YHWH Visits Abraham and Sarah at Home: A Theophany Left Unspoken

The narrative of the apparition of YHWH to Abraham at Mamre (Gen 18:1-16) looks simple at first sight. Abraham receives three visitors in the middle of the day, he offers them hospitality, and during a copious meal, one of the guests announces to the patriarch that his wife, Sarah, will bear a son. Sarah, who is eavesdropping on the conversation, laughs to herself because she believes that she and her husband are too old to have children. The visitor, however, guesses what Sarah’s reaction was and, despite her apparent incredulity, repeats the promise. The scene ends abruptly: the visitors take their leave and head down to Sodom.

The identity of the anonymous visitors is only one of the questions that we may ask when reading this terse narrative. Some of them are more significant than others, since how we answer them impacts how we understand the story and its theological significance.

YHWH Appears by the Oak(s?) of Mamre

The story opens with what seems to be a theophany:

^{בראשית יח:א} וַיֵּרָא אֵלָיו יְ־הֹוָה בְּאֵלֹנֵי מַמְרֵא וְהוּא יֹשֵׁב פֶּתַח הָאֹהֶל כְּחֹם הַיּוֹם.‏

^{Gen 18:1} YHWH appeared to him (Abraham) at the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day.^[1]

The Masoretic Text (MT) and the Samaritan Pentateuch read the “oaks of Mamre” in the plural (אֵלֹנֵי מַמְרֵא, elone mamre). The Septuagint (LXX) and Peshitta (Syriac Bible) speak of only one oak at Mamre. Indeed, later in the story only one tree is mentioned (v. 4, 8).^[2]

The “oaks of Mamre” appear three times in the Bible (Gen 13:18; 14:13; 18:1), and in all three cases the LXX uses the singular.^[3] How might we explain this difference? The fact that only one tree is mentioned in the LXX and Syriac versions of the narrative suggests that the singular is more original.^[4] But why a plural in the MT? It is most probably a theological correction, to avoid a close connection between the apparition and one tree that could have been worshipped as a sacred tree.^[5] The polemic against sacred or green trees is frequent in historical and prophetic books.^[6]

This idea is buttressed by the reluctance of several ancient translations to mention the “oaks” of Mamre. Targum Onkelos, for instance, identifies the location as במשרי ממרא, bmshry mmr’, at the “plain” or “valley” of Mamre. The Vulgate speaks, in the same way, of a convallis Mambre, a “valley of Mamre.”

In fact, the theophany in Mamre could have originally justified a cultic tradition that was later felt to be illegitimate.^[7] In other words, this correction prevents the reader from looking for a hieros logos, a cultic legend legitimizing a shrine or cultic practices.^[8] The purpose of the narrative in its current form is different.

Abraham Receives Some Mysterious Guests

Having revealed the divinity’s identity (v. 1), the narrator changes to the perspective of a character in the story, Abraham.

^{בראשית יח:ב} וַיִּשָּׂא עֵינָיו וַיַּרְא וְהִנֵּה שְׁלֹשָׁה אֲנָשִׁים נִצָּבִים עָלָיו וַיַּרְא וַיָּרׇץ לִקְרָאתָם מִפֶּתַח הָאֹהֶל וַיִּשְׁתַּחוּ אָרְצָה.‏ ^יח:ג וַיֹּאמַר אֲדֹנָי אִם נָא מָצָאתִי חֵן בְּעֵינֶיךָ אַל נָא תַעֲבֹר מֵעַל עַבְדֶּךָ.‏

^{Gen 8:2} He (Abraham) lifted up his eyes and looked, and, lo, three men (anashim) were standing in front of him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent entrance to meet them and bowed himself to the earth.

We see what Abraham sees, and with Abraham’s eyes.^[9] The contrast is obvious. For the narrator – and for the readers – YHWH appears, which means the narrative is about a theophany.^[10] Abraham, however, sees “only” three men. To build on the insights of the literary scholar of the Bible, Meir Sternberg, the reader’s position is a reader-elevated position because he/she knows more than the characters in the story.[11]

One of the main questions, at this point, is whether Abraham will recognize that YHWH is appearing to him, and, related to this, how will he recognize YHWH? We will see that the story does not give any clear answer to this question, and this ambiguity is one of its main features.

Who Are the Three Visitors?

The story provides little information about the visitors. An early Christian interpretation of the text, the so-called Letter to the Hebrews (1^st century C.E.),^[12] identifies the visitors as angels:

^{Heb 13:2} Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels unawares.^[13]

The author of Hebrews was probably influenced by the continuation of the story (Gen 19), which explicitly identifies two of the visitors as angels.^[14] The identification of all three visitors as angels is also found in several Targums^[15] and midrashim.^[16]

Does Abraham Recognize God?

