Genesis 18-19: For the sake of ten

"Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?" Gen. 18:23

This is a question I think we all wonder sometimes. Why must good, righteous people be punished along with the wicked? How could God destroy an entire city full of people? That doesn't seem like the actions of a good God.

"For the sake of ten I will not destroy it."  Gen. 18:32

What we find in this interaction between God and Abraham is not a God who desires to destroy a city, but a God who is abundantly merciful. Abraham does not negotiate God down to this number. Abraham's curiosity reveals the truth of God's mercy. For the sake of ten righteous people in a wicked city, God would spare everyone. That is incredible. I am not so merciful.

When the men (both young and old) of Sodom and Gomorrah discover that Lot has visitors they surround his house and demand that they men be brought out so that they can rape them (yes, you read that correctly). Before the visitors (God's messengers) even had the chance to lay down and rest, all of the men in the city have surrounded the house and are pounding on the door.   This is not a city full of pretty okay people. This city is evil beyond what most of us can even imagine. Yet God is willing to be merciful, if only ten righteous people exist within its walls. This God is not roaming around the earth looking for the next person to punish. He comes to the city to search out if there are any righteous in it.

After God's messengers go through an enormous amount of trouble to get Lot and his family out of the city, Lot complaining and procrastinating the entire way, Lot hides himself with his two daughters in a cave. What follows is one of the strangest passages in the Bible.

"Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him" Gen. 19:32

I'm not really sure what to say about this, other than that I hope your daughters never make such a plan. However, this is an excellent opportunity to point out that not everything in the Bible is meant to emulated. The Old Testament is a recording of what happened throughout the history of the Israelite people. This history is full of a lot of strange things, the strangest of all being a God who loves His people and is merciful beyond imagining.