Chapter Nineteen

Lot shows hospitality to two Angels at the risk of his own life

Genesis 19:1. And those two Angels came to Sodom in the evening, This chapter’s account is a direct continuation of the preceding one: those two Angels or men, who, after the midday meal at Abraham’s, went to Sodom (Gen 18:1-22), now, toward evening of that same day, reached the goal of their journey, namely, they approached the gates of Sodom. when Lot was sitting at the gate of Sodom. The gates of a city, according to the custom of the ancient East, were the same as the “agora” among the Greeks or the “forum” among the Romans—that is, a public meeting place and promenade for the city’s inhabitants, and also the center of all judicial and commercial affairs (Gen 23:10; Deut 21:19; Ruth 4:1-2; Prov 31:23 and others). Lot saw, and rose to meet them and bowed down to the ground

Genesis 19:2–3. and said: my lords! come into your servant’s house and spend the night, and wash your feet, and in the morning rise and go on your way. But they said: no, we will spend the night on the street. But he urged them greatly; and they turned toward him and entered his house. He made them a feast and baked unleavened bread, and they ate. Lot’s conduct toward the two passing strangers is depicted here with much the same characteristics as Abraham’s hospitality in the preceding chapter (Gen 18:2-8). From this it is evident that the nephew inherited from his uncle in high measure a love of strangers and hospitality, for which he is praised and set as an example for our imitation even by the Apostle Paul (Heb 13:2).

The wicked men of Sodom are struck with blindness

Genesis 19:4. Before they had lain down to sleep, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, from young to old, all the people from every part of the city, surrounded the house News of the arrival of two young, handsome youths at Lot’s house (in the form of such youths Angels commonly appeared, Mark 16:5; cf. 1 Sam 29:9 and others) spread through the city, and behold, its inhabitants, moved partly by idle curiosity but even more by criminal intentions (Gen 19:5), gathered from different parts of the city, without regard to age or station, to Lot’s house.

Genesis 19:5. and they called to Lot and said to him: where are the men who came to you tonight? bring them out to us; we will know them. From these words it is clear that the behavior of the gathered Sodomites was threatening: it threatened both Lot himself—with a violation of his sacred duty of hospitality—and even more his guests—with an affront to their honor. The nature of the latter is expressly indicated by the words standing here: “we will know them,” which in the Bible have a very definite, specific sense (Gen 4:1 and others), expressing the thought of a sexual act. The whole weight of the Sodomites’ criminal behavior consisted in the abnormality and depravity of their sexual feeling, which produced the unnatural vices of child abuse and sodomy, which later received the technical name “sin of Sodom.” The widespread practice of all these monstrous crimes among the impious Canaanites and especially among the depraved Sodomites is attested by a whole series of biblical passages (Lev 18:22; Isa 3:9; 2 Pet 2:6-8; Jude 1:7 and others). Therefore it was quite natural that Lot’s guests, distinguished by youth and beauty, could arouse the lustful desires of the Sodomites with particular force.

Genesis 19:6. Lot went out to them to the entrance, and shut the door behind himself, At the risk of his own life, Lot goes out to this brutalized crowd and first attempts with kindness, then even with self-sacrifice, to turn it from its criminal intent.

Genesis 19:7. and said [to them]: my brothers, do not act wickedly; By addressing them with such a brotherly greeting, Lot hoped to awaken better feelings in them and appeal to their reason; but this was in vain, for, when the dominion of unrestrained base instincts prevailed, all higher and noble feelings were already dead in the Sodomites.

Genesis 19:8. behold, I have two daughters who have not known a man; let me, I beg you, bring them out to you, and do to them as is good in your eyes, only to these men do nothing, because they have come under the protection of my roof. Seeing the futility of his exhortation, Lot decides on an extreme measure; for the sake of preserving the honor of his guests, he is ready to sacrifice the honor of his unmarried daughters, although already betrothed (Gen 19:14). Blessed Augustine reproaches Lot for such an offer, but Holy John Chrysostom and most other commentators see in it an act of self-sacrifice, or at least the better way out of his extremely difficult position; “of two evils (the affront to his guests or the loss of his daughters’ honor) he chooses the lesser,” as Holy Ambrose of Milan says.

Genesis 19:9. But they said [to him]: stand back. And they said: this one came as a sojourner, and now he judges? we will deal worse with you than with them. The manner of life and conduct of a righteous man living in the society of hardened sinners is a silent but nonetheless very eloquent condemnation of the latter. Lot was in just such a position, living among the Sodomites and daily tormented by witnessing their lawlessness, as the Apostle Peter says (2 Pet 2:8). Seeing in him a man of entirely different disposition, the Sodomites harbored hostile feelings toward him even before (2 Pet 2:7). Now, when Lot dared to come forward with an exhortation and hinder their vile intent, the Sodomites’ indignation against him increases so greatly that it threatens his life. And they pressed hard against Lot, this man, and drew near to break down the door. That is, they had already begun to carry out their threats.

