai.
At Abraham’s time, there was no Torah from Sinai. The law of the Gentiles was the law of the land. What he did know, is that he treated everyone who he came across with compassion and humility, whether family, friends or even strangers.
Matthew 25:31–46 fleshes this out even further in the parable of the sheep and goats. How does Yeshua judge Gentiles? Does He judge them based on Shabbat, the Kosher dietary rules, etc? No. There is no Greek or Jew in the Kingdom of Heaven but on Earth, these distinctions are still in force.
The Gentiles are judged by their conduct, specifically on how they take care of other people (Rom. 2:12–16). This shows us how God judges Gentile people and nations. His ruler to judge their conduct is all about the Golden Rule (Lev. 19:18; Matt. 19:19; Mark 12:31; Luke 10:27; Rom. 13:9; Gal. 5:14; James 2:8).
When you know something and you don’t do it, you are judged more harshly than when you don’t know that something is wrong and do it. Ignorance of the law is no excuse, but it does mitigate the punishment a little bit.
Matthew 25: Parables of Israel and the Gentiles
In Matthew 25:1–13, the 10 virgins know the Messiah was coming but were not prepared. They let their oil ran out. They knew they should have had enough oil to last for a long time, but they didn’t prepare themselves in advance.
In Matthew 25:14–30, the parable of the servants and the talents teach us that we are to carefully take care of and use properly what we have been given. This also applies to the rules of the Torah that God has given us.
Both the virgins and the servants know their king. They aren’t ignorant, as the Gentiles. They know better. They know what is just and unjust in the eyes of their king. The virgins are like the common person and the servants are those who are in leadership among God’s people.
Now, let’s go back to Abraham and Lot with Matthew 25, but particularly Matthew 25:31-46 in mind.
Was Abraham a ‘sheep’ or a ‘goat’?
How did Abraham act? Like a sheep or a goat? Did he take care of those in need or did he disregard them. We know how Abraham treated strangers with kindness and God rewarded his conduct accordingly.
Genesis 18:19 shows us why God loved Abraham so much:
“For I have chosen him, so that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice, so that the LORD may bring upon Abraham what He has spoken about him.”
Genesis 18:19 NASB
How did Lot treat strangers? Lot both treated strangers with kindness. Lot treated them more importantly than he treated himself. He washed their feet, he gave them food and shelter and tended to their every need. God rewarded Lot’s conduct accordingly.
Lot and Abraham both gave of themselves to people they did not know. They didn’t know what business these men were up to, yet they treated them with compassion and humility.
The people of Sodom, on the other hand, treated strangers with contempt. They would humiliate, use, abuse and destroy strangers who came to their city. The prayers and cries of those abused people came to God and He decided to sort it all out.
“For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment; and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; and if He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly lives thereafter; and if He rescued righteous Lot, oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men (for by what he saw and heard that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds), then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment, and especially those who indulge the flesh in its corrupt desires and despise authority.”
2Peter 2:4–10 NASB
Lot’s heart was tormented in his heart by the reprehensible conduct of the people of the city of Sodom. He would sit at the city gate and hear every complaint that came to the elders of the city. I’m sure that the cases Lot heard were sometimes funny, ridiculous and heartbreaking, just as the cases that come through our courts are sometimes funny, frivolous, or reprehensible. Lot knew that the court of Sodom were not a court of justice. He saw all of Sodom’s wickedness and the corruption of the courts and the wickedness of the people.
Why didn’t Lot leave? He had been living there for 10-20 years at this time. Sodom was a state of mind and not a good one. After this amount of time, the people of Sodom knew what Lot’s political leanings were, in a manner of speaking, and they didn’t like them.
When the mob of Sodom came to his house to apprehend his guests, Lot went out of his way to protect his guests from harm. Lot is really a mixed bag when it comes to his status as a righteous man. He was willing to offer up his two young daughters to a mob, which we find utterly disgraceful.
We know how Lot valued the well-being of his guests over the well-being of his daughters. We know better than to offer our defenseless children to a mob. The fact that Lot offer his daughters to the mob, rather than himself, is abhorrent to us and the angels stepped in and protected the young women from harm. The angels valued the lives of Lot’s daughters more than Lot did.
