The Angel YHWH Visits Abraham: Rashbam Reworks a Christian Interpretation

The commentary is part of Moses Mendelssohn’s Beʾur; Dubno wrote the Genesis commentary.

As Dubno states, he is basing himself on the commentary of Rashbam here. See also the comment of Shadal (Samuel David Luzzatto, 1800–1865):

^{שד"ל בראשית יח:א} "וירא אליו ה׳"—ע״י מלאכיו, וכמו שמפרש והולך (רשב״ם ונתיבות השלום).

^{Shadal Gen 18:1} “YHWH appeared to him”—through his angels, as elaborated by the text that follows (as Rashbam and Netivot Shalom explained).

As we shall see below, Rashbam’s position is actually more complex.

Editors’ note: Another possibility, not explored by the traditional commentators, is that YHWH is one of the three visitors. See discussion in Ben-Zion Katz, “God’s Appearance to Abraham: Vision or Visit?” TheTorah (2013). For a general discussion of YHWH’s bodily appearance in biblical texts, see Benjamin Sommer, The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel (Cambridge, 2009).

The 1985 JPS Tanakh translation reads here “My lords,” but adds a footnote, “Or ‘My Lord’.”

MS Florence has קדוש here, but it uses קודש later. As this is the standard term, it seems the more likely text here as well.

In all other Talmudic manuscripts and in the printed editions, the text reads י"י “God” instead of אדני “My lords,” leaving a sentence that makes little sense.

Following this Talmudic dispute, Rashi also offers both possibilities (commentary to v. 3).

The Greek reads Κύριε; the Syriac reads ܡܪܝܐ (מריא). In contrast, Targum Onkelos, Neofiti, and Pseudo-Jonathan all read י"י, i.e., “God.”

The Samaritan Text is entirely consistent, which is likely a sign that it is secondary.

See Rashi here:

^{רש"י בראשית יח:ג} וכיון שלא יעבר הוא, יעמדו חביריו עמו.

^{Rashi Gen 18:3} Once he [the chief angel] would agree not to leave, his colleagues would also stay.

YHWH’s speaking about himself in the third person persists into the next part of the story. When the angels head to Sodom, YHWH, in verses 17-19, “says”—it is unclear to whom—why the secret of what will happen to Sodom must be shared with Abraham. The speaker is identified as YHWH, who begins by referring to himself in the first person, but then suddenly shifts to referring to YHWH in the third person:

^{בראשית יח:יז} וַי־הוה אָמָר הַמְכַסֶּה אֲנִי מֵאַבְרָהָם אֲשֶׁר אֲנִי עֹשֶׂה... ^יח:יט כִּי יְדַעְתִּיו לְמַעַן אֲשֶׁר יְצַוֶּה אֶת בָּנָיו וְאֶת בֵּיתוֹ אַחֲרָיו וְשָׁמְרוּ דֶּרֶךְ י־הוה לַעֲשׂוֹת צְדָקָה וּמִשְׁפָּט לְמַעַן הָבִיא י־הוה עַל אַבְרָהָם אֵת אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר עָלָיו.

^{Gen 18:17} Now YHWH [had] said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?.... ^18:19 for I have singled him out, that he may instruct his children and his posterity to keep the way of YHWH by doing what is just and right, in order that YHWH may bring about for Abraham what He has promised him.”

Then YHWH, in verses 20–21, explains about Sodom, as the speaker in verses 17–19 said he would.:

^{בראשית יח:כ} וַיֹּאמֶר י־הוה זַעֲקַת סְדֹם וַעֲמֹרָה כִּי רָבָּה...

^{Gen 18:20} Then YHWH said: “The outrage of Sodom and Gomorrah is so great…”

Similarly, after the speech, the text reports that the visitors left, and again clarifies that Abraham is standing with none other than YHWH:

^{בראשית יח:כב} וַיִּפְנוּ מִשָּׁם הָאֲנָשִׁים וַיֵּלְכוּ סְדֹמָה וְאַבְרָהָם עוֹדֶנּוּ עֹמֵד לִפְנֵי י־הוה.

^{Gen 18:22} The men went on from there to Sodom, while Abraham remained standing before YHWH.

