This chapter has so many key moments! Personally, if I were markings the divisions in the Torah, I would have divided this chapter into two: the first half with Abraham and Sarah, and the second with Abraham bargaining for the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah.
The first part: three men, believed by many biblical commentators to be angelic messengers of God, come to visit Abraham. He displays generous hospitality, and they in turn bring him news that Sarah will give birth to a son the following year.
Famously, the elderly Sarah laughs. While this laughter can be viewed as a disbelief at God’s ability to perform wonders, I see it as a distinctly human moment in the Torah. Nervousness, disbelief, incredulous shock. These things, all of which Sarah surely felt, result in laughter. So why not express that?
In the second section of the chapter, Abraham walks the angels out of his dwelling, along the road to Sodom. God has already decided to destroy the city, and shares this information with Abraham. In another famous exchange, Abraham bargains with God for the fates of Sodom and Gomorrah. He asks if God will spare the cities if he finds fifty righteous people within, and then forty, all the way down to ten. God agrees to spare the wicked cities, if these righteous men can be found.
This exchange is amazing. Abraham, the obedient servant of God, who left all that he knew without question, argues with God. He argues for the lives of wicked men, strangers to him. He uses his relationship with God, his chosen status, to negotiate. Why now? Why is this the point when Abraham chooses to question?
I think it says something about the duty of the chosen people to stand up, to use this close relationship with God to help others whenever we can. While in the case of Sodom and Gomorrah, the bargaining was for naught in the end, as there weren’t ten righteous men, the principle still remains: God will listen to the cries and questions of His people. We have the power to make a difference.
929 Days of Tanakh 
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