Chapter 8: Mamre, Sodom, Lot’s House, and Gerar

Study notes

Yahweh asks Abraham why Sarah laughed about bearing a child when she is old, and Abraham asks whether the just will be swept away with the wicked. God remembers Abraham and sends Lot out as he overturns the cities on the plain, and later Abimelech king of Gerar takes Sarah after Abraham calls her his sister.

From Genesis 18:13 (KoS), Genesis 18:23 (KoS), Genesis 19:29 (KoS), Genesis 20:2 (KoS).

These notes and questions are original study helps written for this site, not scripture. The verses shown with each question are quoted from the Kingdoms of Scripture Bible.

Notice and discuss

Read each passage, then think about the question on your own or talk it over with others. No answers are collected.

1. What does Abraham ask about fifty just people in the city, and what does he say should not happen to the just?

   Suppose there are fifty just people inside the city. Will you really sweep it away and not spare the place for the fifty just people who are in it? Far be it from you to do a thing like this, to put the just to death with the wicked, so that the just and the wicked are treated alike. Far be it from you. Shall the judge of all the earth not do justice?”

   Genesis 18:24–25 (KoS)

2. What do the messengers urge Lot to do as dawn comes, and what do they do when he lingers?

   As dawn came up, the messengers pressed Lot, saying, “Get up, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away in the punishment of the city.” He lingered. The men seized his hand, and his wife’s hand, and the hands of his two daughters, in Yahweh’s pity on him, and they brought him out and set him outside the city.

   Genesis 19:15–16 (KoS)

3. What reasons does Abraham give Abimelech for having said that Sarah was his sister?

   Abraham said, “Because I said, ‘There is surely no fear of God in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife.’ And besides, she really is my sister, my father’s daughter, though not my mother’s daughter, and she became my wife. When God made me wander from my father’s house, I said to her, ‘This is the loyalty you shall do for me: in every place we come to, say of me, He is my brother.’”

   Genesis 20:11–13 (KoS)