The people of Sodom, although they are Abraham’s allies, not his enemies, are said to be criminally depraved, “young and old, down to the last man,” collectively guilty of attempting to commit homosexual rape against a party of angels, seen by the townspeople as defenseless Hebrew travelers (Gen. 19:4). These accounts do not idealize Abraham or his progeny—in fact, the biblical narrator twice tells how the self-serving lies of Abraham and Isaac endangered their allies (Gen. 20:1–18; 26:6–10). Nevertheless, God ensures that everything turns out well for the Israelites and badly for their
...more
