Welcome to the Judaism community on Codidact!
Will you help us build our community of learners? Drop into our study hall, ask questions, help others with answers to their questions, share a d'var torah if you're so inclined, invite your friends, and join us in building this community together. Not an ask-the-rabbi service, just people at all levels learning together.
Post History
Genesis 18 describes "אנשים [=men]" who came to visit Abraham. Chapter 19 starts "And the two מלאכים [=messengers, or angels] arrived at Sodom…" and proceeds to call them, too, "אנשים". Rashi and ...
Question
parshat-vayera
#1: Initial revision
by
msh210
·
2021-06-06T09:11:55Z (over 3 years ago)
Were Abraham's and Lot's guests the same?
Genesis 18 describes "אנשים [=men]" who came to visit Abraham. Chapter 19 starts "And the two מלאכים [=messengers, or angels] arrived at Sodom…" and proceeds to call them, too, "אנשים". _Rashi_ and many other commentaries to 19:1 take for granted that these were the same men as in chapter 18, which indeed seems the obvious reference of the definite article "_the_ two מלאכים". I wonder whether any classical commentaries differ and how they explain the definite article. Or, on the contrary, I wonder whether there's any support _from the text itself_, besides that definite article, for the claim that the chapter-19 people (or beings) were the same as the chapter-18 ones.