for Genesis: Creation to Isaac · Part 7 · Genesis 18–20
Visitors, Sodom & the Cities of the Plain
8 Adventures40 min
What Happens in Part 7
Genesis 18 opens with three visitors arriving at Abraham's tent near Mamre. Abraham runs to greet them, offers water to wash their feet, and has a meal quickly prepared. The visitors tell Abraham that Sarah will have a son within the year; Sarah, listening at the tent, laughs to herself since she is old. The visitors then set out toward Sodom, and the LORD tells Abraham that the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great. Abraham bargains with the LORD, asking whether the city would be spared if fifty righteous people were found there, then talking the number down step by step to ten. Genesis 19 follows two of the visitors to Sodom, where Lot meets them at the city gate and urges them to stay at his house. That evening, the men of the city surround Lot's house and threaten the visitors; the visitors strike the men with blindness and warn Lot to gather his family and leave, since the city is about to be destroyed. Lot, his wife, and his two daughters are led out of the city; they are told not to look back, but Lot's wife looks back and becomes a pillar of salt. The city is destroyed, and Lot's family reaches safety. Genesis 20 tells how Abraham travels to Gerar and again says Sarah is his sister; King Abimelech takes Sarah, but God warns him in a dream before any harm is done, and Abimelech returns Sarah to Abraham along with gifts.
What We Will Learn
Section
What you will practice
Word Study
Words for kindness, warning, and speaking for God: favor, outcry, judge, escape, remembered, prophet, healed
Bible Study
How to follow a back-and-forth bargaining pattern, and how a stated warning connects to what happens next
Scripture Discovery
Real ancient hospitality customs and the natural salt-pillar formations of the Dead Sea region
Chapter Summary
Ch.
What happens
18
Three Visitors and a Bargain — Three visitors come to Abraham at Mamre; he welcomes them warmly, and they tell him Sarah will have a son within the year. The LORD tells Abraham of the outcry against Sodom, and Abraham bargains the number of righteous people needed to spare the city down from fifty to ten.
19
Rescue from Sodom — Two visitors reach Sodom, where Lot welcomes them. The men of the city threaten the visitors, who strike them with blindness and warn Lot to flee. Lot's family is led out of the city; Lot's wife looks back and becomes a pillar of salt, and the city is destroyed as the family reaches safety.
20
Abraham and Abimelech — In Gerar, Abraham again says Sarah is his sister. King Abimelech takes Sarah, but God warns him in a dream before any harm is done. Abimelech returns Sarah to Abraham along with gifts.
Part 1
Word Study
Study 7 key words from Genesis 18–20, then answer each question.
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💎 Treasure Wisdom · a true fact behind the storyA Sacred Duty: Welcoming a Stranger
Word Study · Ancient CustomAbraham's welcome of the three visitors — running to greet them, washing their feet, preparing a meal at once — matches a real and long-lasting custom of the region. Hospitality toward travelers has long been treated as a serious duty across Near Eastern desert cultures, since survival in a harsh landscape often depended on strangers sharing food, water, and shelter along the way. A host greeting a guest, offering water, and preparing a shared meal is described across many centuries of writing about the region, not invented for this one passage. Reading Genesis 18 alongside this wider custom helps explain why Abraham's fast, generous welcome would have struck an ancient reader as exactly right.
favorn.Gen 18:3
Kindness or good will shown toward someone
“Abraham asks the visitors to stay if he has found favor in their sight.”
outcryn.Gen 18:20
A loud cry, especially one protesting something wrong
“The LORD tells Abraham the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great.”
judgen.Gen 18:25
Someone who decides what is right and fair
“Abraham asks whether the Judge of all the earth will do what is just.”
escapev.Gen 19:17
To get away from danger
“The visitors tell Lot to escape to the hills and not look back.”
rememberedv.Gen 19:29
Kept in mind and acted on behalf of
“God remembered Abraham and sent Lot out of the city to safety.”
prophetn.Gen 20:7
Someone who speaks for God
“Abimelech is told that Abraham is a prophet who will pray for him.”
healedv.Gen 20:17
Made well again
“Abraham prays, and God healed Abimelech and his household.”
ⓘ The vocabulary words in this list are selected to help you understand and complete this workbook. Some may not appear word-for-word in your Bible.