There are three visitors, but in the MT, Abraham speaks in the second person singular when addressing his guests for the first time:

^{בראשית יח:ג} וַיֹּאמַר אֲדֹנָי אִם נָא מָצָאתִי חֵן בְּעֵינֶיךָ אַל נָא תַעֲבֹר מֵעַל עַבְדֶּךָ.‏

^{Gen 18:3} He said, “O Lord (adonay), if I have found favor in your (singular) sight, do not pass (singular) by your (singular) servant.”^[17]

Moreover, the first word, אֲדֹנָי, adonay, with its special vocalization, is usually a divine appellative. This means that Abraham knowingly addresses the divinity and has, therefore, acknowledged that YHWH is one of the guests. There are no gestures of worship and no words of recognition—just a designation.

The word adonay, translated as “O Lord,” is vocalized as a divine name, but we know that vowels were added to the consonantal text only after the 7^th century.^[18] This means that אדני could be understood in three different ways: “my Lord,” of course, with an uppercase initial letter; “my lord,” “sir,” in the singular and with a lowercase initial letter; or “my lords,” “sirs,” in the plural with a lowercase initial letter as well (cf. Gen 19:2).

In the MT, the rest of the sentence is obviously in the singular since Abraham is speaking to only one guest. The Samaritan Pentateuch, however, has the whole sentence in the plural:

אדני אם־נא מצאתי חן בעיניכם אל־נא תעברו מעל עבדכם

^{SP 18:3} Sirs, if I have found grace in your (plural) eyes, do not pass (plural) by your (plural) servant.

Abraham addresses the travelers in the plural, and the whole discourse (v. 3-4) is homogeneous. Most commentators see in the Samaritan version a case of harmonization, a secondary, later attempt to make the text read more consistently.^[19]

This is perhaps not the only explanation, however. It seems to me that it is easier to explain that a scribe, reading the plural, theologically chose to change the text from plural (with אֲדֹנַי) to singular (with אֲדֹנָי) so that Abraham, the father of Israel, recognized God immediately, especially because God already appeared to him (Gen 17:1).

According to Emanuel Tov, we often attribute too quickly (and wrongly) a literary sensitivity to scribes and copyists, who generally paid greater attention to content and theology.^[20] For all these reasons, it is likely that the Samaritan Pentateuch preserves, in this case, a more original text,^[21] and the Masoretes changed it (further evidence that Abraham may not have recognized YHWH can be seen later on in the story; see below).

What Kind of Flour Did Sarah Use?

After greeting his guests and offering them hospitality, Abraham hastens to the tent and asks his wife, Sarah, to prepare cakes with קמח סלת, two different kinds of flour:

^{בראשית יח:ו} וַיְמַהֵר אַבְרָהָם הָאֹהֱלָה אֶל שָׂרָה וַיֹּאמֶר מַהֲרִי שְׁלֹשׁ סְאִים קֶמַח סֹלֶת לוּשִׁי וַעֲשִׂי עֻגוֹת.‏

^{Gen 18:6} And Abraham went quickly into the tent to Sarah and said, “Quick! Three seahs of flour (qemach), fine flour (solet)! Knead it and make cakes.”

The first word, קמח, qemach, refers to ordinary flour,^[22] while the second, סלת, solet, refers to a special type of flour, most often reserved for religious use (see, e.g., Lev 2:4).^[23]

The difference between the two types of flour, or meal, clearly appears in an account of king Solomon’s daily provisions:

^{מלכים א ה:ב} וַיְהִי לֶחֶם שְׁלֹמֹה לְיוֹם אֶחָד שְׁלֹשִׁים כֹּר סֹלֶת וְשִׁשִּׁים כֹּר קָמַח.‏ ‏

^{1 Kgs 5:2} Solomon’s provision for one day was thirty cors of fine flour (סלת) and sixty cors of meal (קמח).”

The quantity of fine flour, סלת, is just half of the quantity of meal (ordinary flour), קמח, and this means that סלת is more expensive than קמח, most probably because it is of higher quality, and ground in a different, finer way.

The Samaritan Pentateuch has the same text as the MT for this verse. The Septuagint, however, has only one word, σεμιδάλις, semidalis, which corresponds to the Hebrew סלת, “fine flour,” not ordinary flour (קמח – in Greek, ἀλεύρον, aleuron).^[24]

How might we explain LXX’s choice? I would suggest that the translator preferred not to translate both words, which would have been awkward in Greek, and chose the most appropriate type of flour for the divine guests.

