Comentários de Citação sobre Gênesis 18:5

רנה נא אדני BEHOLD NOW, MY LORDS — Behold now you are my lords since you have passed by me. Another explanation is: Behold now you should be careful with respect to these wicked people that they should not observe you, and, therefore this is the good advice that I give you, viz.:

סורו נא—take a circuitous route to my house — a round-about way, that people should not notice you entering it. For this reason he said: סורו turn aside (Genesis Rabbah 50:4).

ולינו ורחצו רגליכם AND LODGE OVER NIGHT AND LAVE YOUR FEET — Is it then customary for people first to tarry all night and then to wash? Furthermore, Abraham began by saying to them, “Wash your feet”! —But this is what Lot thought: If when the men of Sodom come they see that they have already washed their feet, they will make a charge against me saying, “Two or three days have already elapsed since these come to your house and you did not report it to us” — consequently he said: it is better that they should stay here with the dust on their feet so that they would seem to have just arrived. On this account he first said to them, “Lodge over night”, and afterwards “Wash [your feet]” (Genesis Rabbah 50:4).

ויאמרו לא AND THEY SAID, NAY — But to Abraham they had said, “So do [as thou hast said]”! Hence we may infer that one may readily decline an invitation from an inferior but one should not so readily decline an invitation from a superior (Genesis Rabbah 50:4).

כי ברחוב נלין BUT WE WILL ABIDE IN THE STREET — Here כי is used in the sense of but; they said: We will not turn aside into your house but we will abide in the street of the city all night.

and worship Him with a whole heart Heb. בְּלֵב שָׁלֵם. It is not stated בְּלֵבָב שָׁלֵם, which would mean two hearts, but בְּלֵב שָׁלֵם, that you shall have but one heart for our Father Who is in heaven. And so did the liturgical poet set down (in the Kedushah of Musaph of the first day of Rosh Hashanah): “You have two hearts like one for the One.” Similar to this, [we find in] (I Kings 8:61): “Let your heart [therefore] be whole (שָׁלֵם) with the Lord our God.” It is not written שְׁלֵמִים but שָׁלֵם: your two hearts will be one whole heart. And so it is explained (Gen. 18:5): “... and refresh your heart (לִבְּכֶם), afterwards you may pass on.” This teaches us that the angels have only one heart, and also in the future it will be so, as it is written: (Ps. 48:14): “Give heed (לִבְּכֶם lit., your heart) to its walls.”