Oaks of Mamre: Who Appeared to Abraham?

Question 2115.

The oaks of Mamre witnessed one of the most remarkable afternoons in the Old Testament: the day God came to lunch. Genesis 18 opens without any drumroll – “And the LORD appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the door of his tent in the heat of the day” (Genesis 18:1). Abraham looks up and sees three men standing nearby. By the chapter’s end, one of those three has eaten Sarah’s bread, promised her a son within the year, and stood with Abraham haggling over the fate of Sodom. So who appeared to Abraham at the oaks of Mamre that day?

The answer matters more than curiosity. Get the visitors at the oaks of Mamre right and you learn something profound about the God who draws near, eats with sinners and invites intercession. Get them wrong – as one popular interpretation does – and you muddle the doctrine of God Himself. Let us take it slowly.

Three Visitors at the Oaks of Mamre

A word about the place itself, because the oaks of Mamre were no random picnic spot. Abram had settled by the oaks of Mamre years earlier, and the first thing he built there was an altar to the LORD (Genesis 13:18). Mamre – named for Abraham’s Amorite ally (Genesis 14:13) – lay at Hebron, where Abraham would later buy the cave of Machpelah to bury Sarah (Genesis 23:17-19). In other words, the oaks of Mamre marked Abraham’s long-standing place of worship; the LORD came visiting where His friend had long been calling on His name. God’s appearances are sudden, but they are rarely unconnected to a settled life of devotion.

Watch Abraham first, because his behaviour is a sermon in itself. The moment he sees the three men he runs – a hundred-year-old patriarch, running in the heat of the day – bows to the earth, fetches water for their feet, and sets Sarah and a servant to work producing a feast which he then serves standing, like a waiter, while they eat under the tree (18:2-8). Whether or not Abraham knew at first glance whom he was hosting, the writer to the Hebrews holds the scene up as the great example of hospitality: “for thereby some have entertained angels unawares” (Hebrews 13:2).

Then the conversation turns, and one of the three speaks with a voice no angel would dare borrow: “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife shall have a son” (18:10). When Sarah laughs behind the tent flap, the narrator drops the disguise altogether: “The LORD said to Abraham, ‘Why did Sarah laugh?… Is anything too hard for the LORD?'” (18:13-14). From there to the end of the chapter the text simply calls this visitor the LORD – YHWH, the covenant name I have explored in What is the name YHWH?

One LORD and Two Angels

So were all three visitors divine? Scripture answers with simple arithmetic. At the end of the meal, “the men turned from there and went towards Sodom, but Abraham still stood before the LORD” (18:22) – the party divides, and the LORD stays. Then the very next verse of the story confirms the count: “The two angels came to Sodom in the evening” (19:1). Three men came to the oaks of Mamre; two were angels bound for Sodom; the third was the LORD Himself, who remained to talk with His friend. The narrative could hardly be clearer.

This is why, with respect to a long artistic tradition, I must part company with the popular idea that Abraham hosted the Trinity at his table – a reading made famous by Rublev’s celebrated icon of the three figures. It is a lovely painting and a poor interpretation. The text itself names two of the three as created angels and sends them off on an errand; and in any case the Trinity is not three men sitting side by side, but one God in three persons – tritheism in oils is still tritheism. What Abraham hosted at the oaks of Mamre was one divine Person attended by two angelic servants. The Old Testament does whisper the Trinity, but it does so in better ways, as I have shown in Is the Trinity in the Old Testament?

The Pre-Incarnate Son at the Oaks of Mamre

Which divine Person, then, sat under the trees? Here the New Testament guides us. “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known” (John 1:18). The Father remains the unseen fountain of deity; whenever God is seen, the seeing comes through the Son, “the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15). I am persuaded, therefore, that the LORD who ate beneath the oaks of Mamre was the Son of God in pre-incarnate appearance – a Christophany, of the kind I have described in What is a Christophany?

And Jesus Himself dropped a tantalising hint in that direction: “Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad” (John 8:56). Abraham saw more of Christ than most readers imagine. Consider what happened at that meal: the Lord accepted water for His feet, sat in the shade, ate curds and bread and beef prepared by human hands. Centuries before Bethlehem, the Son was rehearsing, if I may put it reverently, the table fellowship that would one day scandalise the Pharisees. The God who ate with Abraham would become the man who ate with tax collectors and sinners – and the form He wore at Mamre for an afternoon, He would one day take up for ever.

Standing Before the LORD: The First Great Intercession

The visit ends with one of the most extraordinary conversations in Scripture. The LORD, having shared His plans for Sodom – “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?” (18:17) – stands and receives Abraham’s intercession, as the patriarch pleads down from fifty righteous to ten. The boldness takes your breath away:

“Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?”

Genesis 18:25 (ESV)

Notice the marriage of audacity and reverence: Abraham presses hard – six times! – yet every petition is wrapped in “I who am but dust and ashes” (18:27). And notice that the LORD welcomed it. He did not need Abraham’s arithmetic to do justice; He drew His friend into the counsel of His justice, because that is what friendship with God looks like – “Abraham believed God… and he was called a friend of God” (James 2:23). Whether and how such prayer engages the purposes of an all-knowing God is a question I have tackled in Does prayer change God’s mind? – but the plain lesson of Mamre is that God invites His people to plead boldly for doomed cities.

Why This Visit, and Why Then?

Step back and ask what the visit to the oaks of Mamre accomplished. Two things, twinned deliberately. First, the confirmation of the promise: Sarah herself heard, from the LORD’s own lips and with a date attached, that the longed-for son would come – and her sceptical laughter was met not with thunder but with the question that has steadied believers ever since: “Is anything too hard for the LORD?” Second, the revelation of judgement: Sodom’s cup was full, and God would not act without taking His covenant partner into His confidence. Grace and judgement, a baby and a burning city, announced at the same table.

That pairing is the gospel’s shape in miniature. The same Lord who brings life out of Sarah’s dead womb must deal justly with entrenched evil; and between the two stands an intercessor pleading for the righteous. Abraham’s six petitions stopped at ten righteous souls. His greater Son’s intercession does not stop at all – “he always lives to make intercession” for those who draw near (Hebrews 7:25).

So, now what?

Three takeaways, one from each movement of the chapter. From the meal: practise hospitality, and practise it with Abraham’s eagerness rather than the modern shrug. You will probably not host angels – though Hebrews 13:2 leaves the door deliciously ajar – but every act of generous welcome is done, Jesus says, to Him (Matthew 25:40). The God who accepted Abraham’s curds notices your casseroles.

From the promise: bring God your barren places and your behind-the-tent-flap laughter. Sarah’s scepticism did not cancel the promise; “Is anything too hard for the LORD?” outlasted her doubt, and a year later she named her boy Laughter. God is gloriously unembarrassed by our private incredulity.

And from the intercession: find your Sodom and stand before the LORD about it. Somewhere there is a city, a workplace, a family, a person whose situation looks fit only for fire – and the lesson of the oaks of Mamre is that God tells His friends what He is doing precisely so that they will plead. Who, this week, has no one standing before the LORD for them – except you?