Commentaire sur La Genèse 18:20

'ויאמר ה AND THE LORD SAID to Abraham, thus doing what he had said — that He would not conceal the matter from him.

AND THE ETERNAL SAID, THE CRY OF SODOM AND GOMORRAH. Rashi comments: “And the Eternal said to Abraham, thus doing what He had said, i.e., that He would not conceal the matter from him,”
And Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra said that the verse, And the men turned from there,¹²⁹Verse 22 here. was inserted in the middle of the account¹³⁰According to Ibn Ezra, Verse 22, which states, And the men turned from there and went toward Sodom, and Abraham stood yet before the Eternal, actually took place before our present verse for it was after the angels had walked toward Sodom that G-d said to Abraham, The cry of Sodom and Gomorrah… However, Verse 22 was entered later in the account in order to let us know the time of G-d’s word to Abraham — the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah, etc. — was when they came to Sodom. in order to let us know that at the time the angels arrived in Sodom, then G-d said to Abraham: The cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great.
The opinion of all commentators is likewise that G-d was speaking with Abraham. Now according to this, the correct interpretation of the verse, And the men turned from there,¹²⁹Verse 22 here. is that when G-d said to Abraham after the men journeyed from him, The cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, Abraham stood in prayer and supplication before Him to forgive them and to give him permission to speak. And he prolonged his prayer until the men came to Sodom, and then Abraham drew near and said, Wilt Thou also sweep away the righteous with the wicked?¹³¹Verse 23 here. Or the explanation may be that Scripture itself returns to clarify the expression, Abraham stood yet before the Eternal,¹³²Verse 22 here. According to this interpretation, Abraham did not pray before he began saying, Wilt Thou also sweep away. as meaning that Abraham drew near and said, Wilt Thou also sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Thus he prolonged his supplication before Him, saying each time, “Let not the anger of the Eternal blaze,”¹³³See Exodus 32:22. and directing the intent of his mind each time towards prophecy until he heard an answer to his words direct from the Holy One, blessed be He. They continued in this manner the entire day [until, as the verse says], the Eternal finished speaking with Abraham,¹³⁴Verse 33 here. and the two angels came to Sodom.

'ויאמר ה, the angel said to Avraham that G’d had said that He dispatched these messengers on account of the outcry in heaven over the sins of Sodom, a reference to what G’d had mentioned in 13,13.

ויאמר ה, at this point the prophetic vision נבואה, commenced, a type of Divine revelation superior to that described as מראה, “vision.”

ויאמר ה׳ זעקת פדום ועמורה, כי רבה G'd said: "the outcry about Sodom and Gomorrha is indeed great, etc.;" the reason for the word כי, as well as the additional word חטאתם, plus the description כבדה מאד, require analysis. We must remember that in that era all the nations angered G'd by their conduct all the time. The wickedness of the Sodomites, however, was in a class by itself. This is indicated by the words כי רבה, "for it is great;" this explains why G'd seemed to mind the conduct of those cities more than that of any others. The additional word וחטאתם alludes to the fact that their wickedness included not only the metaphysical, i.e. idolatry, but also moral-ethical wickedness in their relations with fellow human beings. Sanhedrin 109 lists examples of the latter, describing how they tortured a young girl to death for having given bread to a stranger, something illegal in that town. The Torah itself alludes to their attempts to have homosexual relations with the angels who visited Lot in the guise of human beings.

'ויאמר ה' זעקת סדם ועמורה וגו, G’d means to say that the reason he now appeared to Avraham was to inform him that He had heard the outcry concerning Sodom, etc. The same applied to the five kings who were involved in the war with Kedorleomer in chapter 14 were all killed together with their population when Sodom was overturned. They were what the Torah referred to in 19,28 as the ארץ הככר. Moses also referred to this overturning of Sodom and Amora in Deut. 29,22 mentioning 4 towns, seeing that Tzoar was saved at the request of Lot. Also in Hoseah 11,8 the cities of Adma and Tzvoyim are singled out by the prophet, although the largest of the cities were Sodom and Amora. Sodom was the principal city, and the perversions committed in all of these cities were presumably dreamt up by the citizens of Sodom. The prophet Ezekiel 16,53 specifically refers to the other cities of that valley as Sodom’s satellites.

