Verse 3
3. My Lord אדני , Adonai, not Jehovah, as the Targum of Onkelos here reads . The patriarch thus seems to address himself to one of the three messengers, as if in him he recognised at once the Angel who had visited him before . But we may translate it as plural, my lords . Comp . Genesis 19:2; Genesis 19:18. The passage in Hebrews 13:1, “Some have entertained angels unawares,” is generally supposed to refer to this event and that of Genesis 19:2. We may believe that, at the first, Abraham was not aware that his guests were angels, but that gradually the fact became known to him; or he may have been impressed at once with the feeling that the one was Jehovah’s Angel, while he did not perceive that the others were angels also.
If now I have found favour Abraham’s language throughout is a genuine and lifelike example of the manner of a hospitable and generous Oriental chief.
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