So, somehow in all the other times (like a half dozen or so, maybe) that I’ve read Genesis 18, I didn’t remark on Abraham’s three visitors in the first part of the chapter. Well, maybe I did, but when I read it tonight, it seemed like the first time I read it. You see, I didn’t grow up in a Christian home that read these stories, so I don’t have a category for what’s going on here.

As I read this account, it seems to me that the Lord God said He was going to appear to Abraham, and at the beginning of this chapter He does. And Abraham sees the Lord God in the form of three men. Now, come on, that’s pretty cool and you’ve got to admit that there are some pretty interesting potential implications about God if I’m understanding things right.

I asked Jenny about it, and she seems to think that her Golden Arch books had pictures of regular men for Abraham’s visitors. My ESV study Bible (heh, I just mis-spelled it as “stuffy” Bible,) states that the due to the Hebrew spelling of the word for Lord in verse 3, that Abraham recognizes that one of his visitors is a divine manifestation.

I’m curious to know what some of you scholars, or long time Christians who may have been taught about this. Does Abraham receive a visit from God and three men, are these three men God visiting Abraham, or is one of these men the Lord visiting Abraham. How do you understand this and what’s the significance of the three visitors as you understand the encounter?