I Will Lift My Eyes Unto the Hills

Learning from the Great Prayers of the Old Testament

Walter C. Kaiser

• Publisher: Lexham Press
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9781683591832
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

1

THE PRAYER OF ABRAHAM

for a Wicked City

Genesis 18:22–33

The men turned away and went toward Sodom, but Abraham remained standing before the LORD. Then Abraham approached him and said: “Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing—to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?”

The LORD said, “If I find fifty righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake.”

Then Abraham spoke up again: “Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the LORD, though I am nothing but dust and ashes, what if the number of the righteous is five less than fifty? Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five people?”

“If I find forty-five there,” he said, “I will not destroy it.”

Once again he spoke to him, “What if only forty are found there?”

He said, “For the sake of forty, I will not do it.”

Then he said, “May the LORD not be angry, but let me speak. What if only thirty can be found there?”

He answered, “I will not do it if I find thirty there.”

Abraham said, “Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the LORD, what if only twenty can be found there?”

He said, “For the sake of twenty, I will not destroy it.”

Then he said, “May the LORD not be angry, but let me speak just once more. What if only ten can be found there?”

He answered, “For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it.”

When the LORD had finished speaking with Abraham, he left, and Abraham returned home.

THE PROPHET ISAIAH AND JESUS’ half-brother James gave Abraham the unique title “friend of God” in their later writings. But even if they hadn’t, there would be a host of reasons why Abraham should be viewed as a man who walked with God and sought the Lord’s face and favor in all areas of his life, especially via the avenue of prayer. In fact, the depth of Abraham’s spiritual life can be seen in the series of altars he set up for worship and prayer to the living God at each place to which he journeyed throughout his life. He was a man of prayer!

FOLLOWING THE PATH OF PRAYER

In many contemporary mystery stories, when someone wishes to solve a crime, they must “follow the money” to see who would have benefited most from whatever crime was committed. In the case of Abraham, if we want to understand his life of prayer, we must follow the trail of altars he left behind in Canaan. The lives of some men and women can be traced by the paths of sin and wickedness they leave behind them; those of others can be traced by the trails of their enemies, or the cruelties they have also left littered on the landscape. But Abraham’s life can be traced by the places of worship and prayer he set up in one location after another as he journeyed throughout the land of Canaan. For example, in Genesis 12:6–7, Abraham went to Shechem and there “he built an altar.” From that place he went to Bethel (Gen. 12:8), and there he also “built an altar.” Later we find him at Hebron (Gen. 13:18), where once again he “built an altar.” In Genesis 22:9, in the region of Mount Moriah, the future site of the Temple, he also “built an altar” in connection with the near-sacrifice of his son, Isaac. Each of these sites was a distinct marker of another place where Abraham worshiped and prayed to the Lord God.

Such personal conversation and worship of our Lord can be seen right from the start of the narrative in the Bible, for God walked and talked with Adam in the Garden of Eden, and then later he talked with both Adam and his wife, Eve. This was what a real life of prayer was all about: daily walking and talking with God (Gen. 2:16–18; 3:8–19). But what was exemplary in Eden, which began with such a beautiful partnership, would later become tarnished by sin.

As a result of the fall, the ongoing conversation between God and man soon devolved into a different sort of relationship, one in which men often tried to avoid direct and honest interaction with the Lord. For instance, when God asked Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” (Gen. 4:9a), Cain’s answer attempted to dodge God’s inquiry, as he smartly replied, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” (4:9b). Cain’s conversation with God, and the resulting curse upon Cain—even if it was later accompanied by God’s gracious promise of protection—does not serve us well as a model for our prayers. Cain took an evasive turn rather than showing joy in the Lord and openness of communication with him.

The better model for our prayer life comes from Abraham, who best exemplifies what it is to be a “friend of God,” and who can teach us how to pray by showing us what a continual conversation with God looks like. He shows us too how we should avail ourselves of the same privilege.