Genesis 19:10. Then the men put out their hands and brought Lot into the house with them, and shut the door [of the house]; In reward for his magnanimous defense of their honor, Lot’s heavenly guests now save him in a critical moment; by this miracle they for the first time revealed to Lot their true nature.

Genesis 19:11. and the men at the door of the house they struck with blindness, from the smallest to the greatest, so that they grew weary searching for the door. According to the opinion of most exegetes, the punishment inflicted on the mad Sodomites was not simple physical blindness or a complete loss of sight, but consisted of blindness of mind and external senses—that is, a certain disorder of sensation and imagination that prevented them from distinguishing and recognizing objects, similar to the stroke of analogous blindness on the Syrian army at the prayers of the prophet Elisha (2 Sam 6:15-20) or the blindness of Saul (Acts 9:8-9) and the sorcerer Elymas (Acts 13:11).

Lot is led by the Angels out of Sodom and escapes by flight to Zoar

Genesis 19:12. The men said to Lot: have you anyone else here? sons-in-law, your sons, your daughters, and whoever you have in the city—bring them out of this place, In reward for the great hospitality shown by Lot and in remembrance of Abraham’s intercession (Gen 18:23-32; cf. Gen 19:29), the Lord shows special mercy toward Lot’s household, promising salvation for all its members, whoever Lot might take with him.

Genesis 19:13. because we are about to destroy this place, for the outcry against its inhabitants has become great before the Lord, and the Lord has sent us to destroy it. The cries of the wretched, violated, and oppressed by the Sodomites, who found no just judgment on earth, reached the heavens and there found themselves a righteous Judge and proper Requiter (Gen 4:10). And since the inhabitants of Sodom proved their complete impenitence, so that the continuation of their lives would only increase their guilt, the righteous God decides to put an end to such existence, just as He once did to all the antediluvian humanity (Gen 6:5-7).

Genesis 19:14. And Lot went out, and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were to marry his daughters, and said: up, get out of this place; for the Lord is about to destroy the city. But to his sons-in-law it seemed that he was joking. A certain perplexity arises here from the fact that Lot already had sons-in-law, whereas it was said above that his two daughters had not known men (Gen 19:8). This is usually resolved by saying that Lot’s daughters were already betrothed and were, so to speak, on the eve of marriage itself, so that Lot in this sense could have called their bridegrooms his sons-in-law in advance. It is evident that even these betrothed sons-in-law of Lot were true Sodomites not only in flesh but in spirit, for they treated Lot’s proposal with disbelief and mockery (Luke 17:28-36).

Genesis 19:15–16. When morning broke, the Angels urged Lot, saying: arise, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, that you may not be consumed in the iniquity of the city. And as he hesitated, the men [Angels], by the Lord’s mercy toward him, took hold of his hand, and the hand of his wife, and the hands of his two daughters, and brought him out, and set him outside the city. “It seems the incredulous smile of the sons-in-law had some effect on the weak character of Lot, and he himself began to hesitate about leaving the city, regretting, probably, his possessions and not fully confident in the Angels’ prediction. Therefore, the Angels, ‘by the Lord’s mercy,’ brought him out by force” (Vlastov). It is also remarkable that here for the first time the two men are definitively called Angels (Gen 19:15).

Genesis 19:17. When they had brought them out, one of them said: On the basis of all the subsequent context (Gen 19:18), in this one Angel who authoritatively conducts all further discourse with Lot, most commentators rightly discern the very same “Angel of Jehovah” who was the main actor in the preceding chapter (18). save your own life; “Soul” here is used as a synonym for “life,” as its basic essence. do not look back, and do not stop anywhere in this region; flee to the mountains, that you may not be swept away. The immediate sense of such a prohibition was to hasten Lot’s flight, for any lingering and stopping threatened him with destruction, while the deeper, moral sense lay in the fact that such a parting look at the city he left would testify to his sympathy and regret for that city, which, in the face of the heavenly punishment falling upon it, would be equivalent to indirect blame of God Himself for the harshness of His judgment. Finally, any turning back is disapproved because it witnesses to a lack in man of firmness of character and strength of will and a certain culpable irresolution in following the once chosen path (Matt 24:18; Phil 3:13-14 and others).

Genesis 19:18–19. But Lot said to them: no, Lord! behold, your servant has found favor in your eyes, and great is your mercy, which you have shown me in saving my life; but I cannot flee to the mountains, lest disaster overtake me and I die; The place of deliverance for Lot and his family was appointed to be the mountains—most probably the Moabite mountains surrounding from the east the Jordan valley. But here too he displays a lack of courage and weakness of will, tempting divine mercy with his fainthearted request.

