And he lifted his eyes and saw and behold three men are standing on him, and he saw and he ran towards them from the entrance of the tent and he bowed to the ground.
The Ohr Hachaim asks a number of pshat questions.
First, why does the possuk add the word ‘behold’? What is the purpose of this?
Second, the possuk says that they were standing. Was this not obvious? They had just arrived, where would they sit? And what is the Torah telling us with this fact that they were standing?
If the Torah meant to tell us that they were standing right on top of him, the Torah disproves that, by telling us that he ran towards them. They were obviously some distance from him.
Third, why does the Torah repeat the fact that Avraham ‘saw’? What did he see twice?
Fourth, why did he bow down to them? What did they do to deserve that? He did not know that they were angels, he should have suspected them of being idol worshippers.
The Ohr Hachaim explains that the Torah is indeed based on the fact that eventually these ‘people’ were shown to be Mal’achim, who masqueraded as people and came to serve as guests in Avraham’s house for their own reasons.
For this reason, the Torah could not write that Avraham saw three people. It would not be true; they were not three people. That is why the Torah says that he saw and ‘behold’ three men were standing there. They were only men in the eyes of the beholder. They were ‘standing there’ which denotes that they ready to carry out their jobs. They were Mal’achim standing at attention. Avraham realized right away that one was sent to heal him, one was sent to give him the news about Yitzchok and one was sent to overturn Sedom. All of them were there for Avraham Avinu’s benefit. Even the third one, whose job was to overturn Sedom, waited all day to do so, leaving Avraham time to daven. He was also under Avraham’s control.
Another allusion from the word ‘standing’ is that they stood as though they were people. The reason they stood like that is because עליו – for him. They wished to grant him the merit of Hachnasas Orchim, so they stood like people, ready to accept his gifts. They masqueraded as people for his purpose.
The second וירא – and he saw – was not when he recognized that they were angels. As we saw, Avraham already recognized them.
The Ohr Hachaim explains that when he saw them a second time, he was healed from his pain. The angel that was sent to heal him did his job from afar. Now Avraham could run towards them.
This is why he bowed to them. In gratitude for what they had just done for him, he bowed to them until the ground.