True, as we saw in the Introduction, some of God’s bitterest enemies may also occasionally call upon God’s name, even those who have lived a whole lifetime without one thought of delight in God or his law. But such a call from strangers to God is of a different sort than the conversation that comes from those who, like Abraham, would aspire to be “friends of God.” Did not Jesus teach in John 15:14, “You are my friends, if you do what I command you”? Despite his faults—for he certainly had them—Abraham was indeed one of those who desired to do the will of God, seeking to obey whatever God commanded him. This spiritual line of the “friends of God” is not yet extinct, for even up to the present time, such individuals are the very backbone of our Christian families, churches, and of any nation that hopes to enjoy any amount of blessing from our Lord. Our communication with God must remain open; it is the best of all joys to walk and talk with him constantly along life’s journey. He must remain the passion of our being.

A BOLD PRAYER OF INTERCESSION

Prelude to a Prayer (Gen. 18:1–22c)

In many ways, then, Abraham’s prayer for his nephew Lot and the cities of the plain in Genesis 18:22–33 is one of the first formal prayers of intercession for others and as such serves as a model for how we too ought to pray. For Abraham, it all began one day as the Lord appeared to him as he was sitting in the entrance to his tent near Hebron, where the famous great trees of Mamre were also located (Gen. 18:1). Abraham caught sight of some persons who were approaching his tent, right at the hottest time of the day. It turned out to be three male visitors who had come to see Abraham. Abraham graciously entreated them to stay as he prepared a hasty meal for them consisting of a calf from his herd, served with curds and milk. He was not one who would forget to be hospitable to strangers; as a matter of fact, it seemed to come as second nature to him.

After the men had eaten, Abraham walked on down the road with them to see them on their way (Gen. 18:16). Then it was that the Lord, one of the three visitors, disclosed himself to Abraham. We are surprised to learn that the Lord himself decided to reveal to Abraham what he was about to do to the cities of the plain, where Lot had gone to live. The reason God would bring such a serious action against these cities was because such a serious “outcry” of evil had come up to God against Sodom and Gomorrah (v. 20). Two of the three visitors, now taking on the persona of angels, left to go down to Sodom, where Lot and his family had chosen to reside (v. 22), but Abraham was left standing there on the path before the Lord (v. 22b). A more accurate ancient Hebrew text rendering of this same verse would be “but the LORD remained standing before Abraham.” This is the opposite of the way most of our translations render it: “Abraham was left standing before the Lord.”

There is, however, an old scribal correction found in the margins of many of our English texts. This correction does not involve a possible copying error in the text of Scripture, for it is one of eighteen known places in the Old Testament where the ancient Hebrew scribes, who copied the text of the Bible, deliberately and knowingly altered the text. They acknowledged that it did not originally read the way they changed it to read, but, as they argued in these exceptional eighteen cases, the deliberate change was made for theological reasons. In this particular case, they judged that it was unacceptable to have God “stand before” Abraham, as if he were the lesser party in this whole discussion and was waiting on the mortal Abraham. So they changed it to have Abraham, instead, standing before Yahweh, as it is now rendered in most of our English translations. The scribes noted carefully that they had dared to change this text in spite of their high respect for the original Hebrew because they sought to bring it into conformity with what they considered a more acceptable theological opinion: Abraham must wait on God and not the other way around!

Given the fact that the text as these scribes found it apparently represents one of the earliest and best readings of the biblical text, it is best for us to revert to that ancient reading of the “LORD remained standing before Abraham” and to note how exceptional this encounter between Yahweh and Abraham really was. Surely, as Yahweh’s best friend, Abraham is depicted, in this new (to us) yet original understanding of the text as presenting a bold posture toward Yahweh, who stood right in front of him. Abraham then dares to ask such up-front questions of the Lord that we are at first startled. One may even wonder if he was not being excessively bold in addressing Yahweh in such a fashion. In fact, Abraham’s questions may even strike the reader as being somewhat confrontational toward the Lord—his best friend, no less! Had Abraham indeed transgressed the proper boundaries of good taste, reverence, deference, and respect for God, and for his high and holy person? It may at first seem so. But then, we recall that this same Lord had made and called Abraham for just such a time and situation as this.

Abraham Dares to Ask Hard Questions of God (Gen. 18:22d–24)

It is clear that Abraham never doubted the justice and rightness of the actions and person of God. He certainly seems to indicate that this is the case when he states rhetorically, “Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?” (Gen. 18:25d). Of course, Abraham never doubted that the wickedness of the people in the cities of the plain was deserving of the judgment of God. But, he argued, what if there were some righteous persons in those cities?

