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"I will go down now, and see if they have done entirely according to its outcry, which has come to Me; and if not, I will know."

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TGB on GENESIS 18:21

God and Abraham talk

In Gen. 18.17-33 Abraham carries on a most interesting conversation with his angelic visitors. I’m intrigued by Abraham’s entire line of questioning, for it presupposes the belief that God does not know entirely what the future holds for these cities. If Abraham believed God already knew exactly what would happen, then little sense can be made of his bargaining for the innocent. The same is true of God’s responses to Abraham throughout.

Everything about this conversation betokens belief that the future of Sodom and Gomorrah was not yet settled in God’s mind. On the other hand, the difficulty here is that the issue includes God’s knowledge of existing reality. Did God not know how evil the cities were? Did he not know how many righteous persons lived there? Can sense be made of this on the Open View? I think so.

I’d like to suggest that when God here speaks of "finding" righteous persons in Sodom, rather than attributing to God ignorance of an existing reality (i.e., the number of righteous persons in Sodom and Gomorrah at the time Abraham and God discuss the issue), we understand the existing reality to refer to the number of persons who might possibly respond in faith to the angelic visitation and whatever message they might have presented. In this case the number of righteous persons that God and Abraham are discussing is as yet undetermined. This is in fact the purpose of the visit, to engage Sodom’s citizens directly and in so doing determine the response of the citizens and so decide their future. Some may repent. How many? Time would tell. But what Abraham is able to do through interceding on behalf of the Sodom is secure God’s promise to spare the city if in response to their visit Abraham’s angelic visitors receive a faith-filled welcome by at least five persons.

Does God "check things out"?

Following our consideration of the discussion Abraham and God have regarding the future of Sodom, we have also the puzzling announcement by God in Gen. 18.21: "I will go down to see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry which has come to me; and if not, I will know." Doesn’t God possess exhaustive knowledge of all present realities? Why does God need to check things out?

What does God intend to communicate by telling Abraham he is going down the check things out to know whether or not the situation is as bad as the outcry which has reached him? Is this simply an anthropomorphism? If so, what’s the abiding reality behind the narrative? And what is the relationship of the "outcry" (which ostensibly forms the BASIS of God’s knowledge of what’s going on in Sodom and Gomorrah) to God’s omniscience?

I’d like to suggest a possible Open View take on this passage. It touches upon one’s understanding of hell and the eternal destiny of Satan and his cohorts. More specifically, it asks whether or not God will be present throughout eternity in hell. Or is hell at least partly defined by the withdrawal of God’s presence? If God’s presence will not extend to hell itself, then we have a possible explanation of Gen. 18.

* Hell is characterized by the eternal and irrevocable fixed sinfulness of the will.
* Hell is characterized by the total absence of God’s presence.
* There is a link (which I’m suggesting is the case) between the increased fixedness of the will in sin and God’s abiding presence, and hence his direct knowledge of things. Greater sinfulness means the steady decrease in God’s presence. This is realized absolutely in Hell.
* The residents of Sodom and Gomorrah "as a community" had become so steeped in sin that the exercise of their wills became (nearly) irrevocably fixed, a kind of "hell on earth." Whatever dynamics are at work between the increased sinful fixedness of the human will and God’s continued presence (and God’s abiding knowledge of the situation), Sodom and Gomorrah are examples of where this dynamic relationship peaked.
* At some point, in an important sense of the word and for reasons presently shrouded in the mystery of his creation, God chose not to be in Sodom and Gomorrah. Is this an example of God’s sovereign choice to involve angels somehow in administrating his creation? Chapters one and two of Job certainly suggest as much. This angelic "outcry" moved God to action. The rest is history.

Gen. 18.21: What’s the point?
Let me try to further qualify what it is I’m trying to assert with regard to Sodom and Gomorrah. First, my back is out and I’ve been down for a few days (and will be for another two or three), so I haven’t had a chance to refer to any authorities on what I share here. But after running a comparison of the Hebrew elsewhere in the OT it seems very workable.

Verse 21 is not the easiest of verses to translate, so this is tentative, but it seems to me that what English translations I have here all overlook something. You have the Hebrew kalah, an adverbial particle modifying the verb ’asu (the "they have done" of the RSV, NIV, NAS, and KJV). kalah means (check it for yourselves) something like "accomplished or completed end," "full end," or "finish." Here kalahdirectly follows the verb "they have done," which comes out in the RSV as "whether they have done altogether as the outcry" or, in the NAS as "whether they have done entirely according to its outcry."