1Kindness or good will shown toward someone is called ___.Gen 18:3
2In Genesis 18, an ‘outcry’ is a quiet whisper heard by only one person.Gen 18:20
3Write your answer in the blank, then click Check.Gen 18:25
Word choices:judgeprophetfavorescape- some words will not be used
Abraham asks whether the of all the earth will do what is just.
4To get away from danger is to ___.Gen 19:17
5In Genesis 19, God remembered Abraham and sent Lot out of the city to safety.Gen 19:29
6In Genesis 20, Abimelech is told that Abraham is a prophet who will pray for him.Gen 20:7
7Write your answer in the blank, then click Check.Gen 20:17
Word choices:healedjudgeoutcryremembered- some words will not be used
Abraham prays, and God Abimelech and his household.
Part 2
Understanding
Show you understood what happens in Genesis 18–20.
🔟
💎 Treasure Wisdom · a true fact behind the storyA Bargain, One Step at a Time
Close Reading · A Repeated Pattern with Small ChangesIn Genesis 18, Abraham asks the LORD the same basic question six times in a row: would the city be spared if a certain number of righteous people were found there? Each time, only one detail changes — the number, stepping down from fifty to forty-five, forty, thirty, twenty, and finally ten. A careful reader tracks a pattern like this by asking what stays exactly the same and what single detail moves each time, since that one changing detail is usually the whole point. Here, watching the number fall shows a reader exactly how far the bargaining goes before it stops.
1What does Abraham do as soon as he sees the three visitors?Gen 18:2–7
2What number does Abraham's bargaining with the LORD end on?Gen 18:32
3What do the visitors do to the men who surround Lot's house?Gen 19:11
4What happens to Lot's wife as the family flees?Gen 19:26
5Write the numbers 1–5 in the boxes to show the correct order across Genesis 18–20. Number 1 = what happens first.Gen 18–20
Lot's wife looks back and becomes a pillar of salt.
Three visitors arrive at Abraham's tent near Mamre.
Abraham bargains the number of righteous people down to ten.
The visitors strike the men surrounding Lot's house with blindness.
God warns Abimelech in a dream not to harm Sarah.
6The visitors tell Abraham that Sarah will have a son within the year.Gen 18:10
7In Genesis 20, Abimelech already knows Sarah is Abraham's wife before he takes her.Gen 20:3–5
Part 3
Literary Craft
Understanding HOW and WHY Genesis tells the story across Genesis 18–20.
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💎 Treasure Wisdom · a true fact behind the storyA Number That Falls, On Purpose
Literary Craft · Stepped BargainingAbraham's exchange with the LORD in Genesis 18 is built from one repeated question asked six times, with a single number changing each time. A writer who repeats a question this way, changing only one small detail with each repeat, is using a pattern that lets a reader feel the tension build without spelling it out directly. Every step down — fifty, forty-five, forty, thirty, twenty, ten — asks the same underlying question again, so the small change carries all the weight. This stepped repeating structure is a craft choice, not an accident, and it lets a reader watch Abraham's request grow more specific right up to the final number.
Stepped repetition
A question or action repeated several times with one small detail changing each time. Abraham's bargaining in Genesis 18 repeats the same question with the number falling each time.
Warning
A stated caution given before a consequence follows. The visitors warn Lot's family not to look back before Lot's wife looks back.
Consequence
A result the passage directly connects to an action that came before it. Genesis 19 directly connects Lot's wife looking back with her becoming a pillar of salt.
1What is stepped repetition?Gen 18
2Fill in the blank with the correct word.Gen 18
Word choices:repetitionwarningconsequencefavor- some words will not be used
A question repeated with a falling number each time is called stepped .
3What is a warning, as a literary device?Gen 19
4Genesis 19 directly connects Lot's wife looking back with her becoming a pillar of salt.Gen 19:26
5A consequence in a passage is only valid if the passage never states any connection at all.Gen 19
6Fill in the blank with the correct word.Gen 19
Word choices:consequencerepetitionwarningoutcry- some words will not be used
A caution given before a result follows is called a .
7What does noticing the stepped repetition in Genesis 18 help a reader see?Gen 18
Part 7
Wisdom
Four deeper challenges — no single-word recall. Read, weigh the evidence, and reason it out.
