Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>]

On 8/14/05, Yigal Levin wrote:
> James, I don't know what text you're using, but in my BHS, verse 3 says:
> "And he said, ADONAI...", spelled out, NOT YHWH. The narrator lets us know
> that it was YHWH who appeared, but Abram doesn't know it until verse 10. In
> verse 9, the three still address Abram as three people, "and they said...".
> In verse 10, it's suddenly "and HE said...". This is the point at which
> Abram realizes that it's God who's talking.

Actually, if one follows the text onwards, up to the point that
Abraham makes his
plea for Sodom and Gommorah, the text seems to convey the idea that there were
indeed three "men," but one of those "men" was "Yahweh."  This is because 
three
men come, then "the men" leave for Sodom and Gomorrah, but Abraham is still
standing before Yahweh, then after the plea, Yahweh leaves, and the two angels
arrive at Sodom.  It appears that the text is calling only one of the
three men who
came to visit Abraham as "Yahweh" although this is never made explicit.  If 
one 
adopts this reading, I am not sure that Abraham is not aware that one
of the "men"
is "Yahweh" from the beginning.  In your analysis above you seem to
suggest that
in verse 10 they speak as one group in the name of Yahweh.  However, that 
"and 
he said" in verse 10 could simply be a reference to that one member of
the three
(who is called by the text "Yahweh").  There are multiple
interpretations of what is
going on here.

Yitzhak Sapir