Abraham Prays for Sodom
After the three angels had rested in Abraham’s hospitable home, they journeyed onward, and Abraham accompanied them a little way. Then the Lord told Abraham of their errand, which was to visit the great and wicked city of Sodom and destroy it in punishment for the sins of its people.
Abraham’s kindness and pity were aroused, and while the other two angels went forward, Abraham stood before their Leader and delayed Him, pleading that Sodom should be spared, lest the innocent perish with the guilty. “And the Lord said, If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes.”
In an almost whimsical spirit of bargaining, Abraham suggested that there might be only forty-five righteous. Should the city perish for five? When this point was granted to him, he reduced the number to forty, and then step by step he brought it down to ten, always humbling himself and pleading with submission. At this point of the argument “the Lord went His way.” Doubtless He was pleased with Abraham’s pertinacious tenderness, but He well knew there were not ten, nor even five, righteous folk in Sodom.
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