Genesis 19:20. behold, this city is near enough to flee to, and it is small; let me flee there—is it not a small city?—so that my life may be saved [for your sake]. Seized by fainthearted despair, Lot thinks he will not succeed in reaching such a distant point as the Moabite mountains, and begs the Lord to allow him to take refuge halfway there, in a small town, which received the name Zoar in memory of this event (Gen 19:22). Lot twice points out the special insignificance of this town, on the one hand so that all the more easily he might bend the Lord to his request, and on the other to show that in it, as in a small town, there was not the terrible depravity that ruled in the great cities, and that for this reason it might sooner be spared from destruction.

Genesis 19:22. Hurry, escape there, for I cannot act until you arrive there. Therefore the name of the city is called Zoar. Condescending to the request of Lot, though weak in will yet pure in soul, the Lord not only spares the small town of Zoar for his sake, but also delays the punishment of the other cities until Lot’s arrival at Zoar. The name of this city from Hebrew, the more precise form is “Tsoar,” means literally “small, little”; thus its cause for renaming is indicated: namely, Lot’s insistent pointing out of its insignificance (Gen 19:20). Before this the town bore the name “Bela” (Gen 14:2). Most learned Palestinian geographers suppose that this small town lay at the southernmost point of the Jordan valley (Gen 13:10; Deut 34:3), an hour’s journey to the southeast of the Dead Sea, in the region now called Shirbat es-Safia. Traces of its existence are found from the Roman period—Ζόαρα in Stephanus of Byzantium—and from the time of the Crusades (“Sogar” or “Tsogar,” from which the Dead Sea itself is still called the “Sea of Tsogar”).

The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah

Genesis 19:24–25. Then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the Lord out of the sky, and overthrew those cities, and all the region, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and the vegetation of the ground. Here, first of all, one is struck by a certain awkwardness of expression: “and the Lord rained... from the Lord.” According to the explanation of the Fathers and Teachers of the Church (Ignatius the God-bearer, John Chrysostom, Justin the Philosopher, Athanasius of Alexandria, Cyprian, Tertullian, and others), here a distinct indication is given of two persons of the Holy Trinity: God the Father and God the Son. The Son of God or the Angel of the Lord (the Angel of Jehovah), who is the Logos, appeared on earth and acted in the name of God the Father, who, according to the word of Holy Scripture, does not himself judge the world, but has given all such judgment to the Son (John 5:22-23; 2 Thess 2:8; Rev 1:16). An analogous case we have in the second epistle of the Apostle Paul to Timothy, where the Apostle prays for the slave Onesiphorus, that “the Lord grant him to find mercy from the Lord on that day” (2 Tim 1:18). As for the character of the catastrophe itself, which fell on the four cities of the Pentapolis (Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim) (Deut 29:23; Hos 11:8), based on the data of the text itself (“sulfur and fire from the sky”), and taking into account the biblical parallels relating to it (Deut 29:23; Jer 49:18; 2 Pet 2:6), the testimony of Josephus, and the researches of recent scholars, one may suppose that it was of a twofold kind: it began with a terrible volcanic eruption accompanied by fires from the bituminous swamps and springs that covered the Siddim valley in abundance (Gen 14:10); and it ended with the inundation of the entire valley by the neighboring salt lake, which occurred because of a severe depression of the earth caused by the volcanic eruption. Thus God often uses natural phenomena to reveal His supreme will. Remarkably, the sea formed in place of the once-flourishing Jordan valley of Siddim and ordinarily known among us by the name “Dead Sea,” nowhere in Holy Scripture bears such an epithet, but is called either the Sea of the Plain (Deut 3:17) or the Salt Sea (Gen 14:3; Num 34:3); both these latter names fully justify the above supposition concerning the nature of the heavenly punishment that fell on the impious cities. Finally, the scientific researches of recent Palestinian geographers also speak in favor of the same supposition, for by their calculations the difference in depth between the northern (ancient) and southern (later formed) parts of the Salt Sea is strikingly apparent, as it reaches almost eight hundred feet, and involuntarily leads one to suppose a different origin in time. To this should be added that on the southern shore of the sea from time to time large asphalt blocks, obviously of volcanic origin, are found cast up from the sea floor.

Lot’s wife turns into a pillar of salt

Genesis 19:26. But Lot’s wife looked back behind him, and she became a pillar of salt. That the punishment of Lot’s wife for disobedience to the Angels’ command (Gen 19:17), which expressed her sympathy for the wicked, was not an allegory, as some thought, but an actual, historical fact, is attested by the author of the Book of Wisdom of Solomon (Wis 10:7-8) and the Lord Jesus Christ Himself (Luke 17:32). It is supposed that at the very moment when Lot’s wife stopped to look back at the city, she was seized by a destructive volcanic whirlwind which not only instantly killed her in the same position but also covered her with a kind of asphalt crust; with the passage of time this petrified form took on a whole series of salt deposits from the salt sea formed here and in this way over time turned into a great salt block or pillar of salt. Josephus cites a tradition according to which one of the salt pillars near the Dead Sea was pointed out as the remains of Lot’s wife (Jewish Antiquities 1, 11, 4), and the modern Arabs still call by this name a salt pillar about forty feet high, to the east of the place called “Usdum,” which echoes the biblical “Sodom.”

