Having made his first bold plea for the sparing of Sodom, Abraham now directly rejects by exclamation the very thought that God would destroy innocent people with the guilty.

Far be it from thee to do such a thing: this is equivalent to “God forbid that…,” but it is used here in speaking about God’s own action. This formula is used frequently throughout the Old Testament. See for example Josh 22.29; 24.16; 1 Sam 2.30. Good News Translation says “surely you won’t…,” Bible en français courant “No, you could not act that way,” Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch “Certainly you cannot kill….” In some languages a strong negative command is the natural expression of the formula: “Don’t even think of….”

To slay the righteous with the wicked: this phrase makes plain what is meant by “to do such a thing” (Hebrew “act in this way”). It may not be necessary to retain the more general “act in this way,” and we can say “Surely you could not kill the innocent people with the guilty people.” Since the LORD has already suggested that he is going to punish the people of Sodom (verses 20-21), some translations express the first part of this verse as “You are about to kill good people with the bad ones. That is not right.”

So that the righteous fare as the wicked: literally this is “so it will be as the righteous, as the wicked”; this means “so that the innocent suffer the same as the guilty.” This may need to be brought out more fully in translation; one translation, for instance, has “If you did that, it would mean that, when you punish, you treat good people and bad people the same way. But that’s ridiculous!”

Far be that from thee is the same exclamation as in the first part of the verse.

Abraham’s speech is constructed so that the destruction of the innocent must be rejected by God, who is the judge. Therefore Far be it from thee occurs twice, and the contrast of righteous and wicked also occurs twice. Do such a thing in the first part of the verse contrasts with do right in the second.

Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?: Abraham now asks a rhetorical question. Judge and do right are forms of the same Hebrew word, much like English “judge” and “judgment.” However, “judgment” here has the sense of “just judgment,” that is, “make a just decision,” or “act justly” (Good News Translation). The rhetorical question may need to be expressed as a strong positive statement in some languages; for example, “You are the judge of all the world! You only judge people justly!”

The expression Judge of all the earth shifts the perspective from a small town near the Dead Sea to the whole world. A similar expression is used in Psa 94.2. The expression refers to the worldwide scope of God’s judgment and may require adjustments in some languages. For example, “You are the one who judges all the people of the earth, and so you are required to judge them justly” or “You are the judge over all the earth’s people. So you must judge them justly.”

Some translations prefer to bring this last statement up to the beginning of the verse; for example, “You are the one who judges people in every country, and you have to give everyone a fair go. You can’t wipe out the good people with the bad—that’s not right.”

Quoted with permission from Reyburn, William D. and Fry, Euan McG. A Handbook on Genesis. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .