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               Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked?

To the mind that is yet to graduate from theological puerility, some Bible characters have swung open the doors of the possibility to counsel God. “After all ‘concerning the work of my hands command ye me’ is what Isaiah reads,” becomes their scriptural submission.

A counsellor’s beam on the darkened side of an individual’s life, with an intention to make one see clearly and to succeed, is purely advisory. The submission of Moses in his bid to assuage God’s ire was nothing short of counselling. Let us read Exodus 32:9-14, 9) “And the LORD said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people: 10) Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation. 11) And Moses besought the LORD his God, and said, LORD, why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people, which thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power, and with a mighty hand? 12) Wherefore should the Egyptians speak, and say, For mischief did he bring them out, to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from thy fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against thy people. 13) Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou swarest by thine own self, and saidst unto them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed, and they shall inherit it for ever. 14) And the LORD repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people.” God was visibly irked, being the One to call them ‘stiffnecked people.’ But the question truly is, can God be counselled?

“Peradventure ten shall be found there?”

In the book of Genesis 18:22-32, Abraham is seen in a conversational rapport with Jehovah. Verses 18:22-26 read, 22) “And the men turned their faces from thence, and went toward Sodom: but Abraham stood yet before the LORD. 23) And Abraham drew near, and said, Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked? 24) Peradventure there be fifty righteous within the city: wilt thou also destroy and not spare the place for the fifty righteous that are therein? 25) That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? 26) And the LORD said, If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes.” Abraham continued to haggle from fifty to a minimal few in order to save Sodom and Gomorrah. Verse 32 reads, “And he said, Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak yet but this once: Peradventure ten shall be found there. And he said, I will not destroy it for ten’s sake.” In both scenarios God heeded to the counsel of each character. Whether the Lord God can be counselled or not can only be answered by His protocol, the Bible. Let us consult the Scriptures.

                              “Who hath directed the Spirit of the LORD?”

Isaiah 40:13-14 read, 13) “Who hath directed the Spirit of the LORD, or being his counsellor hath taught him? 14) With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and shewed to him the way of understanding?” An earlier Old Testament saint, Job went rhetorical in Job 21:22, “Shall any teach God knowledge? seeing he judgeth those that are high.” Paul evidently quoted Isaiah in his scripting of Romans 11:34, “For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor?” The next verse asks, “Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again?”

                                                                       WHO?

 (…to be concluded…)

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