ויאמר ה' זעקת סדום, “G’d said: ‘the outcry about Sodom, etc.” According to Ibn Ezra, the line ויפנו משם האנשים“the men turned away from there” in verse 22 of our chapter, describes an event that preceded the conversation between Avraham and G’d introduced here. The whole verse has to be understood thus: After the men, i.e. angels, had taken their leave of Avraham, G’d said to him that the outcry about the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah which had come to His attention was such that, if upon closer examination, these reports would prove to be accurate, that would be the end of these cities. Thereupon Avraham began to pray on behalf of the innocent people in those cities.

כי רבה BECAUSE IT IS GREAT — Wherever רבה elsewhere occurs in Scripture the accent is on the last syllable — on the ב — because it is to be translated by “great” (adj.) or “becoming great” (participle), but this, here, has the accent on the first syllable — on the ר — because it is to be translated by “has already become great” (perf.), just as I have explained (15:17) “And it came to pass, that, when the sun had gone down (בָּאָה)” and (Ruth 1:15) “Behold, thy sister-in-law has gone back (שָׁבָה)”.

זעקת, the souls of the people who had been tortured by the inhabitants of these cities reached the heavenly court. The primary complaint was violence committed against these people. There were other, lesser crimes committed by these people also. However, the decision to destroy these cities was sealed on account of the violence perpetrated, just as the deluge was brought about by that crime. This was essentially a repeat of what happened on a global scale at the time of the deluge.

זעקת סדום ועמורה כי רבה, “the outcry rising from Sodom and Gomorrha is indeed of vast proportions.” According to Ibn Ezra, they either spoke out openly against G’d (the seven universal laws given by G’d to mankind,) or they indulged in violent means to enforce their views. According to Nachmanides, the wordsזעקת סדום וגו' refer to the outcry to G’d of the souls of the victims of such violence (compare Job 35,9: יזעיקו ישועו רבים, ”many oppressed cry out.”)

G'd also wanted to cool Abraham's enthusiasm for saving such a wicked people. This is why He told him that their sins were both numerous and of a severe nature. Originally their sins were "merely" numerous i.e. רבה; meanwhile they had become "severe," כבדה, also. When Abraham rescued the Sodomites from the four kings their sins had not yet been that severe.

THE CRY OF SODOM AND GOMORRAH. This is the cry of the oppressed, crying out and begging for help from the arm of their wickedness. It would have been proper for Scripture to say, “The cry of Sodom and Gomorrah I heard because it is great” or “The cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very heavy.” But the purport of the verse is to state that “I will go down and see the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah and their sin which have become very great. If they have all sinned, I will bring the law to bear down on them, and if not, I will know who are the sinners.”
Concerning the matter of “going down and seeing,” Rashi said by way of derash:¹³⁵The homiletical interpretation of Scripture. “This teaches that judges are not to give decisions in cases involving capital punishment except after having carefully looked into the matter.”
According to the simple meaning of Scripture, the explanation is as follows: Since the Holy One, blessed be He, wished to reveal to Abraham the matter of Sodom and to inform him that there was none among them who did good, He said to him “Because it is great, the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah will I go down to see, meaning I have come to judge. If they have sinned, I will make an end of them, and if not, I shall know what I shall do to them: Then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with strokes.”¹³⁶Psalms 89:33. He thus informed him that their judgment was not yet complete for now He will visit their sin and judge them. This is like the verse: The Eternal looketh from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any man of understanding, that did seek after G-d. They are all corrupt; they are together become impure.¹³⁷Ibid., 14:2-3.
Now Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra said concerning this¹³⁸Ibn Ezra’s comment is found in Verse 21 here. [“going down and seeing”] a mystery [i.e., a mysterious explanation], pleasing himself with foreign offspring.¹³⁹See Isaiah 2:6. Ramban says that “the mystery” suggested here by Ibn Ezra as an explanation of the verse comes to him from the philosophers who please themselves with theories which are “the offspring of aliens.” Ibn Ezra’s “mystery” explanation is that G-d’s knowledge of earthly matters is general, rather than detailed. Ramban rejects this concept as “foreign” to the Torah. I shall now intimate to you the opinion of those who received the truth. Our Rabbis have exposited¹⁴⁰Yerushalmi Ta’anith II, 1. from the verse, For behold, the Eternal cometh forth out of His place, and will come down, and tread upon the high places of the earth:¹⁴¹Micah 1:3. “He cometh forth and goeth from attribute to attribute; He cometh forth from the attribute of mercy, and goeth to the attribute of justice.” We interpret this matter similarly. And the Eternal said in His heart, “The cry of Sodom and Gomorrah, because it is great, I will go down from the attribute of mercy to the attribute of justice, and I will see in mercy if they have done according to the cry of it which is come unto Me through the attribute of justice, and if so, punishment; and if not, I will know and I will show mercy,” just as in the verse, And G-d knew.¹⁴²Exodus 2:25. He knew of the suffering of the children of Israel and directed His mercy upon them. Here, likewise, Ramban teaches that the word eida’ah (I will know) bespeaks Divine mercy. Now after Scripture tells of the knowledge of the Most High, it returns to the first matter and relates the story of how the men who glanced towards Sodom with the intention of going there and whom Abraham sent away arrived there. And Abraham, from the moment they left him until they arrived there, still stood before the Eternal for He called him and told him that the angels were those messengers who would destroy the place, as He had said. It was not necessary for Scripture to explain when Abraham stood before Him for from the moment He said, Shall I conceal it from Abraham,¹⁴³Verse 17 here. it is known that He told him.

