“... The targumim also left no doubts as to the nature of the three "men" of the biblical text. As expected, they are identified as angels, an identification most probably prompted by the biblical text itself, which (in Gen 18:22) asserts that the "men" went towards Sodom and that that "two angels" came to Sodom in the evening (on Gen 19:1).7 [...] One of the manuscripts from Qumran cave 4, 4Q180, makes the same identification explicit. In frag. 2 ii 3-4 it is flatly asserted: "The three men [who] appear[ed to Abraha]m at the oak of Mamre are angels". Cf. DSSSE, 372-3, and the contribution by Tigchelaar in this volume, above, esp. 52-7. [...] Gen. Rab. 50:2 explains the reason for calling them both angels and men: "[And the two angels came to Sodom.] Here you call them angels, whereas earlier they were termed men? Earlier, when the Shechinah was above them, they were men; but as soon as the Shechinah departed from them they assumed the form of angels. R. Levi said: To Abraham, whose [religious] strength was great, they looked like men; but to Lot they appeared as angels, because his strength was feeble. ...”