Genesis 18:23 opens with one of the most audacious words in the Patriarchal narratives: וַיִּגַּשׁ אַבְרָהָם (vayigash Avraham) — "and Abraham drew near." The verb נגש (nagash) — to draw near, to approach — is used of someone approaching for battle, of a priest approaching the altar, of a litigant approaching a judge. Abraham is not merely walking. He is stepping into a proximity that most people would flee.
His opening question is his thesis: "Will You indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?" He is not asking whether Sodom will be destroyed. He already knows the answer to that. He is asking a prior, deeper question: what is the relationship between righteousness and judgment? If Yah destroys the righteous alongside the guilty, then righteousness has no protective power — and the covenant that has structured Abraham's entire life, which promises blessing to those who walk uprightly, is built on sand.
He escalates to the phrase that is the moral center of the argument: הֲשֹׁפֵט כָּל-הָאָרֶץ לֹא יַעֲשֶׂה מִשְׁפָּט (hashofet kol-ha'aretz lo ya'aseh mishpat) — "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?" He is invoking Yah's own character as the standard against which the act must be measured. The word חָלִלָה (chalilah) — translated "far be it from You" — is a strong oath-negation: God forbid, sacrilege. Abraham uses it twice in three verses (18:25). He is not asking. He is arguing.