However, it’s possible that these translations slightly miss the point. After checking on how kalah is used in the OT (e.g., 1Ki 6.38; Neh. 9.31; Isa. 10.23; 15.6; Jer. 5.18; 8.20; Dan. 11.36; Nah. 1.8f; 2.1 and others) it seems to me that v. 21 ought to be understood as saying something like, "I will go down to see whether or not their deeds have reached their fill as the outcry suggests."

You’re probably ahead of me. The point, given the discussion between Abraham and God that follows v. 21, is that just as the sin of the Amorites had "not yet reached its full measure" (Gen. 15.16), so we ought to view the divine visitation to Sodom as intended to confirm whether or not Sodom’s sin had reached its "fill," whether or not these cities had ’asu kalah, or "had done/acted fully" as in fact the outcry suggested.

That God both knows perfectly existing realities (i.e., the state of Sodom’s sinfulness) AND would desire to further know something about Sodom is not a contradiction of terms any more than that God perfectly knew Abraham but yet desired to resolve Abraham’s potential for better or worse on a particular point. Likewise, God goes down to Sodom not to know whether or not the information provided by the outcry was accurate or not (this WOULD involve God in ignorance of an existing reality), but rather to resolve the potential for better or worse with respect to the "will" of Sodom and Gomorrah’s citizens.

The facts/information contained in the outcry (if this is even a good way to describe it) provide God with all the information he needs to wipe them out. God expects to do this, but it is not yet certain. This shouldn’t both us either. In Jer. 3.7, 19 the facts (God’s patient endurance of Israel, God’s investment in them over time, etc.) led God to expect Israel to return to him and call him Father. But, free will being what it is, that didn’t happen. Here the facts (via the outcry) lead God to expect having to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, but two truths warrant a "test" to resolve the potential for blessing or judgment; 1) libertarian free will, and 2) God, as Jonah later learned (Jon. 4.2), "is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love…." God is justified in judging Sodom, but he desires something else. He wants to know if the situation is redeemable. To know THIS, God must "resolve the potential" via a "test." Thus, the angelic visit.

So, in my view Gen. 18 doesn’t present a challenge to the view that God is both omniscient and omnipresent. Neither does it require us to posit a partly ignorant theophany (not that I doubt such a thing would be possible for God; I just don’t think the passage needs it).

The LXX weighs in
On to some final thoughts about Gen. 18. I was poking around the LXX today and noticed two interesting things about v. 21, which stand out in bold in the transliterated Greek: ei kata tein krougein autwn tein erchomenein pros me suntelountai ei de mei hina gvw. A quick literal rendition: "Whether according to their cry reaching me they are making an end for themselves (or "are fully carrying out"), and if not so that I may know." Here’s Brenton's translation: "I will therefore go down and see, if they completely correspond with the cry which comes to me, and if not, that I may know."

First interesting thing—suntelountai.I’m not sure why Brenton translates "suntelountai" as "correspond." Too many late nights and caffeine perhaps. The verb is "sun" (together) + "telew" (telos = end, i.e, "to finish"), thus, something like "to bring a course of action to its end." The UBS dictionary briefly lists the meaning as "end, complete, finish; establish, make (a covenant); carry out, bring about."

The middle voice here may suggest that they are "carrying out" or "completing" the action with respect to themselves, i.e., "making an end for themselves." If I was translating this in common lingo, I’d say God wanted to see if in fact they had "closed the door on themselves." Interestingly, whereas the Hebrew has 'asu kalah (whether "they have done fully/completely"), that is, a verb followed by an adverbial particle, the LXX translators render both by a single Greek word that captures the verbal and adverbial ideas, suntelountai (something like "fully completed" or "make an end of committing" [that which they were committing, i.e., sin]), very much along the lines with what I've already said in the previous two posts.

What God wants "to see" (v. 21) is whether or not they have "sinned to the full," whether or not there’s any hope that the situation can be turned around. The facts as they stand (i.e., the "outcry") suggests they’ve crossed the line. But it’s not yet certain.

Other interesting points about suntelountai are a) it has no object! It’s as if God wants simply to see "if they’ve fully done…" or "made an end of committing.…" Committing what? The LXX doesn’t say. Understood within the context of the sins described, God’s interested in the nature of the verb (not necessarily its object) at this point. How have they acted? Have they crossed the line? The lack of an explicit object for suntelountai here confirms what I was thinking above about the middle voice; i.e., God wants to know if they’ve closed the door "for/on themselves."

And b) suntelountai is in the present tense, a strange fact in light of the Hebrew perfect (’asu, "they have done") that stands behind it.

Again, I’m wondering if this might suggest that it’s not simply established events of the PAST (i.e., what they DID) that God is interested in as much as what these people are becoming, what their sinning is DOING to them (or rather, given what they’ve done up to this point, to what end might their actions presently be leading them to?).