What about the MT? From a grammatical point of view, the use of two juxtaposed words is not impossible, especially in appositions, where the second word is a more specific category of the first, as in אִשָּׁה אַלְמָנָה, ishah almanah—“a woman, a widow,” namely, a widow.^[25] One possible understanding is thus to read, “flour, namely fine flour.”^[26]

However, it seems more reasonable to see in the second term a correction by a pious scribe who was convinced that Abraham asked his wife, Sarah, to use special cultic flour for the preparation of the cakes that were to be presented to YHWH. This is one of the subtle interventions by the scribes^[27] to assure the reader that Abraham, our father in the faith, behaved in an exemplary manner in this episode.^[28]

Why Don’t Abraham and Sarah Explicitly Acknowledge Seeing YHWH?

After the guests have eaten the meal that Abraham and Sarah prepared for them (v. 8), they ask where Sarah is (v. 9). This is followed by an exchange between one of the visitors and Abraham and Sarah (v. 10-15).^[29] This visitor’s identity is revealed, but only to the reader:

^{בראשית יח:יג} וַיֹּאמֶר יְ־הֹוָה אֶל אַבְרָהָם לָמָּה זֶּה צָחֲקָה שָׂרָה לֵאמֹר הַאַף אֻמְנָם אֵלֵד וַאֲנִי זָקַנְתִּי.‏‏

^{Gen 18:13} YHWH said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?’

The readers are told that it is YHWH, but Abraham and Sarah are not privy to this information. Moreover, YHWH, in response to Sarah’s laughter, refers to himself in the third person, rather than in the first person, “for me”:

^{בראשית יח:יד} הֲיִפָּלֵא מֵיְ־הֹוָה דָּבָר...‏

^{Gen 18:14} “Is there anything too hard for YHWH?”^[30]

The conclusion of the scene is a typical conclusion of a meeting or of a visit:

^{בראשית יח:טז} וַיָּקֻמוּ מִשָּׁם הָאֲנָשִׁים וַיַּשְׁקִפוּ עַל פְּנֵי סְדֹם וְאַבְרָהָם הֹלֵךְ עִמָּם לְשַׁלְּחָם. ‏

^{Gen 18:16} Then the men (anashim) set out from there, and they looked down toward Sodom. And Abraham went with them to set them on their way.

The visitors are referred to as “the men,” as they were at the beginning of the story (v. 2), and Abraham behaves exactly as if he were dealing with ordinary human beings.

What surprises the reader is the fact that, despite all the narrator’s indications, neither Abraham nor Sarah explicitly acknowledge having seen YHWH. There is no sign of this, no confession, and no prostration.

This contrasts sharply with other similar biblical scenes that end with a moment of recognition, an “aha” moment.^[31] This is the case with Hagar (Gen 16:13); Jacob (Gen 28:16-17); Moses (Exod 3:6); Joshua (Josh 5:14); Gideon (Judg 6:22); Manoah and his wife (Judg 13:22); and Elijah (1 Kgs 19:13).

Why, then, do Abraham and Sarah, our forefathers, not set an example by acting like all of these later figures? The answer to this question is not simple. It is possible, however, that the writer was constrained by the conventions of the type of narrative they were conveying.

This is a scene of hospitality toward unknown guests. If the guests are recognized too quickly, the scene loses all its interest. It is the outcome that matters: if the guests are well received, there is a reward. If they are poorly received, there is punishment. This will be the case in the story that follows (Gen 19), which ends with the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.^[32]

But then, where is the recognition?

A Theophany, Not in a Temple, but in a Home

Two observations are worth noting. First, Genesis 18:1–16 is an “open narrative” or, to use a more technical term, “an open parable.” The narrator provides all the necessary elements, but it is up to the reader to piece them together and form a coherent whole.^[33] There is Abraham’s greeting (v. 3), the special ritual flour (סלת, v. 6), and the speaker’s identity revealed (v. 13). Any text or narrative requires the reader’s active engagement, and this is particularly true of Genesis 18:1–16.^[34]

Second, and just as important, it should be noted that this “theophany”—the appearance of the God of Israel—takes place in a completely ordinary setting. We are not in a sanctuary; there is no priest; there is no liturgical ritual. It is a scene of hospitality, the preparation of a meal, and a conversation during that meal.

Later, in the books of Exodus and Leviticus, we will find numerous instructions regarding worship. But we are in the Book of Genesis, and God’s revelation and God’s experience takes place within an ordinary, everyday, family setting. This is how it all begins, with our ancestors in faith, and we would do well not to forget that. Temple worship may prove fragile, but the experience of Abraham and Sarah is far less so.