What Does Genesis 18:32 Mean?
And he said, Please, let not the Lord burn, and I will speak only this once. Perhaps ten will be found there. And he said, I will not ruin it for the sake of the ten.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And he said, Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak yet but this once: Peradventure ten shall be found there. And he said, I will not destroy it for ten’s sake.THE KEY
At ten, the city’s ruin is still held back: a few lives can turn the fate of the whole.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks now of a community whose fate is not sealed while ten may still be found within it. Abraham reaches his final appeal, and the answer remains direct: the whole place is spared for their sake. A small number stands at the hinge between ruin and restraint.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A city’s destruction is inevitable once it is judged, regardless of who remains within it.
THE ROOT
אַשְׁחִית
ʾašḥît
GROWS FROM
שחת
to ruin, corrupt, or destroy
The Hebrew word for “destroy” belongs to the same root family as the word for “corrupt.” The root holds the ruined condition and the act of bringing ruin together, so the promise not to destroy halts that movement for the sake of ten.
ALSO GROWS
shachat: to ruin, spoil, or corrupt
שָׁחַת
This verbal form shares the root שחת and shows that the word family can name a damaged condition as well as destruction.
mashchit: destroyer
מַשְׁחִית
This agent noun shares the same root consonants and names the force that enacts ruin, extending the verse’s word family from corruption to its destructive outcome.
THE PATTERN
A small number can become the hinge on which a whole community’s fate turns.
And the LORD said, If I find in Sodom fifty aligned ones in the midst of the city, then I will lift all the place for their sake.Roam the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and perceive, and seek in her broad places. If you can find a man, if there is any who executes judgment and seeks steadiness, then I will release her.And as Isaiah said before, "Unless the LORD of armies had left us a seed, we would have become like Sodom, and been made like Gomorrah."THE THREAD
The earth also was ruined before God, and the earth was filled with violence.“Corrupt” here is a form of שחת, the same root behind “destroy” in Abraham’s final appeal. The shared root holds corruption and destruction in one word family, while this verse shows ten as the point at which destruction is withheld.
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