Scripture Verse

Will You sweep away the righteous with the wicked? What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will You really sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it? Far be it from You to do such a thing—to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from You! Will not the Judge of all the earth do right? The Lord said, If I find fifty righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake. Genesis 18:23–26

Introduction

portrait
Philip Doddridge
1702–1751

Words: Phi­lip Dodd­ridge (1702–1751). Pub­lished post­hu­mous­ly in Hymns Found­ed on Var­i­ous Texts in the Ho­ly Scrip­tures, by Job Or­ton (Shrop­shire, Eng­land: Jo­shua Ed­dowes & John Cot­ton, 1755), num­ber 3, alt. Abraham’s Intercession for Sodom. Abra­ham knew that God is just, and that right­eous be­liev­ers in the city act­ed as (us­ing mo­dern ter­min­ol­o­gy) hu­man shields against di­vine wrath. How­ev­er, once the last of the faith­ful de­part­ed, pro­tec­tion end­ed, and judg­ment en­sued.

Music: Pen­te­cost (Boyd) Will­iam Boyd, 1864. First pub­lished in Thirty-Two Hymn Tunes Com­posed by Mem­bers of the Un­i­ver­si­ty of Ox­ford, 1868 (🔊 pdf nwc).

illustration
Abraham Sees Sodom in Flames
James J. Tissot
1836–1902

Lyrics

Great God! did pious Abram pray
For Sodom’s vile abandoned race?
And shall not now Thy Church arouse
Our nation to implore Thy grace?

Base as we are, does not Thine eye
Its chosen thousands here survey?
Whose souls, deep humbled, mourn the crowds,
Who walk in sin’s destructive way?

O Judge supreme, let not Thy sword
The righteous with the wicked smite;
Nor bury in promiscuous heaps
Rebels and saints, Thy chief delight.

For these Thy children, spare the land;
Avert the thunders big with death;
Nor let the seeds of latent fire
Be kindled by Thy flaming breath.

O! be not angry, mighty God,
While dust and ashes seek Thy face;
But gently bending from Thy throne,
Renew, and still increase Thy grace.

Jesus the Intercessor hear,
And for His sake Thy grace impart
Which, while it stops the fiery stream,
Dissolves the most obdurate heart.

Sodom shall change to Zion then,
And heavenly dews be scattered round,
That plants of paradise may spring,
Where baleful poisons cursed the ground.