Genesis 18:25

The context

Genesis 18 opens with Abraham at the oaks of Mamre, where three visitors announce that Sarah will bear a son within the year. The scene then turns toward Sodom, and the divine deliberation of 18:17-21 weighs whether to conceal the coming judgment from Abraham. Verses 22-33 are a negotiation, and verse 25 is its premise.

Abraham is interceding for a city that is not his own, and the argument is not a general plea for mercy. He appeals to what God is: the judge of all the earth.

The words

The sentence rests on three terms. Shofet, "judge," is a participle here — literally "the one judging all the earth," a standing role rather than an office taken up for the occasion. Mishpat, "justice" or "judgment," names what Abraham asks whether God will do. Tsedaqah, "righteousness," is the paired term at 18:19, where God describes Abraham's calling as doing righteousness and justice.

The grammar is a rhetorical question expecting yes: shall not the judge of all the earth do justice? Abraham is not doubting but arguing from a settled conviction to a contested case, which is why the line reads as bold rather than blasphemous. Whether the argument binds God is another matter; the negotiation ends without a reported verdict, and the next chapter records the city's destruction and Lot's rescue.

What this passage establishes

That Scripture authorizes protest addressed to God on the basis of God's own character. Abraham does not appeal to a human standard against God; he appeals to God against a proposed action, and the text does not rebuke him. God's justice is treated as a real criterion, not a slogan.

What it does not establish

It does not answer the problem of evil. The question is bounded by one city and one imminent judgment. Abraham never asks why suffering exists, why the righteous suffer alongside the wicked, or what becomes of those who die without warning. Those questions are raised elsewhere and are not settled here.

It does not specify the terms of judgment. The number ten is a negotiating device, not a doctrine of how God weighs a population, and the narrative withholds the outcome of the count.

It does not promise that protest changes the outcome. Abraham's intercession is recorded without a stated result. Reading the passage as a guarantee that bold prayer averts catastrophe imports a promise the narrative does not give.

How the church has read it

Calvin's Genesis commentary treats Abraham's bargaining as reverent boldness rather than presumption. Jewish tradition had already made the scene a model of audacious prayer. Modern literary readings note what older commentary missed: Abraham discovers as he argues that he cannot separate the righteous from the city he pleads for, and stops of his own accord.

First pass, written October 2026. Corrections welcome.

Cited in these answers

• If God is love, why would He send anyone to hell?
• Is it really fair for one who does not accept Jesus to suffer in Hell forever?
• My Grandma was a sincerely nice person who happened to NOT be a Christian. Your “all-loving” God is going to punish her in hell for eternity because she didn't “accept” Jesus?
• Is it fair that a North Korean woman who never heard of Jesus is going to burn in hell for eternity because she didn't choose the right parents, geographically?
• So all infants and children who have ever lived and died as non-Christians are sentenced by God to suffer eternally in hell? That's kind and 'all-loving'.
• God sends everyone to hell who never heard of Jesus — the billions who lived before Him, and the billions who never got the gospel. That is not justice; that is a lottery of birth.

Part of Scripture, Opened — the exegetical layer behind every citation on this site. Scripture quotations are from the ESV.