How many is Yahweh? Genesis 19:24

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July 10, 2025
The word of the Lord God: From the Old to the New Testament
July 10, 2025
Poland-Paris Pilgrimage
July 10, 2025
The word of the Lord God: From the Old to the New Testament
July 10, 2025

How many is Yahweh? Genesis 19:24

Gen 19:23 The sun had risen over the earth when Lot came to Zoar. 24 Then the LORD rained brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah from the LORD out of heaven, 25 and He overthrew those cities, and all the surrounding area, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground. [Cp. Amos 4.11; Isa 13.19; Jer. 50.40]

For millennia Christians have misused Gen 19:24 to prove that Jesus is YHWH, the LORD God, because they think that the text identifies two who are YHWH, LORD.  This view started with some of the earliest so-called Church Fathers.

Justin Martyr, writing c. 150AD, identified the Son as “the Lord who received commission from the Lord [i.e., God the Father] who [remains] in the heavens” (Dialogue with Trypho, Chapter 56).

A few decades later Irenaeus wrote that Gen 19:24 “points out that the Son, who had also been talking with Abraham, had received power to judge the Sodomites for their wickedness.“ (Irenaeus, Book 3, ch. 6).

And Tertullian writing around 200AD claimed: “A much more ancient testimony [of Christ’s deity] we have also in Genesis” 19:24 (Tertullian, Against Praxeas, ch. 13).

However, Genesis 19.24 is simply showing a well-known Hebrew idiom that appears throughout the OT, where the name of one person is repeated:

  1. Lamech said to his wives….”You wives of Lamech.” Genesis 4:23
  2. The LORD said “Moses shall come near to the LORD.” Exodus 24:1-2 
  3. Solomon assembled the people…before Solomon.” 1 Kings 8:1 
  4. Rehoboam came to Jerusalem and assembled…to Rehoboam.” 1 Kings 12.21
  5. The LORD said “I will deliver them by the LORD.” Hosea 1:6-7 
  6. “I will make them strong in the LORD,” says the LORDZechariah 10:12
  7. The LORD said to Satan, “The LORD rebuke you, Satan!” Zechariah 3:2 
  8. Jonathan says, “May the LORD do all this and more to Jonathan.” 1 Samuel 20.12-13 
  9. David says, “May God curse David.” 1 Samuel 25.22 
  10. Abner says, “May God punish Abner.” 2 Samuel 3.8-9 

All these examples have to do with a Hebrew way of speaking and nothing to do with a plurality of persons.  Other languages would generally use the pronoun “I” rather than repeating a person’s name. Hence, in the parallel account of Amos 4:11 some English versions use the first person pronoun (“I”) instead of the word “God” (e.g., NIV, NCV, TEV, CEV, NLT). And the other accounts of the events of Gen 19.24 don’t repeat the Divine name or the title “God”. 

Isa 13:19, NASB 1977 “And Babylon, the beauty of kingdoms, the glory of the Chaldeans’ pride, Will be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.”

Jer 50:40, NLT “I will destroy it [Babylon] as I destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah and their neighboring towns,” 

Illeism paper: https://www.etsjets.org/files/JETS-PDFs/52/52-3/JETS%2052-3%20499-518%20Malone.pdf

Xavier
Xavier
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