Does God Know How to Haggle?

“Can One Barter With God?”

Genesis 18:16-33

 

We are returning to chapter 18 of Genesis. We left off at the beginning of this chapter with God and two messengers visiting Abraham and Sarah at their tent. Their tent was on a hilltop, with sacred trees, and they were eating a meal. Each of these elements should bring the reader directly back to chapters 2 and 3 of Genesis. Which also brings us back to the beginning of our Literary Design for the book of Genesis. We have been through this design before. It begins with creation and blessing. The reader at this point should be ready for some sort of failure. Which begins with today’s scripture. 

 

God and His two messengers had finished their meal and got up to leave. They were on a hilltop so they were able to look down on the hill country, which will later be called the country of Judea. 

You may recall, Abraham and his nephew Lot had stood in this same spot at one point. That was when their families had grown so large they were no longer able to live close to each other because their herders were always arguing. Abraham offered Lot the first choice of land. Lot chose the lushish Jordan plain and Abraham stayed in Canaan. God and his messengers were looking down at the city of Sodom where Lot and his family now lived. 

 

It just so happened that Abraham was walking with them. Like any good host he was seeing his guests off on their journey. When Yahweh says to His messengers, loud enough for Abraham to hear, something like this:

 

“Hey friends, do you think I should hide what I am about to do from Abraham?  You know, he will become a great nation and powerful. In fact, all the nations of the land are going to be blessed through him. 

I have started this relationship with him for a bunch of reasons. For one thing he is supposed to command his sons and his house after him to follow the way of Yahweh. He is to teach them to do what is right and to choose justice so that Yahweh will bring upon him all that we have spoken about.”

 

What a very interesting speech.

 

God is talking Himself through the idea of including Abraham in His plans, since God expects Abraham to become a source of blessing to all of the nations. The very reason God chose Abraham in the first place was so he would raise a family that knows how to live in “the way of the LORD.” This is the first time this phrase is used in Scripture. 

 

What exactly is “the way of the LORD?”

 

It’s doing what is righteous, the same word we read back in chapter 15 where God made a covenant with Abram, verse 6, 

 

“Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.”

 

Abraham was to raise a family that would do right by people in the context of their relationships and they would do so by doing justice. This meant doing right by your neighbor and right by God by dealing with justice. 

 

Notice at the end of verse 19, God says, 

“...so that the Lord will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him.”

 

God isn’t going to do this alone. 

The only way this is going to work is if Abraham becomes a real partner in this relationship. Oh, and then Abraham’s children are supposed to follow suit. 

 

Do you recognize a conundrum? 

 

First, Abraham was to become a contributing partner so that the thing that God promised would come about. 

 

Do you notice a slight problem with this scenario? 

 

Abraham’s track record of doing what God wants him to do hasn’t been very good so far. We can all agree that God is capable of doing whatever is necessary. But if God is going to count on Abraham to do something, well, we have just thrown a wrench into the situation. 

 

Welcome to the plot tension that is in the Bible. 

 

God has decided He is not going to bless humans without humans being part of the solution. But humans are the very problem in having things happen the way God wants it. Over the centuries we have perpetually come up with the dissertation on divine sovereignty and human free will. Story after story in the Bible we are confronted with this conflict. Yet, our response must always be, 

 

“We just have to trust that this is the thing Yahweh can bring about. It won’t be without us, but oftentimes will be despite us.” 

 

Back to our story, God gives another little speech. “Oh, as we look down at Sodom and Gomorrah all I can hear is the outcry against them. Their sin is huge. So huge that I am going to have to go down there and check things out. I need to see for myself if what is being said against them is as grievous as it sounds or if it is out of proportion.” 

We aren’t told who is crying out against Sodom and Gomorrah, but the “crying out” should bring us back to the “blood of Abel.” It’s also the same violence and bloodshed on the land that rises up to God before the flood. In fact, this is the second time humans have done something that was so bad and intense that Yahweh said, “You know, I should go down there.” 