In light of such an understanding of who God is and what authority he has, Abraham nevertheless dares to ask a few more questions. First, he asks, as we would also ask in prayer, “Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked?” (Gen. 18:23b). Surely, Abraham contended, Yahweh would differentiate between the guilty wicked and the innocent righteous persons in those cities. Second, Abraham asks the Lord whether the presence of even fifty righteous persons (which in the course of the conversation he eventually reduced all the way down to ten), would be enough for God’s to forgive and rescue the entire city of Sodom (v. 24). Walter Brueggemann was so startled by this prayer request that he commented:

This remarkable assertion shows biblical faith and biblical prayer on their way to the conviction that a life well lived may be a mode of rescue of others, an insight that in Christian tradition will eventuate in an affirmation about the saving significance of the life of Jesus, the singularly righteous man. That is, the innocent may outweigh the earned punishment of the guilty. In his prayer Abraham urges YHWH [=Yahweh] to take a leap of generosity toward the wicked city.¹

Though not all that Brueggemann says is fully on the mark, it seems fair to surmise that Abraham was shocked when he heard the news that Yahweh would destroy the cities of the plain. In that time and place, God was not seen as the Lord of blessing and promises alone, but also as the God who was the Judge and Avenger of prolonged wickedness and injustices perpetrated by the ungodly. It was in this context, then, that the “friend of God” raised one of the most difficult questions of life: “Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?” Here, is a standard laid out not only for Abraham, but also for us and for all time to come: the Judge of the earth will do only and all that is right! Moreover, the things that are done are right because he is God, who alone is just and “in the right.” He will conform to the perfection of his being. He cannot do or be other than true to his nature as the just and righteous God. Regardless of what irreligious men and women may think, God’s fundamental attribute is such that all that he is results in his also doing what is just, right, and correct. Therefore, hear the question once again: “Will not the Judge of all the earth do what is right?”

Abraham Appeals to the Righteousness of God (Gen. 18:25–33)

Abraham’s two questions are now followed by two assertions, the first of which begins in Genesis 18:25: “Far be it from you to do such a[n unjust] thing.” Some render this in a far more serious and literal way: “It would be [a] defiling of you,” or even “It would make you polluted,” instead of the words in the NIV text, which say: “Far be it from you.” Could Abraham still be operating on the wrong assumption that the Lord, despite the magnificent principle just reiterated, would turn loose a wholesale judgment on Sodom that would have disregarded the presence of any righteous persons who may have been in that city? It hardly seems possible to believe that Abraham would be thinking this way, for he, as God’s best friend, knows that for God to bring such unjust judgment would violate God’s own holiness and justice. Surely, God would discriminate between the guilty and the innocent!

Abraham’s “question” thus is not a question in the usual sense, but is meant as a strong positive affirmation of the principle that is characteristic for Yahweh: he is the Judge of the whole earth and will only work justice (the words Judge and justice both come from the same Hebrew root) for those deserving of it. There must be, and would be, Abraham affirms, discriminating distinctions in the coming judgment against the cities of the plain, even to the point of granting forgiveness to all five cities, if the Lord could find a sufficient number of righteous persons in their midst. These cities were not just wide spots in the road, for if biblical archaeologists have correctly identified where they were originally located, we may be talking about tens of thousands of people for whom the Lord would provide forgiveness should even a very smal...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Halftitle Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• 1. The Prayer of Abraham: for a Wicked City
• 2. The Prayer of Moses: for Pardon for Israel
• 3. The Prayer of Hannah: in Thanksgiving for Her Son
• 4. The Prayer of David: in Thanks to God for His Dynasty
• 5. The Prayer of Solomon: for a Listening Heart
• 6. The Prayer of Solomon: at the Dedication of the Temple
• 7. The Prayer of Jonah: in Thanksgiving for His Rescue from Drowning
• 8. The Prayer of Hezekiah: for Dealing with an Arrogant Enemy
• 9. The Prayer of Nehemiah: in a Time of Distress
• 10. The Prayer of Ezra: for Confession of Corporate Sin
• 11. The Prayer of Daniel: in Confession of National Sin
• Bibliography
• Name Index
• Subject Index
• Scripture Index