In light of this, we wonder why God didn’t stop the Sodomites from harming other “guests” of Sodom the way He did for Lot’s daughters. The answer is the iniquity of Sodom was not full. Similarly, Heaven allowed peoples in Canaan to persist in their child sacrifices and debauchery until their iniquity was full (Gen. 15:16).
What if Lot had refused to leave? Would he still have been considered righteous? God only sent the angels on the rescue mission because of Abraham’s prayers.
Apparently, God did not Lot or his family to witness the destruction of Sodom and the other cities. Others, such as Abraham, were allowed to witness it, but he didn’t want Lot or his family to witness it. When Lot’s wife turned to witness it, He silenced her by turning her into a pillar of salt. Lot’s wife soul was greatly tormented, and maybe tormented too much.
Lot offered his daughter’s bodies to the Sodomites, which the angels stopped. However, they conspired to father children with their own father when they thought the entire world was destroyed. Lot had offered them up to be used, abused and probably killed by the people of Sodom, so may have they decided that turn about was fair play and they got him drunk and defiled him. They returned the “favor” to their father.
The term used to describe the intercourse between Lot and his daughters is the similar terminology used to described a Levirite marriage (Deut. 25:5–10). They simply wanted to produce heirs so that humanity would not be wiped out.
What happened to Lot was beyond shameful. It’s recorded in the scriptures as a permanent rebuke of his conduct. Righteous people are not always smart people.
From infamy to eternity
Yet, there is a small silver lining in what happened with Lot and his daughters. Lot’s children with his daughters were named Moab and Ammon.
Ruth, a descendant of Lot though his son Moab became a grandmother of the Messiah as the great-grandmother of King David. Naamah, a descendant of Lot through Ammon married Solomon. She was the mother of Solomon’s heir Rehoboam and through him also became a grandmother of Messiah Yeshua.
Genesis 20: Was Abraham’s sister act in Philistia the same as his ruse in Egypt?
Once Sodom and the cities of the plain were destroyed, Abraham had to find new customers for his sheep and cattle so he moved his family to Philistine territory. Abraham also ended up repeating the lie regarding Sarah that he told to Pharaoh in Egypt. Sarah was taken captive by both of them.
However, there’s also a difference in the two stories. The primary difference is how the rulers responded. Pharaoh gave Abraham and Sarah a lot of money, but he also completely evicted Abraham, Sarah and their entourage from their country. Pharaoh didn’t really accept responsibility for his actions. He didn’t want any reminder of his sin in his face.
Abimelech, on the other hand, decided to bless and vindicate Abraham and Sarah instead. Abimelech accepted responsibility for his actions and extended forgiveness. Abimelech appealed to God on behalf of his people. He didn’t want his people to be punished for his mistake.
However, God was more concerned about Abimelech’s action, which was that he had kidnapped Sarah from her husband and God stepped in to make sure that Sarah wasn’t sexually violated by Abimelech.
Looking at this on a spiritual level, we can see Sarah as a representative of the future nation of Israel. When the Israelites were captured by the Egyptians, God had to inflict various plagues on the Egyptians to free Israel from Egypt. God utterly destroyed Egypt as a superpower nation.
There is a consequence to living in a land that doesn’t fear God. There’s a consequence to staying in a wicked land. Leaving a comfortable place can be hard, but staying can be even more difficult. The consequence of staying can destroy future generations.
However, when Israel were captured later by the Babylonians, Assyrians, etc., the people of Israel were eventually allowed to live in their own land, but they were ruled by Gentile nations. Israel had to live under nations that were corrupt and treacherous. That is what happened with Abraham and Sarah as they continue to dwell in Abimelech’s territory.
Genesis 22: Binding of Yitzkhak
We have discussed the binding of Yitzkhak (Isaac) in previous years at length, so I am not going to belabor it much. However, I have to give Abraham and Isaac a lot of credit for their faith, because I don’t think I could have done what they did. They show us how much faith and even more that our Messiah Yeshua did when He sacrificed Himself. This is why Abraham was called the friend of God and how Isaac feared God.
God knew that Abraham would teach his children after him how to live righteously in their generations. God knew that Abraham would give them his legacy of hospitality, humility and treating his neighbors better than himself. If we consider ourselves as sons and daughters of Abraham and Sarah, we live by their example.
Summary: Tammy
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