Does Genesis 19:1 occur only a few hours after the events of Genesis 18:22?

Question

And the men turned their faces from thence, and went toward Sodom: but Abraham stood yet before the LORD. - Genesis 18:22

And there came two angels to Sodom at even; and Lot sat in the gate of Sodom: and Lot seeing them rose up to meet them; and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground; - Genesis 19:1

From this related question, the most common understanding of these chapters appears to be that the "men" who went toward Sodom in chapter 18 are the "two angels" who arrive in Sodom in chapter 19 and that it is the evening of the same day (as most of us reckon time) or approximately 6 hours after the events of chapter 18 (according to Biblical reckoning "evening" would be reckoned as the beginning of the next day). These and other conclusions appear to be inextricably tied together and dependent upon one another.

For instance, a reason given for interpreting the "three men" as being two angels and the LORD is that two of the men (angels) leave in chapter 18 and arrive in Sodom in chapter 19. Even though chapter 18 never states "two of the men leave", but just "the men", the two angels of chapter 19 inform this interpretation.

The text does not explicitly state of which day it is the evening and very often the term evening is given simply to indicate the beginning of a new day, according to Hebrew reckoning. Since there appears to be a time lag, in that the "men" turned toward Sodom to investigate the outcry (18:21) but the stated purpose of the "two angels" arrival in the city at evening is its destruction (19:13), what is there in the text other than mere proximity to force the conclusion that chapter 19's "evening" is only a few hours after the "men" leave Abraham and turn toward Sodom?

Answer 1

Answer

Genesis 19:1 occurs only a few hours after the events of Genesis 18:22.

Explanation

The fact that the 2 angels reached Sodom the same day evening need not be an assumption.

Why?

This is because the same narration says:

“And Abraham started up early in the morning, going to the place where he had stood there before Jehovah. And he looked toward the face of Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain. And he saw. And, behold, the smoke of the country went up like the smoke of a furnace. ” (Gen 19:27-28).

Definitely, Abraham, knowing that Yahweh went to Sodom to destroy it, would go the very next day “early in the morning”.

All these are part of the same narration of the same series of events occurring one after the other.

So, here is the sequence:

1. Yahweh and the two angels visit Abraham at noon and discuss matters;

2. All of them including Abraham go together to the town gate;

3. The two angels go to Sodom;

4. Yahweh and Abraham talk about Sodom;

5. Yahweh leaves later and Abraham goes back home;

6. The two angels reach Sodom in the evening;

7. Early morning they forcibly take Lot and his family outside the city;

8. Yahweh meets them there;

9. Yahweh destroys Sodom in the morning itself;

10. Early morning Abraham comes out and goes to the town gate and sees the smoke.

This shows that they reached the same evening.

Regarding the issue of whether they went there to investigate or destroy:

the condition Yahweh agreed with Abraham was that IF there were 10 righteous men in Sodom, God wouldn’t destroy the city but if not destruction is judged upon it.

The angels knew this already. So they investigated and took immediate action.

I don’t see any problem here.

Conclusion

The fact that Abraham came to the same spot early in the morning to see the fate of Sodom should prove that the angels reached the same evening in Sodom.

Answer 2

First thing to remember is the chapter break isn't real - those were added in later, apparently by Stephen Langton in 1205 AD. We're used to chapter breaks marking a passage of time - these authors in those days just didn't.

This particular chapter break looks quite destructive, but in medieval times it might have been playing an important role in conserving scarce parchment and scribal resources, or marking some arbitrary thematic change.

Genesis 18:33

וַיֵּ֣לֶךְ יְהוָ֔ה כַּאֲשֶׁ֣ר כִּלָּ֔ה לְדַבֵּ֖ר אֶל־אַבְרָהָ֑ם וְאַבְרָהָ֖ם שָׁ֥ב לִמְקֹמֹֽו׃

ἀπῆλθεν δὲ Κύριος ὡς ἐπαύσατο λαλῶν τῷ Ἀβραάμ, καὶ Ἀβραὰμ ἀπέστρεψεν εἰς τὸν τὸπον αὐτοῦ.

And the LORD went his way, when he had finished speaking to Abraham, and Abraham returned to his place.

