Before the wastes of Sodom

"Early the next morning Abraham got up and returned to the place where he had stood before the LORD. He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, toward all the land of the plain, and he saw dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace."

"So when God destroyed the cities of the plain, he remembered Abraham, and he brought Lot out of the catastrophe that overthrew the cities where Lot had lived." Genesis 19:27-29, NIV

The morning after Abraham had pleaded with Yahweh for the righteous of Sodom and Gomorrah, he stands from a high vantage point to learn what has come of his intercession. The dense smoke says it all. "Not even ten," he murmurs to himself in resignation. Soberly, he wonders if his nephew and his family made it safely out of the valley before the fire fell for what is left is desolation.

The land has been wiped clean of all living things. All that can be heard is the wind blowing over the empty plain that at one time had been as well waterd as mythic Eden and thriving with people and commerce. It is now a dead land, a vast tundra of slag that will bear witness in perpetuity of the totality of Yahweh's judgment against wickedness and sin.

He thinks of the day years before when he and Lot had chose to separate their growing herds. Abraham had given his nephew first choice of grazing grounds. Lot, spying the lush, green fields near the Jordan, had chose them. Something in that choice had given Abraham a presentiment of trouble, a deep foreboding that lingered as he watched his nephew and his herds move toward the eastern horizon. He had stood near this very place and feared that his kinsmen would live to regret the day he had moved toward Sodom. Now that day had come.

Later word reaches him that Lot arrived in Zoar, a small village near the southern end of the great plain wherein the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah had once stood, just before destruction had rained down from heaven. He breathes a sigh of relief even though the message also indicates that his nephew's wife has also perished in the cataclsym. She and Sarah had always enjoyed each other's company. Even though they have not seen Lot in years, the news will be hard for Sarah to bear.

As he leans on his staff and mulls on the demise of the residents of the plain, he is suddenly struck by a thought: Lot was saved. Though he had been a resident of that wicked city so rife with sin, though there had not been even ten innocents among them, Lot and his daughters were safe. He had pleaded for restraint, for mercy before the One who had dined in their tent the night before. Even though he was but a man, who maybe was wise in matters concerning the nurturing and caring of herds, how did that knowledge compare to the knowledge of the One who is just in all his dealings with men? Compared to Him, what did he know of such things as who was deserving of God's mercy and who was not? And yet last night as He got up from Abraham's tent and made ready to leave there had been something in His demeanor that had provoked him to explore just what it meant to be in convenantal relationship with Him. When He had informed His host that He was going down to see if things were as bad in Sodom and Gomorrah as He had heard, Abraham finds he cannot keep mum and risks offending His guest. Besides, he thinks he knows already what they will find anyway and what's more, he has family there. And so a strange dickering begins but in this case he is not bartering for goods on market day but for the lives of those who may yet be untainted by the sin that plagues these two cities.

"What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it?"

"What if only forty are found there...?"

"What if only twenty...?"

"What if only ten...?"

The agreed upon amount for His restraint had been ten righteous, a ridiculously small number considering how many thousands lived in the region. But He had concurred with the amount. In the end, even that number was high. The citizens of Sodom and Gemorrah had been found wanting and the Judge of all the earth had justice meted out swiftly. But Lot...was safe which means that though He was El Shaddai, all knowing and all powerful, He had been mindful and respectful of His relationship with Abraham and had rescued his family there.

The revelation struck a chord of awe within him. Yahweh had listened to a man's argument and had concurred. What could this possibly mean? Who was this One who though He was God Almighty did not rebuff Abraham's posture of intercession for the inhabitants of the plain on the eve of their demise?