 

Do you remember the first time this occurred? 

 

It was in the building of the city of Babylon. Yahweh came down to check out the city and the tower. 

 

Notice we have a God who personally does His thorough investigation before coming to a conclusion. This describes God as a just and righteous judge. God doesn’t just hear accusations and respond. Before He delivers a sentence He goes, He sends emissaries to check it out. 

Let’s stop for just a minute and recognize just how Yahweh works. 

 

These two speeches of Yahweh demonstrate how He chooses to work with humans. He establishes them as covenant partners. With Abraham as His covenant partner, Yahweh self limits in order to work through and with His covenant partners. It’s not that God’s self limitation actually threatens God’s ultimate purposes. We can look ahead at the story of Joseph and his brothers when Joseph says, Genesis 50: 19-20, 

“Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.”

We can then jump to the New Testament, Romans 8:28, 

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

Something similar is happening with Abraham. Yahweh was having this little self-talk, out loud, stating that there was something terrible going on down in Sodom. Abraham was God’s partner and the one God had chosen to work with so Abraham might as well know what is going on. 

 

This is significant. God obviously has a crew that He processes His thoughts with and at this point Abraham has been standing there listening to the conversation. Before we figure out Abraham’s role, let’s do some ancient Hebrew configuration. By doing so we will begin to understand why Sodom and Gomorrah get brought up so much in the scriptures. 

 

Let’s go back to verses, 20 and 21, 

 

“Then the Lord said, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous that I will go down and see if what they have done..”

 

These are direct phrases that were written in the story of Cain and Abel. God comes up saying, “What is this that you have done? The blood is crying out from the ground.”

 

This is also taken from the introduction to the flood narrative, “The end of all flesh has come up before me.”

 

Then, in the story of Babylon we read, “Yahweh came down and said, ‘This is what they’ve begun to do. Come, let us go down and confuse their language.” 

 

These hyperlinks connect together to create Sodom and Gomorrah as the culmination of all the bad cities before them. 

From Cain, to Cain’s city that resulted in bloodshed that defiles the land, to the end of all flesh, up to Babylon, we have phrases that connect us to Sodom and Gomorrah. 

 

How many of you had transformers when you were kids? Or maybe you bought them for your children? You know what I’m talking about, the toys that started out as one thing, like a robot, or an action figure, that you could twist and turn until you transformed it into a rocket or a race car. There is one type of transformer called a “constructicon,” that starts out as one large action figure, that when you take apart its legs, arms and torso, etc. you end up with six little robots that can transform into different trucks, bulldozers and backhoes. It goes from 1 to 6. Just like Sodom and Gomorrah. It’s the megacity of human evil, combining Cain’s city, the generation of the flood, along with Babylon, all rolled up into one. 

Because of this, Sodom and Gomorrah become icons of divine judgment on human evil throughout the rest of the Bible. 

 

Back to our story. God and the men turned away towards Sodom. What role is Abraham going to play? Has Yahweh just set Abraham up for another test? To see if Abraham will do the way of the LORD? Will Abraham do what is righteous and just? 

 

We read that Abraham drew near to Yahweh and asked, verses 23 - 25 from “The Message,”

 

Are you serious? Are you planning on getting rid of the good people right along with the bad? What if there are fifty decent people left in the city; will you lump the good with the bad and get rid of the lot? Wouldn’t you spare the city for the sake of those fifty innocents? 

I can’t believe you’d do that, kill off the good and the bad alike as if there were no difference between them. Doesn’t the Judge of all the Earth judge with justice?” 

 

It almost sounds like Abraham was challenging God. He does manage to bring up a good point. Abraham was probably thinking, “You know, my nephew Lot is down there and although I haven’t seen him lately, I do know he has a large family and lots of servants and what not. There has to be around 50 of them that are doing the right thing, or at least I would hope so, I’ll start there.” 

