Genesis 17 and 18 record two promises to Abraham and Sarah concerning the birth of Abraham’s true heir.¹ Chapters 19–22 deal with a series of increasingly serious threats to that very promise, culminating in the ultimate test of Abraham’s faith. The first of those threats was Abraham’s original heir, his nephew Lot.

Chapter 19 reintroduces Lot, who hasn’t been heard from since Abraham rescued him from the Mesopotamian kings years earlier.² When the two angels sent by Yahweh to investigate the situation in Sodom arrived there, Lot was sitting near the city gate.

The gateway served as a public meeting place where legal judgments and business transactions were made. That Lot was conducting business there shows his integration into Sodomite society.³ Clearly, he had not learned his lesson after his rescue. He still preferred the riches of Sodom to the blessings of his uncle.

Lot’s Hospitality

When [Lot] saw [the angels], he went to meet them and bowed down before them. “Please, my lords, come this way to your servant’s house to wash your feet and spend the night. Then you can rise early and continue on your way.”

“No, thank you. We can sleep in the town square.”

But Lot persisted, so they followed him to his house. He baked unleavened bread and prepared a feast, which they ate.

Image by Brooke Lark from Unsplash

Although Lot was certainly not the only resident of Sodom sitting in the gateway, he was the only one to properly greet the visitors. His hospitality compares favorably to Abraham’s.⁴ Both welcomed the visitors with a feast, with minor differences due to the different time of day.

Because the angels reached Sodom in the evening, Lot also offered them a safe place to sleep. The angels, who were there to observe the behavior of the citizens, initially declined. It’s unclear if Lot’s persistence stemmed from hospitality or a fear that something would happen to the visitors if he didn’t protect them. Either way, the angels gave in and followed Lot to his house.

That Lot even had a house reveals his ambivalent character. The tent-dwelling nomad had become an entrenched city dweller.⁵ He did not participate in the evil practiced around him, but he willingly compromised with it for his own personal gain. But despite this ambivalence, his generous hospitality clearly distinguished him from his cruel neighbors.

Surrounded

Before [Lot and his visitors] went to bed, all the men of Sodom, young and old, surrounded the house. They called out to Lot, “Where are the men staying with you tonight? Bring them out so we can have sex with them!”

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

While Lot and his guests ate the feast he prepared, word of the visitors’ arrival spread among the men of Sodom. They surrounded Lot’s house to cut off any attempt at escape before demanding Lot allow them to gang rape the “men.” The text emphasizes that every adult male in the city participated. Whether or not this is hyperbole, it demonstrates how sin had permeated every corner of the city.⁶

The precise nature of Sodom’s sin has been hotly debated, but trying to narrow it down to one specific crime is unnecessarily pedantic. Every aspect of their assault was utterly abhorrent and revealed a culture steeped in pride, lust, sexual immorality, violence, and inhospitality, as well as base ingratitude. These were the exact same people Abraham had saved from a life of slavery.⁷ They owed him their freedom but repaid him by trying to attack his nephew.

The actions of the men of Sodom gave the angelic messengers all the evidence they needed. They would not find even ten innocents in the condemned city.⁸

Lot’s Plea

So Lot stepped outside the house and closed the door behind him. “Please, my friends, don’t do anything so terrible! Look! I have two daughters who are virgins. Please, let me bring them out, and you can do to them as you please. But don’t do anything to these men who have come under the protection of my roof.”

“Get over here, you!” they responded. “This foreigner came to live here, and now he wants to judge us! We’ll do far worse to you than to them.” They relentlessly persisted and drew closer to break down the door.

Image by Clement Eastwood from Pexels

Still unaware of the true nature of the visitors, Lot stepped outside to try to reason with the men of Sodom. Near Eastern hospitality, a dominant theme throughout Genesis 18 and 19, served as the basis for Lot’s plea. Even Canaanite moral standards condemned ill-treatment of guests. The Sodomites scorn for this common virtue distinguished them from their neighbors.⁹ In their lust for physical pleasure, they refused to listen to reason.

But Lot once again comes across as anything but heroic in his attempt to protect the visitors. He tried to compromise with the attackers by sacrificing his own daughters! He deserved the Sodomites’ rebuke just as much as they deserved his. He was a foreigner who had freely chosen to live among them because he desired the lavish lifestyle the fertile valley afforded him. His attempt to judge that very lifestyle reveals his hypocrisy. He shouldn’t have been there in the first place.

Lot and the Sodomites all followed their own hearts instead of seeking God’s heart, and it ultimately led to their downfall.