🧂
💎 Treasure Wisdom · a true fact behind the storyA Region That Really Grows Pillars of Salt
Geology · Material EvidenceThe region near the Dead Sea has a real geological feature worth knowing. Mount Sodom, a ridge along the sea's southwestern shore, is roughly eighty percent solid salt, pushed up from deep underground over hundreds of thousands of years. Rain slowly dissolves tunnels and caves through the salt, and when a cave's wall collapses, it can leave behind a freestanding salt column. One such column near the base of the ridge is nicknamed “Lot's Wife” by visitors today. This does not prove which exact spot Genesis 19 describes, but it shows that this specific region really does form tall salt pillars through ordinary, observable erosion.
Read Genesis 18–20 in your Bible first. Notice exactly how Abraham greets the three visitors, and count how many times he asks the LORD about Sodom, watching the number change with each question. In Genesis 19, pay attention to the exact warning the visitors give Lot's family and what happens right after it is not followed. This workbook covers Genesis 19 through the family reaching safety and stops there. Finally, notice how Genesis 20 echoes an earlier chapter in this book, and what is the same and different about how it resolves.
Original passage written for this workbook — not a quotation from Scripture.
1Claim: “Genesis 18–20 shows Abraham acting as a generous host and a bold advocate for others.” — choose the three details that best support it.Claim & Evidence
2Stated in Genesis 18–20, or Not stated there? Tap each detail to send it left or right.Sort into two
◄ Stated in Genesis 18–20Not stated there ►
3Match each first detail with the detail paired with it.Match the Pairs
Abraham→
Sarah→
Lot→
Lot's wife→
Abimelech→
4Fill both blanks to complete the reasoning.Build the Argument
The visitors strike the men surrounding Lot's house with blindness instead of arguing with them because , which shows that .
Part 5
World Discovery (SAT/TOEFL)
Reading passage · A Duty Older Than the Story · Ancient Custom and Careful Evidence · practices the same reading-comprehension skills tested on the SAT and TOEFL: main idea, detail, vocabulary in context, inference and synthesis.
📖 Read the passage below (the highlighted words are tested), then answer the questions. Tap an answer to select it, tap again to confirm — you get one chance to change it before it's final.
Original passage written for this workbook — not a quotation from Scripture.
A Duty Older Than the Story
Across many centuries of writing from the ancient Near East, one custom appears again and again: welcoming a traveler was treated as a serious duty, not a casual choice. In a hot, dry landscape with long distances between settlements, a traveler without food, water, or shelter for the night could be in real danger. A host was expected to offer water for washing, a place to rest, and a shared meal. Often this welcome came before the host even asked a guest's name or business. Later writers described this duty using the phrase “sacred hospitality,” since breaching it was treated as a serious wrong, not a minor rudeness. This custom was not limited to any single family or city. Travelers' accounts from across the wider region describe a similar pattern of welcome for centuries, long after any one story was first written down. Some writers even record hosts offering their best food to a stranger while eating more simply themselves. A single account cannot describe every host in every era, but the pattern itself is documented widely enough that a sudden, generous welcome to strangers would not have surprised an ancient reader at all.
1What is the passage mostly about?SAT/TOEFL Reading · Main Idea
2What could happen to a traveler without help along the way?SAT/TOEFL Reading · Detail
3In this passage, “breaching” most nearly means ___.SAT/TOEFL Reading · Vocabulary in Context
4What phrase does the passage say later writers used for this custom?SAT/TOEFL Reading · Detail
5Why might a host have offered water and rest before asking a guest's name?SAT/TOEFL Reading · Inference
6What kind of evidence does the passage rely on to make its point?SAT/TOEFL Reading · Evidence
7According to the passage, what can and cannot this evidence show?SAT/TOEFL Reading · Synthesis
Part 6
Writing
A print-only writing prompt — not part of your online score.
Writing Task — Part 7 “Welcoming Someone New”
In Genesis 18, Abraham welcomes three strangers with real generosity, before he knows anything about them. Think of a time you welcomed someone new — a new student, a new neighbor, or a visitor. What did you do, and how did it turn out? 4–6 sentences. End by saying one thing you learned from it.
You can start with: “One time I welcomed someone new was…”
Write your response on paper or in a notebook. This section is for print and take-home use; it is not scored online.
Part 7 Complete!
You finished Genesis 18–20 of Genesis: Creation to Isaac.
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