Commentaire sur La Genèse 18:32

אולי ימצאון שם עשרה PERADVENTURE THERE SHALL TEN BE FOUND THERE — For a smaller number he did not plead because he knew already of two instances where less than ten had failed to save the wicked. He said to himself: In the generation of the Flood there were eight righteous people, viz., Noah, his sons and their wives, and they could not save their generation (Genesis Rabbah 49:13), and for nine in association with God he had already pleaded but had found no acceptance.

אל נא יחר…אך הפעם. "Do not become angry if I speak only this one more time." Here Abraham again introduces his own merit as adequate to complement the quorum of twenty people (2 towns); this is why he worries about angering G'd. In this instance he was presumptuous enough to equate the protective power of his own merit with that of his Master. This is reflected in his avoidance of the words: "to my Lord;" he merely said: "I will speak," meaning a plea relying on his own merit. He added the word אך to indicate that he would not plead again if by chance the tenth one should be missing even in the remaining town.

ויאמר...אך הפעם, Avraham makes clear that if there would not be at least ten righteous people, he would no longer have any argument to present which could be used to help these towns escape their deserved punishment. Significantly, he made no mention of Lot, as he believed that Lot deserved to share the fate of the city having voluntarily associated himself with the wicked inhabitants of that town. Besides, Avraham had no way of knowing if Lot had adopted the perverted lifestyle of the inhabitants of Sodom. He believed that Lot’s only way of saving himself from the doom decreed on the city was to voluntarily depart from that city.