1 And at nightfall the two angels came to Sodom; and Lot was seated at the way into the town: and when he saw them he got up and came before them, falling down on his face to the earth.
2 And he said, My masters, come now into your servant's house and take your rest there for the night, and let your feet be washed; and early in the morning you may go on your way. And they said, Not so, but we will take our night's rest in the street.
3 But he made his request more strongly, so they went with him into his house; and he got food ready for them, and made unleavened bread, of which they took.
4 But before they had gone to bed, the men of the town, all the men of Sodom, came round the house, young and old, from every part of the town;
5 And crying out to Lot, they said, Where are the men who came to your house this night? Send them out to us, so that we may take our pleasure with them.
6 And Lot went out to them in the doorway, shutting the door after him.
7 And he said, My brothers, do not this evil.
8 See now, I have two unmarried daughters; I will send them out to you so that you may do to them whatever seems good to you: only do nothing to these men, for this is why they have come under the shade of my roof.
9 And they said, Give way there. This one man, they said, came here from a strange country, and will he now be our judge? now we will do worse to you than to them; and pushing violently against Lot, they came near to get the door broken in.
10 But the men put out their hands and took Lot into the house to them, shutting the door again.
11 But the men who were outside the door they made blind, all of them, small and great, so that they were tired out with looking for the door.
12 Then the men said to Lot, Are there any others of your family here? sons-in-law or sons or daughters, take them all out of this place;
13 For we are about to send destruction on this place, because a great outcry against them has come to the ears of the Lord; and the Lord has sent us to put an end to the town.
14 And Lot went out and said to his sons-in-law, who were married to his daughters, Come, let us go out of this place, for the Lord is about to send destruction on the town. But his sons-in-law did not take him seriously.
15 And when morning came, the angels did all in their power to make Lot go, saying, Get up quickly and take your wife and your two daughters who are here, and go, for fear that you come to destruction in the punishment of the town.
16 But while he was waiting, the men took him and his wife and his daughters by the hand, for the Lord had mercy on them, and put them outside the town.
17 And when they had put them out, he said, Go for your life, without looking back or waiting in the lowland; go quickly to the mountain or you will come to destruction.
18 And Lot said to them, Not so, O my Lord;
19 See now, your servant has had grace in your eyes and great is your mercy in keeping my life from destruction, but I am not able to get as far as the mountain before evil overtakes me and death;
20 This town, now, is near, and it is a little one: O, let me go there (is it not a little one?) so that my life may be safe.
21 And he said, See, I have given you your request in this one thing more: I will not send destruction on this town.
22 Go there quickly, for I am not able to do anything till you have come there. For this reason, the town was named Zoar.
23 The sun was up when Lot came to Zoar.
24 Then the Lord sent fire and flaming smoke raining down from heaven on Sodom and Gomorrah.
25 And he sent destruction on those towns, with all the lowland and all the people of those towns and every green thing in the land.
26 But Lot's wife, looking back, became a pillar of salt.
27 And Abraham got up early in the morning and went to the place where he had been talking with the Lord:
28 And looking in the direction of Sodom and Gomorrah and the lowland, he saw the smoke of the land going up like the smoke of an oven.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible » Commentary on Genesis 19
Commentary on Genesis 19 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 19
Ge 19:1-38. Lot's Entertainment.
1. there came two angels—most probably two of those that had been with Abraham, commissioned to execute the divine judgment against Sodom.
Lot sat in the gate of Sodom—In Eastern cities it is the market, the seat of justice, of social intercourse and amusement, especially a favorite lounge in the evenings, the arched roof affording a pleasant shade.
2. turn in, I pray you … tarry all night—offer of the same generous hospitalities as described in Ge 18:2-8, and which are still spontaneously practised in the small towns.
And they said, Nay; but we will abide in the street all night—Where there are no inns and no acquaintance, it is not uncommon for travellers to sleep in the street wrapped up in their cloaks.