Genesis 19:1

וַ֠יָּבֹאוּ שְׁנֵ֨י הַמַּלְאָכִ֤ים סְדֹ֙מָה֙ בָּעֶ֔רֶב וְלֹ֖וט יֹשֵׁ֣ב בְּשַֽׁעַר־סְדֹ֑ם וַיַּרְא־לֹוט֙ וַיָּ֣קָם לִקְרָאתָ֔ם וַיִּשְׁתַּ֥חוּ אַפַּ֖יִם אָֽרְצָה׃

Ἦλθον δὲ οἱ δύο ἄγγελοι εἰς Σόδομα ἑσπέρας· Λὼτ δὲ ἐκάθητο παρὰ τὴν πύλην Σοδόμων. ἰδὼν δὲ Λὼτ ἀνέστη εἰς συνάντησιν αὐτοῖς, καὶ προσεκύνησεν τῷ προσώπῳ ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν·

The two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he rose to meet them and bowed himself with his face to the earth

בָּעֶ֔רֶב=baereb=in the evening

The prefix ב means "in" or "at".

The OP mentions this might be used to introduce new days. עֶ֔רֶב has 134 occurrences in Strong's but with the prefix it is only 24, so we could survey them:-

https://biblehub.com/hebrew/strongs_6153.htm

https://www.blueletterbible.org/search/search.cfm?Criteria=%D7%91%D6%BC%D6%B8%D7%A2%D6%B6%D6%94%D7%A8%D6%B6%D7%91&t=WLC#s=s_primary_0_1

The question is whether the passage in its context requires it to be the next day (++). There might be cases where it could potentially be the next day, or where it might be nicer as the next day. (+) Or minus signs for it being required/nicer as the same day. Cases where it doesn't mean this evening or is about evenings in general, are also marked (--). (x) had to be ignored or broken citation.

Gen 19:1 (verse being studied) ; Gen 29:23 (-) ; Gen 30:16 (--) ; Exo 12:18 (--) ; Exo 16:8 (--) ; Exo 16:13 (-) ; Lev 13:48 (x) ; Lev 13:53 (x) ; Lev 23:32 (--) ; Deu 16:4 (--) ; Deu 16:6 (--) ; Jos 5:10 (+) ; Jdg 19:16 (-) ; 2Sa 11:13 (--) ; 1Ki 17:6 (--) ; 1Ki 22:35 (--) ; 2Ch 13:11 (--) ; Est 2:14 (--) ; Psa 30:5 (--) ; Isa 21:13 (x) ; Eze 12:4 (--) ; Eze 24:18 (--) ; Eze 33:22 (-) ; Zep 2:7 (--)

From that sample, I think there's pretty strong evidence that baereb isn't used to introduce new days.

• it's very often used for evenings in general
• it's very often the evening after a morning
• it's the evening of this day, not the next day

Dottard's point in the linked post is about how the day-night cycle is counted. That may be true of calendar and tradition but I don't think it's at all open and shut for narrative - because of verses like 1 Kings 22:35 "All day long the battle raged, and the king was propped up in his chariot facing the Arameans. The blood from his wound ran onto the floor of the chariot, and that evening he died." Or 2 Chronicles 13:11 "They offer to the LORD every morning and every evening burnt offerings". In examples like these the morning is narratively prior to the evening even if it isn't calendrically prior.

But that's beside the real point: that if "this" evening is part of tomorrow, that's on the basis that it's still the evening that is coming next relative to the narrator's or speaker's timeframe. I think the OP may be blurring Hebrew and English conceptions of time so to think that "this" evening (Hebrew time) can mean "tomorrow" evening (English time).

The LXX

Greek tends to be quite tight about putting time phrases at the starts of sentences if it's important to the reader's/listener's mental image. Ἦλθον δὲ marks an immediate logical step: the fact it's the evening is tacked on later in the sentence. But if it was talking about the evening of the following day, then the sentence would want to start with something like ἐν τῇ ἐπαύριον ἑσπέρᾳ. Like ΕΝ ΑΡΧΗ ἐποίησεν ὁ θεὸς.

It's the difference between a time-shift that matters and one that doesn't. And that's really what the OP is asking about.

Proximity - with a risk of syntax!

what is there in the text other than mere proximity to force

What should be happening is that we force our reading to account for every tiny detail of word order, and every example of where every word has ever been used in the surviving corpus. And then we think about what meaning it produces for us.

If we're asking "do I have to read it that way?" when we're reading in translation, that's often going to be on the way to eisegesis.

By all means pick another translation, but when all the translations are saying "this evening" or "in the evening" that's not likely to be overturned without expertise. They sometimes are all wrong! But that's a contention to arrive at after studying the language (not just the text). Doing a survey like the brief/crude example above is a general approach and can often be done just with Strong's.