Abraham quit asking before God quit granting. What if Abraham had bargained even harder and asked that the cities be spared for the sake of one righteous person, his nephew Lot? Was God, so quick to concede each point, actually looking for an advocate, a human being bold enough to express God’s own deepest instinct of mercy?
not that God needed to be talked down, but that his intentions were the same from the beginning, and he knew that Abraham would join in the duel—and by this conversation with God, Abraham would become more like him (which may have always been the point).