Genesis 19:27–28. And Abraham rose early in the morning and went to the place where he had stood before the Lord, and looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah and toward all the land of the valley, and behold, he saw the smoke of the land rising like the smoke of a furnace. By this remark the historian connects this entire account most closely to Abraham’s preceding intercession for the salvation of the righteous in these wicked cities (Gen 18:22-32). At the same time, it once again confirms our supposition of the terrible earthquake and fire which were the fate of the cities condemned to destruction.

Genesis 19:29. And it came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the valley, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when He overthrew the cities in which Lot had lived. These words explain much both concerning the persistence of Abraham’s intercession for the salvation of the Sodomites even for the sake of ten righteous people (a number to which the number of Lot’s family members perhaps approximated), and also concerning the special favor and mercy of God toward Lot, despite his certain wavering and fainthearted doubt. At the same time, this fact is eloquent testimony to how “much the earnest prayer of a righteous person avails” (Jas 5:16).

Lot lives in a cave

Genesis 19:30. And Lot went up out of Zoar, and stayed in the mountains, he and his two daughters with him; for he feared to stay in Zoar. And he lived in a cave with his two daughters. Despite the permission given to Lot by God to live in Zoar (Gen 19:21-22), he once more displays his fainthearted nature: he flees from it and hides in the mountains, probably in those very Moabite mountains which were originally appointed by God Himself as a reliable refuge (Gen 19:17).

The origin of the Moabites and Ammonites

Genesis 19:31–36. And the firstborn said to the younger: our father is old, and there is not a man on earth to come in to us after the manner of all the earth; so let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve offspring through our father. So they made their father drink wine that night; and the firstborn went and lay with her father; and he did not know when she lay down or when she rose. The next day, the firstborn said to the younger: behold, I lay last night with my father; let us make him drink wine again tonight; and you go in and lie with him, that we may preserve offspring through our father. So they made their father drink wine that night also; and the younger rose and lay with him; and he did not know when she lay down or when she rose. Thus both daughters of Lot became pregnant by their father. The concluding section of the chapter under examination contains a sad history of Lot’s fall. Lot, who all his life had been a living rebuke to the Sodomites by the purity of his morals (2 Pet 2:7), at the end of his life himself, in a certain sense, became like them, entering into a criminal union with his daughters. Such unnatural unions were rarely practiced even among the heathen (1 Cor 5:1), and in the law of Moses they were directly punishable by death (Lev 18:6-7; Deut 27:22). It is not surprising that many exegetes find all this narrative extremely shocking and improbable. But a more thoughtful analysis of the text and consideration of all the attendant circumstances greatly clarify the matter. As for Lot himself, the greater half of his guilt, like that of Noah once before (Gen 9:21), is removed by the fact that his criminal deed was committed in a state of intoxication and without any awareness of its significance, as the biblical text clearly emphasizes twice (the endings of verses 32 and 35). It is much harder, of course, to justify the behavior of Lot’s daughters, from which a deliberate intention and a cunning plan are clearly seen. But here too one can point to a whole series of circumstances mitigating their guilt: first, their action, as is clearly evident from the text, was motivated not by lust but by the praiseworthy intention to restore the dying seed of their father (Gen 19:32); second, they resorted to this means as the only way out in their situation, as according to the text’s testimony they were convinced that, apart from their father, they had no other man from whom they could obtain offspring (Gen 19:31). Such a false conviction formed in them either because they thought all the rest of mankind had perished, or, more likely, because no one wished to have relations with them as refugees from cities cursed by God. Finally, the explanation and thus some exculpation for the actions of Lot’s daughters lies in the conditions of all their preceding life in the society of the depraved Sodomites and under the immediate influence of their mother, who was not far removed from her fellow citizens.

Genesis 19:37–38. And the firstborn bore a son, and called his name Moab [saying: he is from my father]. He is the father of the Moabites to this day. And the younger also bore a son, and called his name Ben-Ammi [saying: he is the son of my kinship]. He is the father of the Ammonites to this day. Because of their mutual kinship, the Moabites and Ammonites frequently appear together in the Bible. As children of sin and lawlessness, they appear in the Bible as the object of curse and abhorrence (Deut 23:3; 1 Sam 11:6-7; Isa 16:12-14; 1 Chr 20:3), but as being akin by blood to the chosen Hebrew people, they are in the end destined to obtain forgiveness and salvation (Jer 48:47).