Footnotes

1. Genesis 18:16 For the first time in the Bible God’s justice is questioned; trusting in the Lord, Abraham begins to try to bend it. The sacred writer, like his contemporaries, is convinced that members of one and the same group have a joint responsibility as well as the same destiny, but he thinks that ten righteous persons can save an entire city. The prophets Jeremiah (Jer 5:1) and Ezekiel (Ezek 22:30) will claim that a single righteous person is enough. Abraham, however, does not feel able to push his request any further; perhaps there were no truly righteous persons in the city.