What Does Genesis 18:32 Mean in the King James?
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 analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
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 righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes.Run ye to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and know, and seek in the broad places thereof, if ye can find a man, if there be any that executeth judgment, that seeketh the truth; and I will pardon it.And as Esaias said before, Except the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we had been as Sodoma, and been made like unto Gomorrha.THE THREAD
The earth also was corrupt 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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