The problem continues into the next story, which features the divine destruction of Sodom:

^{בראשית יט:כד} וַי־הוה הִמְטִיר עַל סְדֹם וְעַל עֲמֹרָה גָּפְרִית וָאֵשׁ מֵאֵת י־הוה מִן הַשָּׁמָיִם.

^{Gen 19:24} YHWH rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah sulfurous fire from YHWH out of heaven.

I addressed attitudes—both in peshat and in midrash—to syntactical issues of this nature in my article, “Peshat in Genesis Rabbah,” in Genesis Rabbah: Text and Context, edited by Sarit Kattan Gribetz, David M. Grossberg, Martha Himmelfarb and Peter Schäfer (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016), pp. 213-242.

The similarities and the differences between Rashbam’s interpretation and the interpretation offered a few decades later by Moses Maimonides (Guide of the Perplexed 2:42) are beyond the scope of this article. In the original version of this essay, I added, “Maimonides never saw Rashbam’s Torah commentary.” Since then, Professor Warren Zev Harvey of the Hebrew University published an article in which he argues that, just as some scholars have found traces of the influence of Rashi’s writings on Maimonides, so it is possible to find traces of the influence of Rashbam’s Torah commentary on Maimonides. He bases his argument on their similar and virtually unique explanations of Genesis 18 and of Leviticus 23:43. See Warren Zev Harvey, “האם קרא רמב"ם את רשב"ם” [Did Maimonides Read Rashbam?] in שיר המעלות לדוד: מחקרים במדעי היהדות לכבוד הרב פרופ' דוד גולינקין [Shir Ha-Ma’alot L’David: Essays in Jewish Studies in Honor of Rabbi Prof. David Golinkin], ed. Martin S. Cohen (Machon Schechter, 2025), 151-160 .

In the website mg.alhatorah.org, Hillel Novetsky suggests emending the end of the text of Rashbam to read: שני פסוקים אלו מדברים במלאך שלישי, on the basis of medieval manuscripts (the “Oxford-Munich collection”) that often quote Rashbam accurately. See the following note.

Based on mss. Munich 252 and Oxford Marsh 225. For details about this important resource, see Novetsky’s website: https://alhatorah.org/Commentators:Rashbam's_Torah_Commentary/1/he, and the links on that page.

See Novetsky’s note on Rashbam’s commentary on verse 20 in his mg.alhatorah.org, citing the manuscripts mentioned in the last note. For a different opinion, see Jonathan Jacobs, “היתכנות התגלות האל לאדם על פי פירושי רשב"ם לתורה,” [The Feasibility of God's Revelation to Man According to Rashbam's Commentaries on the Torah] Daat 87 (2019): 85–104. Jacobs argues that these manuscripts do not reflect Rashbam’s position accurately.

This is Rashbam’s understanding of all of the narrator’s references to YHWH in chapter 18. In some verses in chapter 19 it is less clear, as I point out in my, “Peshat in Genesis Rabbah,” 232.

A reference to the Torah, which Justin believes was composed by Moses.

Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, trans. Thomas B. Falls, rev. with intro, Thomas P. Halton, ed. Michael Slusser, Selections from the Fathers of the Church 3 (Catholic University of America Press, 2003), 83. A. Lukyn Williams (Justin’s Dialogue with Trypho the Jew [New York: Macmillan, 1930], p. 117, summarizes Justin’s position:

[Justin] shows that the title ‘Lord’ does not belong to either of the two angels who went to Sodom, but to the angel who remained with Abraham. He afterwards went to Lot, and is called the ‘Lord’ who received from the Lord in heaven the duty of punishing Sodom.”

In Christian exegesis, the word לַאדֹנִי, “to my lord,” in Psalm 110:1, is seen as a reference to Jesus. This interpretation is found already in the Gospels, in the mouth of Jesus himself (Matthew 22:44).

Tertullian, Against Praxeas, ch. 1, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1905), 3.608.

See Appendix 4 (“The Christian Exegesis of Genesis 18”) in David Berger, The Jewish-Christian Debate in the High Middle Ages (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1979), pp. 362-365. And see the comment on Genesis 18 of the anonymous author of the Jewish polemical work, Nitzaḥon Yashan (“The Old[er] Book of Polemic,” p. 9, ibid.), who writes:

^{נצחון ישן} המינים אומרים: ראה שלושה והתפלל לאחד והם האב והבן ורוח הטומאה.

