In the question asked by Abraham in Gen 18:23, ' will You destroy the righteous with the wicked?', Abraham appears to make a distinction between those who reject YHWH as God and those accept YHWH as God, such as Lot, despite his many shortcomings. He did not have a perfect track record himself! Indeed, it is well-known that Abraham himself had made some big mistakes - taking Hagar as a wife, lying about Sarah on two occasions, etc. This then, begs the question about what Abraham actually meant by 'righteous'. Rom 3:10-18 expand upon this point quoting numerous references from the OT to show that this point was well-understood. This shows that when it was given, it was merely formal codification of what should have been already familiar.īoth Eccl 7:20 and Rom 3:10 emphatically state that 'there no one righteous'.

There are so many things wrapped up in this on little statement of Gen 18:23-25 that we must take them one at a time.įirst, the moral law as exemplified in the 10 commandments was well-known well-before its formal giving at Sinai - see the appendix 1 below. In Deuteronomy 25:1 הַצַּדִּ֔יק is used for the innocent/right person in a dispute. Then Pharaoh sent and called Moses and Aaron and said to them, “This time I have sinned the LORD is in the right, and I and my people are in the wrong. So he said, “Lord, will you kill an innocent people? 5 Did he not himself say to me, ‘She is my sister’? And she herself said, ‘He is my brother.’ In the integrity of my heart and the innocence of my hands I have done this.” 6 Then God said to him in the dream, “Yes, I know that you have done this in the integrity of your heart, and it was I who kept you from sinning against me. Then the LORD said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and all your household, for I have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation.

10 And Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.ġ1 Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. The article is used with the plural הַצַּדִּיקִ֖ם in Gen 18 sometimes after the first plural occurrence in Gen. צַדִּיקִ֖ם is the plural meaning righteous persons (used when Abraham gives numbers). Abimelech's case showed that they did have moral standards before the Law.

Who is righteous before god