Three Angels at Abraham's Tent Each Carried One Task

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A Hole Was Opened Into Gehinnom to Heat the Day

Three days after Abraham circumcised himself and every male in his household, he was in a great deal of pain, and Rabban Gamaliel said the pain was deliberate. It was there to test him.

So was the weather. The Holy One pierced a single hole in the roof of Gehinnom (the realm of judgment after death) that morning and let the heat come up through it, until the day over Mamre burned the way the day of the wicked burns. Ninety nine years old, three days from the knife, and the air outside was a furnace.

Abraham went out and sat in the entrance of his tent anyway.

Then somebody came down the road toward him.

Come, the Holy One said to the ministering angels. Let us go down and visit the sick. Visiting the sick is a great virtue in My sight.

And they went down, all of them together, to a tent flap in the heat.

Look, He said to the angels while they were standing there. Look at what circumcision does. Before this man was cut, he fell on his face in front of Me and I spoke to him lying down. Now he sits, and I stand.

Abraham lifted his eyes. Three men were standing over against him, and one of them had just finished speaking.

The Old Man Ran

He ran to meet them. That is the detail the tradition never lets go of: the wound, the age, the heat, and the running.

He bowed to the ground and pressed them until they turned aside. Water came for their feet. He put them under a tree, went and picked out a calf, tender and good, and handed it to his servant Eliezer to slaughter and dress, then went into the tent and told Sarah to take three measures of fine meal and make cakes, quickly. He could not wait for the calf. He carried out butter and milk and beef and mutton first and set it in front of them while the calf was still cooking, and they ate.

When they had finished, one of them spoke. I will return to you according to the time of life, he said, and Sarah your wife shall have a son.

Then the men left, each going to the place he had been sent.

One Errand Each

Not one messenger doing three things on the way through. Three messengers, one job apiece, and when the job is finished the messenger is finished with it. The one who put a son into Sarah's ninetieth year could not turn around and burn a city on the same trip. Announcement and annihilation do not fit in the same set of hands.

The rule has held since Nimrod heated a furnace for seven days and threw a young man into it for smashing his father's idols. The angels crowded forward, each one wanting the rescue, and the Holy One would not give it to any of them. I am one in My world, He said, and he is one in his generation. He went down and got him out Himself, and Abraham came out of the fire without a mark.

What the Second Angel Was Walking Toward

The two who went south had seen the paperwork.

A man from Elam once came through Sodom late and had nowhere to sleep, and a local named Hedad offered him a bed. In the morning the traveler's fine mantle and his cord were gone. He asked for them back. Hedad explained that during the night he had interpreted the man's dream: the cord signified a long life, the mantle a fruitful vineyard. Then he named his fee for the interpretation.

The traveler took it to court. Serak the judge of Sodom heard both men out and complimented Hedad on his skill with dreams. The Elamite was driven out of the city, and he went down the road weeping, and the merchants along it laughed at him, and that was simply how the town worked. Four times a year the whole population went out to a valley full of springs to celebrate, and what they celebrated there was worse.

The fire that came down on that place at dawn had an address and one instruction.

One Word on the Mountain

Years later a third angel got the shortest errand of all.

On the summit Isaac spoke first. Bind my hands and my feet, father, he said, so that in my fear I do not curse you and break the commandment. Abraham bound him and laid him on the wood and set the fire and braced both arms and both knees over his son, and he did it the way a high priest brings a meal offering and a drink offering, in order, without hurrying. Then he stretched out his hand and took the knife.

Above them the Holy One was sitting and watching a father binding with his whole heart and a son bound with his whole heart, and the ministering angels came apart. The Erelim cried out. The angels of peace wept bitterly. Sovereign of all the worlds, they said, You are called merciful and compassionate. He is a human being and the son of a human being, and he is tied up in front of You like an animal.

One voice called out of heaven. It said his name twice and told him not to send his hand against the boy. Nothing else. The ram was already standing in the thicket with its horns caught, and had been for some time.

The Last Visitor Wore a Beautiful Face

When the last errand came, God gave that one its instructions too: hide your ferocity, He told the Angel of Death, cover your decay, put on youthful beauty, and speak to him softly. Abraham smelled something sweet at the tent door and looked up at a young man in glory, and refused to go with him, and demanded to see what was underneath. He was shown seven fiery dragon heads, a lion's face, a horned serpent, a cobra. He asked for the beautiful face back. Then he lay down, and the visitor said, kiss my right hand and strength will come to you, and Abraham kissed it, and his soul came away on the angel's palm. Michael caught it in woven linen and carried it up.