^{Nitzaḥon Yashan} The Christians say: He saw three and prayed to one, and they are the father, the son, and the impure spirit.

Some of my thoughts about Rashbam’s interpretation of Genesis 18 and 19 have appeared previously in my notes on Rashbam’s commentary in Rabbi Samuel ben Meir's Commentary on Genesis: An Annotated Translation, (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 1989), pp. 60-78 ; in Peirush ha-Rashbam al ha-Torah (Jerusalem: Choreb, 2009), volume 1, pp. 20-30; and in “Peshat in Genesis Rabbah,” pp. 213-232, particularly in the Appendix, pp. 230-232.

Shaye J. D. Cohen, “Does Rashi’s Torah Commentary Respond to Christianity? A Comparison of Rashi with Rashbam and Bekhor Shor,” in The Idea of Biblical Interpretation: Essays in Honor of James L. Kugel, ed. Hindy Najman and Judith H. Newman (Leiden: Brill, 2004), pp. 449–472. On anti-Christian elements in Rashi’s commentaries, see Yedida Eisenstat, “Does Rashi’s Torah Commentary Respond to Christianity?” TheTorah (2018); Marty Lockshin, “Rashi on the Torah: What Kind of Commentary Is It?” TheTorah (2019); and Mordechai Cohen, “Psalms For Our Times: Rashi Counters Christological Readings,” TheTorah (2024).

See e.g. Elazar Touitou, הפשטות המתחדשות בכל יום [Exegesis in Perpetual Motion] (Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2003), and Avraham Grossman, רש"י והפולמוס היהודי-נוצרי [Rashi and the Jewish-Christian Polemic] (Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2021).

See Rashi on Gen 25:26, 25:27, and 32:7. Whether aimed at Christians specifically or not, Rashi’s Torah commentary is filled with strident anti‑gentile comments.

David Berger, Persecution, Polemic and Dialogue (Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2010), p. 46. See further discussion in my “A Retrospective Look at the Modern Study of Medieval Jewish Bible Commentaries,” in Jewish Studies on Premodern Periods: A Handbook, ed. by Carl S. Ehrlich and Sara R. Horowitz (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2023), pp. 241-256.

See my article, “האם היה יוסף בכור שור פשטן” [Is Joseph Bekhor Shor a Peshat Commentator] Iggud 1 (2008), 161-172.

See discussion in Shaye J. D. Cohen, “The Torah Is Not an Allegory,” TheTorah (2018). See also Bekhor Shor’s comments to Gen 1:26, Deut 13:4, and Deut 18:15. See discussion of some of these texts in my, “Can a False Prophet Perform Miracles,” TheTorah (2018).

See the index in my פירוש הרשב"ם על התורה [Rashbam’s Commentary on the Torah], p. 532, for lists of these passages.

For a discussion of the more traditional hostility to Balaam, see Joshua Garroway, “Balaam the Seducer of Jews and an Early Christian Polemic,” TheTorah (2017).

For more on this term in the Bible, see Marty Lockshin, “Does the Torah Differentiate Between Murder and Killing?” TheTorah (2016).

For example,

^{אונקלוס בראשית מט:י} ...עַד דְּיֵיתֵי מְשִׁיחָא דְּדִילֵיהּ הִיא מַלְכוּתָא

^{Onkelos Gen 49:10} …until the Messiah, the one that kingdom is his, comes.

See the Vulgate translation of this verse: donec veniat qui mittendus est—“until the one who is sent comes.”

See the introduction to my Peirush ha-Rashbam, p. כח.

Montse Leyra Curia, In Hebreo: The Victorine Exegesis of the Bible in the Light of its Northern-French Jewish Sources (Turnhout: Brepols, 2017).

See the statistics in Leyra’s book, pages 365-370.

Although Rashbam never describes actual friendship with his Christian interlocutors, he discusses their views without expressing animosity or scorn. By contrast, when Rashbam rejects interpretations offered by other Jewish interpreters, his scorn is frequently obvious. See for example his commentary to Gen 45:28, to Gen 49:9, and to Exod 3:11.

Yosaif Mordechai Dubovick, and Avraham (Rami) Reiner, “Rabbenu Tam and Count Henry the Liberal: New Sources,” Journal of Medieval History (2024), 1–10.