Es heißt nun hier: wenngleich die Natur und die Menschen bereits über Sodom und Amora den Stab brechen, so will ich doch noch erst untersuchen: הכצעקתה וגוי. Nach der Konstruktion mit הְַ und nicht אם, sowie nach dem Akzent, nach welchem כלה als Objekt zu עשו gehört ( — es ist nämlich zu bezweifeln, dass der פסיק nach Munach in dieser Beziehung dem Sinne nach hinlänglich trenne, dass כלה als Nachsatz betrachtet werden könnte, vergl. z. B. Kap.19, Raw Hirsch on Genesis 18: 14 —), dürfte es zu verstehen sein: ob כצעקתה sie bereits Vernichtung getan, d. h. ob ihr Verbrechen bereits den Gipfel erreicht, dass sie sich selbst damit völlige Vernichtung bereitet. Während עשה כלה sonst immer die Vollstreckung der Vernichtung bedeutet, wäre dann hier höchst bezeichnend, diese Vernichtung als Werk des Verbrechers selbst, der ja auch in der Tat ihr eigentlicher Urheber ist, ausgedrückt. Gewöhnlich nimmt man, vom פסיק geleitet, כלה als elliptischen Nachsatz und das ה als konditionales wenn, wofür jedoch die Analogie fehlt: wenn sie כצעקתה getan, (soll) Vernichtung (über sie kommen). Jedenfalls will das כצעקתה erklärt sein. Auf Sodom und Amora kann sich schwerlich das Suffix ה beziehen, da diese sofort im Subjekt des Satzes als Plural עשו gedacht sind. Es scheint vielmehr, dass es sich auf das vorhergehende חטאת, oder vielmehr ועקה bezieht. צעקה ist das verstärkte זעקה. Das, worüber die Menschen schreien, ist oft nur der kleinste Teil von dem, was zu Gott schreit. Der zu Gott dringende Schrei von dem Geschrei der Menschen war noch größer; nach diesem zu Gott dringenden Schrei hatten sie bereits Vernichtung erwirkt; Gott will sie eine letzte Prüfung bestehen lassen, ob bereits der Gipfel der Unmenschlichkeit ausnahmslos alle Schichten der Bevölkerung durchdrungen. "Ist das nicht, so will ich gerne einzeln erkennen" die Schuldigen strafen, die andern verschonen. — Auch bei דור המבול ging השחתת דרך mit חמס Hand in Hand. Sittliche Entartung erzeugt überall die soziale, und auch dort wie hier bricht zuletzt das soziale Verbrechen, צעקה — חמס, den Stab über das Geschlecht, קץ כל בשר בא לפני כי מלאה הארץ חמס מפניהם. —

וחטאתם, this refers to the sin of violence, taking the law into one’s own hands. The outcry that had reached the heavenly spheres was extremely severe. As the prophet Ezekiel said: “they did not support the poor and the weak.” The poor cry out to heaven on account of their hunger, and they do not have any one who stretches out their hand to support them.