1 And two of the messengers come towards Sodom at even, and Lot is sitting at the gate of Sodom, and Lot seeth, and riseth to meet them, and boweth himself -- face to the earth,
2 and he saith, `Lo, I pray you, my lords, turn aside, I pray you, unto the house of your servant, and lodge, and wash your feet -- then ye have risen early and gone on your way;' and they say, `Nay, but in the broad place we do lodge.'
3 And he presseth on them greatly, and they turn aside unto him, and come in unto his house; and he maketh for them a banquet, and hath baked unleavened things; and they do eat.
4 Before they lie down, the men of the city -- men of Sodom -- have come round about against the house, from young even unto aged, all the people from the extremity;
5 and they call unto Lot and say to him, `Where `are' the men who have come in unto thee to-night? bring them out unto us, and we know them.'
6 And Lot goeth out unto them, to the opening, and the door hath shut behind him,
7 and saith, `Do not, I pray you, my brethren, do evil;
8 lo, I pray you, I have two daughters, who have not known any one; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do to them as `is' good in your eyes; only to these men do not anything, for therefore have they come in within the shadow of my roof.'
9 And they say, `Come nigh hither;' they say also, `This one hath come in to sojourn, and he certainly judgeth! now, we do evil to thee more than `to' them;' and they press against the man, against Lot greatly, and come nigh to break the door.
10 And the men put forth their hand, and bring in Lot unto them, into the house, and have shut the door;
11 and the men who `are' at the opening of the house they have smitten with blindness, from small even unto great, and they weary themselves to find the opening.
12 And the men say unto Lot, `Whom hast thou here still? son-in-law, thy sons also, and thy daughters, and all whom thou hast in the city, bring out from this place;
13 for we are destroying this place, for their cry hath been great `before' the face of Jehovah, and Jehovah doth send us to destroy it.'
14 And Lot goeth out, and speaketh unto his sons-in-law, those taking his daughters, and saith, `Rise, go out from this place, for Jehovah is destroying the city;' and he is as `one' mocking in the eyes of his sons-in-law.
15 And when the dawn hath ascended, then the messengers press upon Lot, saying, `Rise, take thy wife, and thy two daughters who are found present, lest thou be consumed in the iniquity of the city.'
16 And he lingereth, and the men lay hold on his hand, and on the hand of his wife, and on the hand of his two daughters, through the mercy of Jehovah unto him, and they bring him out, and cause him to rest without the city.
17 And it cometh to pass when he hath brought them out without, that he saith, `Escape for thy life; look not expectingly behind thee, nor stand thou in all the circuit; to the mountain escape, lest thou be consumed.'
18 And Lot saith unto them, `Not `so', I pray thee, my lord;
19 lo, I pray thee, thy servant hath found grace in thine eyes, and thou dost make great thy kindness which thou hast done with me by saving my life, and I am unable to escape to the mountain, lest the evil cleave `to' me, and I have died;
20 lo, I pray thee, this city `is' near to flee thither, and it `is' little; let me escape, I pray thee, thither, (is it not little?) and my soul doth live.'
21 And he saith unto him, `Lo, I have accepted thy face also for this thing, without overthrowing the city `for' which thou hast spoken;
22 haste, escape thither, for I am not able to do anything till thine entering thither;' therefore hath he calleth the name of the city Zoar.
23 The sun hath gone out on the earth, and Lot hath entered into Zoar,
24 and Jehovah hath rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from Jehovah, from the heavens;
25 and He overthroweth these cities, and all the circuit, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which is shooting up from the ground.
26 And his wife looketh expectingly from behind him, and she is -- a pillar of salt!
27 And Abraham riseth early in the morning, unto the place where he hath stood `before' the face of Jehovah;
28 and he looketh on the face of Sodom and Gomorrah, and on all the face of the land of the circuit, and seeth, and lo, the smoke of the land went up as smoke of the furnace.
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.