Peradventure there be fifty righteous within the city. A charitable supposition, as the event showed, though at first sight it might not appear so to Abraham; and the bare Possibility of Sodom's—not Sodom alone (Kalisch), but the Pentapolis—containing so many good men was enough to afford a basis for the argument which followed.
Wilt thou also destroy and not spare—literally, take away (sc. the iniquity) i.e. remove the punishment from—the place (not the godly portion of the city merely, but the entire population; a complete discovery of Abraham's design) for the fifty righteous that are therein?