Further tid bits. I earlier argued that we ought to understand what was happening here in Gen 18 in the way we understand Gen. 15.16 where the iniquity of the Amorites is "not yet complete (mallei)." But I thought it might be a problem that mallei("to fill up") is used in 15.16, whereas in 18.21 kalah ("to finish or complete") is used. I wondered if there was any chance mallei and kalah might sometimes overlap each other a bit and allow the Amorites to function at least as an example (if not a direct parallel) to what happened in Sodom and Gomorrah.

Interestingly, the LXX provides a possible link. I’m still thinking on this, but here it is. There are several verses to choose from, but Gen. 29.27 will do. Here we have "Complete this bridal week and we will give you the other [wife] also..." (Those stinking Eastern, olive-complexioned males! ). The Hebrew for "complete" here is mallei ("fill up" or "bring to an end"), the same verb used to describe the sins of the Amorites as "not yet complete." The LXX translates the Hebrew "mallei" in 29.27 with suntelew ("to finish" or "to complete"), the same Greek verb used in Gen. 18.21 to describe the Sodom and Gomorrah as "having done kalah ("fully]" or "completely"). The point is, my hunch that the Hebrew adverb kalah in 18.21 ought to be understood in this case as describing the same sort of phenomenon as the Hebrew mallei in 15.16 describes is borne out in the LXX's rendering both Hebrew words by the Greek suntelew.

A possible problem is that the LXX in 15.16 uses pleirao (another verb for "to fill up") and not suntelew. So, though the Hebrew mallei and kalah do meet via the LXX in Gen. 18.21 and 29.27 (and other verses), they don’t meet where my argument would really like them to meet, i.e., in 18.21 and 15.16.

But for certain reasons (which would make this post too long) I think that’s OK. The LXX at least provides an avenue through which we see that the Hebrew mallei and kalah are in this context at least somewhat synonymous.

Worst case scenario? The Amorites of Gen. 15.16 provide only an "example" (as opposed to a direct "parallel") to the citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah. All else considered, that’s enough for me.

Second interesting thing—hina.

I'm further encouraged along these lines by the LXX's hina clause at the end of v. 21. Whereas the Hebrew ends v. 21 with "and if not I will know." The LXX gives us (very interestingly) "hina I will know" (i.e., "so that I will know") thus describing the purpose the divine visitation. It’s a kind of "test" designed to discover or to resolve what is as yet uncertain about how their wonton abandonment to sin (which abandonment God perfectly knows) might determine their future.

Perhaps God believes that if he waits any longer the sinful tendencies of the cities will indeed cement them in. Maybe there’s a merciful side to this visit after all. God knows enough about sin and sinfulness to know "it’s now or never" for Sodom and Gomorrah.

I realize the LXX is a translation and sometimes misunderstands the Hebrew (like many translations do). I don't want to argue that the LXX "proves" anything. I do think it "encourages" the view that what God is doing is Gen. 18.21 is going down to "resolve" the as yet "undecided" will of the people. And better than that, it proves that I’m not the first one to read 18.21 in this way! So hey, I’m NOT a world-class physicist. Give me break!

Summary of TGB’s position on Gen 18:21

* God is omnipresent in the cities.
* God has perfect knowledge of the facts.
* The facts figuratively cry out for action on God’s part. The cities are certainly deserving of judgment and so God intends (Gen. 19.13) to destroy them. The "certainties" which rise from the "outcry" (i.e., the facts perfectly known by God) motivate God to action and are what is responsible for his intention to destroy the cities.
* However…there are also "uncertainties" which arise out of these facts. Will they repent? Will they turn to God? All this means is that the future is not exhaustively determined by present realities! This certainly sounds familiar!
* It appears to be that aspect of the future not determined by present realities which makes God’s destroying the cities, as he intends to do, less than certain and THIS is what is behind a) v. 21’s "if not I will know" and b) God’s willingness to hear and respond to Abraham’s interceding (as opposed to God’s not being willing to hear Samuel’s pleading on Saul’s behalf).
* What God goes down to "see" (v. 21) is "whether or not they have made an end of sinning," which I take to refer NOT to God’s ignorance of an existing reality (i.e., the accuracy of the "outcry"), but to God’s desire to "confirm" what the facts indicate, that being "the cities are to be judged." The "if" of v. 21 is predicated not to an epistemological gap in God’s knowledge of PAST reality (me geneto!), but to an epistemological gap regarding the FUTURE, more precisely, HOW the past (and present, remember the LXX) will end up determining the future of Sodom and Gomorrah.

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Take care,

Payaso

"I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve." - Bilbo Baggins