Genesis Vol 3.pdf - College Press

18:l-33 GENESIS - 1. 2
noon hour is the time of rest (
inner (Gen. 43 : 16, 2j). In this
Sol. 1:7) and of
ce Abraham had
probably dined and was resting aft dinner, as indicated
by the fact that when the visitors arrived special
preparations were begun for their, entertainment. Who
were these mysterious visitors? Whe st perceived by
the patriarch he took them to be but on closer
scrutiny (when he suw them, that is3 not with physical
with mental vision) he recognized them as divl’ne bei
as evidenced by the fact that he “bowed himself to the
earth, and said, my Lord,” etc. This ression. indicates
the complete prostration of the body first falling on
the knees and then inclining the head forward until it
touches the ground. This was a m e of salutation practised
by Orientals toward superiors erally. Certainly the
language in which Abraham immediately addressed one of
the three men leads to the conclusion that he had already
recognized one of them as Yahwe Himself or as the Angel
of Yahwe. Obviously the divine character of the three
was fully disclosed by the fact of their supernatural
knowledge of Sarah‘s thoughts (vv. 12-15). Lange
(CDHCG, 43 3) : “Abraham instantly recognizes among
the three the one whom he addresses as the Lord in a
religious sense, who afterward appears as Jehovah, and was
clearly distinguished from the accompanying angels, ch.
19: 1.” “In its definitive form this ‘Yahwistic’ narrative
recounts an apparition of Yahweh (vv. 1, 3, 13, 17-22)
accompanied by two ‘men’ who, according to 19:1, are
angels. . . . In these three, to whom Abraham addressed
a single act of homage, many of the Fathers saw a foreshadowing
of the doctrine of the Trinity, a doctrine that
was revealed only l’n the N.T.” (JB, 33). It is difficult,
language of the text here, to think of this as an
apparition: there were red persons, not just ghosts or
phantoms, We believe Skinner is correct in describing
the incident as a theophuny. Speiser (ABG, 129): “At
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