3. entered into his house—On removing to the plain, Lot intended at first to live in his tent apart from the people [Ge 13:12]. But he was gradually drawn in, dwelt in the city, and he and his family were connected with the citizens by marriage ties.
4. men of Sodom, compassed the house—Appalling proofs are here given of their wickedness. It is evident that evil communications had corrupted good manners; otherwise Lot would never have acted as he did.
12, 13. Hast thou here any besides? … we will destroy this place—Apostolic authority has declared Lot was "a righteous man" (2Pe 2:8), at bottom good, though he contented himself with lamenting the sins that he saw, instead of acting on his own convictions, and withdrawing himself and family from such a sink of corruption. But favor was shown him: and even his bad relatives had, for his sake, an offer of deliverance, which was ridiculed and spurned (2Pe 3:4).
15-17. The kindly interest the angels took in the preservation of Lot is beautifully displayed. But he "lingered." Was it from sorrow at the prospect of losing all his property, the acquisition of many years? Or was it that his benevolent heart was paralyzed by thoughts of the awful crisis? This is the charitable way of accounting for a delay that would have been fatal but for the friendly urgency of the angel.
18, 19. Lot said … Oh, not so, my Lord … I cannot escape to the mountain—What a strange want of faith and fortitude, as if He who had interfered for his rescue would not have protected Lot in the mountain solitude.
21. See, I have accepted thee concerning this … also—His request was granted him, the prayer of faith availed, and to convince him, from his own experience, that it would have been best and safest at once to follow implicitly the divine directions.
22. Haste … for I cannot do any thing till thou be come thither—The ruin of Sodom was suspended till he was secure. What care God does take of His people (Re 7:3)! What a proof of the love which God bore to a good though weak man!
24. Then the Lord rained … brimstone and fire from … heaven—God, in accomplishing His purposes, acts immediately or mediately through the agency of means; and there are strong grounds for believing that it was in the latter way He effected the overthrow of the cities of the plain—that it was, in fact, by a volcanic eruption. The raining down of fire and brimstone from heaven is perfectly accordant with this idea since those very substances, being raised into the air by the force of the volcano, would fall in a fiery shower on the surrounding region. This view seems countenanced by Job [Job 1:16; 18:15]. Whether it was miraculously produced, or the natural operation employed by God, it is not of much consequence to determine: it was a divine judgment, foretold and designed for the punishment of those who were sinners exceedingly.
26. Lot was accompanied by his wife and two daughters. But whether it was from irresistible curiosity or perturbation of feeling, or that she was about to return to save something, his wife lingered, and while thus disobeying the parting counsel, "to look not back, nor stay in all the plain" [Ge 19:17], the torrent of liquid lava enveloped her so that she became the victim of her supine indolence or sinful rashness.
27. Abraham gat up early in the morning, &c.—Abraham was at this time in Mamre, near Hebron, and a traveller last year verified the truth of this passage. "From the height which overlooks Hebron, where the patriarch stood, the observer at the present day has an extensive view spread out before him towards the Dead Sea. A cloud of smoke rising from the plain would be visible to a person at Hebron now, and could have been, therefore, to Abraham as he looked toward Sodom on the morning of its destruction by God" [Hackett]. It must have been an awful sight, and is frequently alluded to in Scripture (De 29:23; Isa 13:19; Jude 7). "The plain which is now covered by the Salt or Dead Sea shows in the great difference of level between the bottoms of the northern and southern ends of the lake—the latter being thirteen feet and the former thirteen hundred—that the southern end was of recent formation, and submerged at the time of the fall of the cities" [Lynch].
29. when God destroyed the cities, &c.—This is most welcome and instructive after so painful a narrative. It shows if God is a "consuming fire" to the wicked [De 4:24; Heb 12:29], He is the friend of the righteous. He "remembered" the intercessions of Abraham, and what confidence should not this give us that He will remember the intercessions of a greater than Abraham in our behalf.