Re-Envisioning the Theophany at Mamre (Genesis 18)

CHAPTER 2 “Before Abraham Was, I Am”: Re-Envisioning the Theophany at Mamre (Genesis 18)

1 Introduction

Biblical scholars note that the theophany at Mamre is not a composite text, but stems from a single source.1 All the more remarkable, therefore, is the alternation of singular and plural referents in the story: God appeared to Abraham (18:1); Abraham lifted up his eyes2 and saw three men (18:2); “Lord” (18:3);3 “wash yourselves and rest yourselves” “let them wash your (pl.) feet, and you (pl.) cool off under the tree” (18:4); “you (pl.) will eat … you (pl.) will pass by” (18:5); the men turned away (18:22); the Lord departed (Gen 18:33). From a narrative point of view, this alternation expresses a constant change of the viewpoint from which the story is recounted.4 Thus, from the “objective” perspective shared by the narrator and the reader, “the Lord appeared.” The text then switches to

1 Gerhard von Rad, Genesis: A Commentary (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster John Knox, 1973), 204; Gordon Wenham, Genesis 16–50 (Dallas: Word, 2002), 44: “according to traditional source analysis … chaps. 18–19 are almost pure J. More precisely, all of 18:1–19:38 except 19:29 (P) is conventionally ascribed to J.” See also John Skinner, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Genesis, 2d ed. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1930), 298–99; Benjamin D. Sommer, The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 199 n. 7; for an exceptionally thorough and insightful study of the religious context for the Mamre theophany, see Sommer, “The Fluidity Model in Ancient Israel,” in Bodies of God, 38–57, 198–213. 2 In the LXX, when the Lord “appears” (ὤϕϑη), Abraham sees three men hovering above him: usually translated “near ,עליו ἰδοὺ τρεῖς ἄνδρες εἱστήκεισαν ἐπάνω αὐτοῦ (Gen 18:2). The Hebrew him” (NRSV, JPS), could also be rendered “over him.” The same ambiguity occurs at Gen 28:13, could mean that the Lord stands beside him (Jacob), beside the ladder, or above עליו where the ladder; the LXX prefers the latter (ἐπʼ αὐτῆς). 3 Gen 18:3 (LXX): κύριε. Pointing the Hebrew of Gen 18:3 is itself an exegetical endeavor. If my lord”), the greeting conveys respect to the foreigner, and Abraham is most“) אֲ דֹ ִ נ י pointed Abraham’s , אֲ דֹ ָ נ י likely unaware of the angelic or divine identity of the visitors. If pointed interlocutor is God, the “Lord,” and the patriarch is implicitly recognizing the visitation as a -sirs”), Abraham is addressing all three visitors in the plu“) אֲ דֹ ַ נ י theophany. Finally, if pointed ral (just as Lot addresses the two angels in Gen 19:2). The latter is the option of the Samaritan Pentateuch. See Skinner, Genesis, 299; von Rad, Genesis, 206. 4 See Wenham, Genesis 16–50, 45: “The Lord appeared reflects the narrator’s standpoint: the identity of his visitors was not immediately apparent to Abraham. As v. 2 makes clear, he at first thought they were simply men…. What we know from the start about the identity of the visitors Abraham only gradually discovers in the course of conversation…. Noticed three men

Abraham’s perspective of the theophany, which is that of three travelers, to whom he rushes to offer his hospitality. The two perspectives establish, more generally, the terms of a process of convergence between divine revelation and human perception. Indeed, the Abraham of Genesis (unlike what later Jewish and Christian commentators make of him) comes only gradually to under- stand that he is being visited by God.5 By verse 13 it is clear that he is being visited and blessed by the Lord who knows everything and can do anything, and by verse 22, the patriarch is, together with the reader, “standing before the Lord” (18:22), to undergo a testing of his compassion for sinners.

the LORD”) appeared to him near the oak“ , יְ הוָ ה :Now God (ὁ Θεὸς; MT 1 of Mambre, while he was sitting at the door of his tent at midday. 2 And looking up with his eyes he saw, and see, three men stood over him. And when he saw them, he ran forward from his tent door to meet them and did obeisance upon the ground 3 and said, “Lord, if perchance I have found favor before you, do not pass by your servant. 4 Do let water be taken, and let them wash your feet, and you cool off under the tree. 5 And I shall take bread, and you will eat, and after that you will pass by on your way—inasmuch as you have turned aside to your servant.” And they said, “So do, as you have said.” 6 And Abraam hurried over to the tent to Sarra and said to her, “Hurry, and mix three measures of fine flour, and make loaves baked in ashes.” 7 And Abraam ran to the cows and took a little calf, tender and good, and gave it to the servant, and he hastened to pre- pare it. 8 Then he took butter and milk and the little calf that he had pre- pared and set it before them, and they ate, and he stood by them under the tree. 9 And he said to him, “Where is your wife Sarra?” And he said in reply, “There, in the tent.” 10 And he said, “I will come to you, when I re- turn, during this season next year, and Sarra your wife shall have a son.” … 20 Then the Lord said, “The outcry concerning Sodoma and Gomorra has been increased, and their sins are very great! 21 So when I go down I shall

standing by him: The storyline suddenly switches to describing events through Abraham’s eyes.” 5 George Savran, Encountering the Divine: Theophany in Biblical Narrative (T&T Clark, 2005), 47: “When Abraham runs towards them in 18.2b we have the momentary impression that he understands the nature of his visitors, and that we have entered a preparation scene of the ‘approach’ type … But Abraham remains unaware of the nature of his guests, certainly during the initial stages of their dialogue as well as through the entire scene of preparing food and feeding them. The beginnings of such an awareness are found in the question of 18:9, ‘Where is Sarah your wife?’; it becomes more pronounced with the annunciation in v. 10, and is un- equivocal with the narrator’s use of YHWH in v. 13.”