 

Notice God’s response, verse 26,

“If I find fifty decent people in the city of Sodom, I’ll spare the place just for them.” It’s not like God felt Abraham was challenging Him, God just answers the question. 

 

From this point on, it seems like Abraham begins to haggle with God. 

At least that’s the way I have heard this story described. So is Abraham actually haggling with God? 

 

Look at what transpires. Abraham begins with 50 righteous people and gets God down to agreeing to finding only 10 righteous people. But does he actually haggle with God? 

 

Have you ever been in a situation where you needed to haggle for the price of something? I lived in Thailand for a year and one of the first things I learned in the language was prices, because as soon as a white person walked into the open market, all the prices went up. There weren’t any price tags set up along the side of the fruit or vegetables stating so much baht a kilo. The buyer was supposed to ask the seller, “tao rai.” The seller would then give their highest price, knowing that the buyer would immediately come back with a lower number. 

Eventually the seller would come down and the buyer would go up and they would meet somewhere in the middle. 

 

That is not what is going on here with Abraham and Yahweh. Abraham keeps going down, and instead of Yahweh starting at a lower number and coming up He simply agrees. Either God is a terrible haggler, or God is teaching Abraham a lesson about His mercy and grace. A lesson I’m not sure Abraham passes altogether. Think about it. Abraham stops at 10 people. Hadn’t God already exhibited His justice when He decided to flood the earth? God went to great lengths to spare just one righteous person, Noah. He even allowed Noah’s family to join him. I suspect had Abraham “haggled” down to one righteous person, God would have agreed. 

 

When Yahweh began His speech at the beginning of this section He emphasized that He wasn’t going to hide His intent about Sodom from Abraham. It almost sounds like Abraham is thinking Yahweh won’t perform a thorough investigation and do justice. Abraham certainly doesn’t comprehend how just of a judge Yahweh truly is, as Abraham stops at 10 people. Is this an instance where a human actually changes Yahweh’s mind? Does Abraham actually convince Yahweh to save the city beginning with 50 people down to 10 people? 

 

Personally, I don’t think God had made up His mind about what He was going to do with the people of Sodom. Didn’t He start out by saying He needed to go down to Sodom in order to make a just and righteous decision?



Although I may not think Abraham was in effect changing God’s mind, I do think it is possible that Abraham thought he was changing God’s mind. For all extensive purposes it looks like Abraham thinks he is saving Yahweh from doing something that would be compromising God’s integrity. 

 

What is really going on here is a creative twist to the intercessor motif the Bible has already created. The reader is being introduced again to a category where we can put the concept that when humans do their own thing on the land, the results are of violence and oppression. Yahweh is just to hand humans over to the consequences of their decisions. 

 

But, 



What if there were a righteous remnant that were to stand before Yahweh and appeal to Yahweh to forgive, but do it in such a way that Yahweh’s justice and mercy are both fulfilled, with integrity. It’s happened already in the story with Noah, and it will happen again with Moses. The motif of a righteous redeemer begins in Genesis and makes its way to the New Testament with our Savior, Jesus, the Son of Man. 

 

Check in time. 

 

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that even today we are living in a time when humans, left to their own devices, come up with violence and oppression. I spent five evenings eating dinner with my father this past week and he sits watching the evening news while doing so. As a side note, when I am at home, I never watch the evening news on television. I can’t tell you how many times Jeffery Epstein's name came up. Good grief! 

The majority of the stories on the news had to do with sexual assaults, mass killings, violence and oppression. Our world today sounds much like it did in Abraham’s day. Humans continue to be the very problem in having things happen the way God wants it. 

 

The difference for us today is, the war is already won. Jesus paid it all on the cross and proved His victory by rising from the dead. We are not without hope. We just have to trust that Yahweh can bring about His plan. It won’t be without us, but oftentimes will be despite us.

We can be the necessary remnant needed for others to hear the truth. God can do it, even if there is only one. 

 

Let’s pray. 

 

 

 

Sermon Details
Date: Jul 27, 2025
Speaker: Pastor Marilee Harris