<b>And he lifted up his eyes and looked, and lo, three men stood over against him; and when he saw them, he ran to meet them (Gen. 18:1).</b> Thereupon the blood flowed once again from his circumcision. The Holy One, blessed be He, said to Him: By your life, in reward for your meritorious behavior, I will have compassion upon your descendants in two situations involving blood, and I will exact retribution from their enemies through blood. It is said: <i>When I passed by thee, and saw thee wallowing in thy blood</i> (Ezek. 16:6). Two different experiences relating to blood are indicated here, for Scripture says immediately thereafter: <i>I said unto thee: In thy blood, live</i> (ibid.). The word <i>blood</i> in the first verse refers to the blood of the paschal lamb.<sup class="footnote-marker">4</sup><i class="footnote">Bava Mezia 87a. The blood of the lamb on the doorposts in Egypt.</i> The word <i>blood</i> in the second, <i>yea, I said unto thee: In thy blood, live</i> (ibid.), refers to the blood of the circumcision.
<i>When he saw them, he ran to meet them</i> (Gen. 18:1). The Holy One, blessed be He, said to him: In reward for hastening three times, I will hasten three times to your descendants at the time of the giving of the Torah. The three times when Abraham hastened are as follows: <i>And when he saw them, he ran to meet them,</i> etc. (ibid.); <i>And Abraham hastened into the tent</i> (ibid., v. 6); <i>And Abraham ran unto the herd</i> (ibid., v. 7). What did the Holy One, blessed be He, do for his descendants at Sinai? It is said: <i>And he said: The Lord came from Sinai, and rose from Seir unto them; He shined forth from Mount Paran</i> (Deut. 33:2).
<i>Because you said: Let now a little water be fetched, and wash your feet, and recline yourselves under the tree</i> (Gen. 18:4), I will give the precept of the paschal lamb to thy descendants, as it is said: <i>They shall fetch to them every man a lamb</i> (Exod. 12:3). Because you said to them <i>Let now</i> (<i>na</i>), I will give your descendants the ordinance of the Passover: <i>You shall not eat of it raw</i> (<i>na</i>) (ibid., v. 20). Because you did say <i>A little,</i> I will drive their enemies away little by little, as it is said: <i>By little and little I will drive them out from before you</i> (ibid. 23:30). Inasmuch as you said <i>water,</i> I will give them a well in the desert, as is said: <i>Spring up, O well</i> (Num. 21:7). Since you said <i>wash your feet,</i> I will wash away all the impurity of your descendants, as it is said: <i>When the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughter of Zion</i> (Isa. 4:4). Because you did say: <i>Recline yourselves under a tree,</i> I will give them the precept of the sukkah, as it is written: <i>Go forth unto the mount and fetch olive branches</i> (Neh. 8:15). In return for your saying: <i>I will fetch a morsel of bread, I will cause to rain bread from heaven</i> (Exod. 16:4). And inasmuch as you offered <i>curd and milk, I will give you curd of kine and milk of sheep</i> (Deut. 32:14).
From this episode our sages taught that the righteous say little but do much. Abraham said: <i>I will fetch a morsel of bread, and stay ye your heart,</i> although he actually prepared three oxen and nine measures of meal for them, as is stated: <i>And Abraham hastened into the tent unto Sarah and said: “Make ready quickly three measures of fine meal</i> (<i>s’im kemah solet</i>); <i>knead it and make cakes”</i> (Gen. 18:6). This verse indicates that nine measures were used in all: <i>three measures, three measures of fine,</i> and <i>three measures of meal,</i> totaling nine measures in all.<sup class="footnote-marker">5</sup><i class="footnote">The terms <i>s’im, kemah,</i> and <i>solet</i> each indicate a different kind of flour.</i>
How do we know that he took three oxen? It is written: <i>And he took an offspring of an ox, tender and good</i> (ibid., v. 8). <i>An offspring</i> stands for one ox; <i>an ox</i> for a second; and <i>tender</i> for the third ox. Others insist that the word <i>good</i> indicates that he took a fourth ox.
The Holy One, blessed be He, also promised little to Israel but did much in her behalf, as it is said: <i>Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs…. that nation whom they serve will I judge</i> (Gen. 15:13–14). He promised at first to judge the nations with the letters <i>dalet</i> and <i>nun</i> (which spell <i>dan</i>, “judge”), but ultimately He exacted retribution from them by means of seventy-two letters, as implied in the verse <i>Or hath God assayed to go and take Him a nation from the midst of another nation by trials, by signs, and by wonders, and by war, and by a mighty hand, and by an outstretched arm, and by great terrors?</i> (Deut. 4:34). R. Yudan explained that there are seventy-two Hebrew letters between the words <i>to go</i> until <i>great terrors</i>.
Whence do we know that the wicked say much but do not do even a little? We find this illustrated by Ephron, who at first said to Abraham: <i>The field I give thee, and the cave that is therein I give thee</i> (Gen. 23:11), only to declare later: <i>The land is worth four hundred shekels of silver, what is that betwixt me and thee?</i> (ibid., v. 15), which it was not worth.
R. Hanina stated: Whenever a shekel is mentioned in the Pentateuch, its value is a sela; when it is mentioned in the Prophets, its value is a litra; and when it is referred to in the Hagiographa, its worth is that of a centenaria.<sup class="footnote-marker">6</sup><i class="footnote">1 sela = 1 sacred shekel or 2 common shekels; 1 litra = 1/4 shekel; 1 centenaria = 100,000 sesterces.</i> But the shekel mentioned by Ephron had the value of a centenaria, for it is written: <i>For the full price, let him give it to me in the midst of you for a possession of a burying-place</i> (Gen. 23:9).