The Angels Revealed

So the visitors reached out and pulled Lot back into the house with them. Then they shut the door. They confused the vision of the men in front of the house, young and old, so they grew frustrated trying to find the door.

Then the visitors asked Lot, “Who is still here who belongs to you—a son-in-law or your sons and daughters? Get everyone in the city who belongs to you out of here! We are going to destroy this place because the outcry that has come before Yahweh is so great that Yahweh has sent us to destroy it.”

Image by Callum Skelton from Unsplash

Lot tried to rescue his guests from the mob, but in the end, they had to rescue him. They pulled him back into the house and then made the mob see illusions that kept them away from the door until they finally gave up and left.

The Hebrew word sanwerim (“confused vision”) doesn’t refer to the inability to see. It refers to the inability to see correctly.¹⁰ It occurs only here and in 2 Kings 6:18, where it again refers to supernatural illusions. When Yahweh confused the vision of the Aramean army, they could still see well enough to follow the prophet Elisha from Dothan to Samaria. But they couldn’t recognize Elisha or Samaria because their vision was faulty.

Having miraculously foiled the attack, the angels revealed the purpose of their visit. They had confirmed Yahweh’s judgment and would soon carry out his justice. But they gave Lot the chance to flee with his family.

Hesitant

So Lot left to tell his sons-in-law, who married his daughters. “Get out of here! Yahweh is going to destroy the city!” But his sons-in-law thought he was mocking them.

At daybreak, the angels urged Lot, “Go! Take your wife and the two daughters you have here so you won’t be swept away when the city is punished!” But he hesitated, so they grabbed his hand, his wife’s hand, and the hands of his two daughters. Because Yahweh had compassion on him, they led him out of the city.

Image by Peggy and Marco Lachmann-Anke from Pixabay

Lot had seen the angels’ power and took their warning seriously. So he ran out in the night to tell his sons-in-law. Since Lot’s two daughters were virgins, many assume the term “sons-in-law” refers to their fiancés. This is culturally plausible since engagement was considered binding.¹¹ However, the wording “the two daughters you have here” in verse 15 strongly suggests the existence of other daughters no longer living in Lot’s house.

Thinking Lot was having a laugh at their expense, the sons-in-law scoffed at his warning. Their refusal to leave meant Lot could not save his married daughters, who were under the authority of their husbands. At first light the next morning, the angels could wait no longer, but Lot still hesitated. He knew his life was in danger, but he simply could not leave the life he had built in Sodom.

Left to his own devices, Lot would have perished with the city he called home. His hesitancy contrasts with the prompt obedience of both Abraham and Noah when they faced great loss.¹² But because of Abraham, Yahweh had compassion on Lot and determined to save him in spite of himself.¹³ So the angels had to drag him, his wife, and his two daughters out of the city.

Zoar

As soon as [the angels] had brought [Lot and his family] outside, one said, “Run for your lives! Don’t look back or stop anywhere in the valley! Run for the hills so you won’t be swept away!”

But Lot begged them, “Please, no, my Lord! You have been gracious to your servant and have shown your great faithfulness to me by saving my life. But I can’t escape to the hills before this disaster overtakes me. I’ll die! Look! There’s a town close enough to flee to, and it’s small. Please allow me to escape there. Isn’t it small? Then I’ll live.”

“Fine,” he replied “I will also do this for you. I will not destroy the town you speak of. Now hurry and escape! I can’t do anything until you arrive there.”

That’s why the town is called Zoar.

Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay

As soon as Lot and his family were outside of Sodom, one of the angels commanded them to flee to the hills. The hill country near Hebron was where Abraham lived, a logical place for the family to seek refuge. But Lot didn’t trust the promise of protection. Instead, he trusted his own judgment and, declaring that the hills were too far away, dictated the terms of his own rescue. He may have been righteous in his disdain of the Sodomites’ behavior, but he lacked Abraham’s faith.¹⁴

At this point in the story, a shift occurs in how Lot addressed the visitors. In verse 2, he addressed them as “my lords” and plural “you,” and they responded as “we.” But he now knew he was dealing with supernatural messengers from Abraham’s God. So he addressed them as “my Lord” (a form used only for God) and singular “you,” and they responded as “I.” By speaking to Yahweh’s emissaries as if speaking directly to Yahweh himself, Lot acknowledged their authority to act on his behalf.¹⁵

Lot wanted to flee to the nearby town of Bela, one of the condemned cities of the plain. Abraham begged God to spare Sodom out of love for Lot and concern for Yahweh’s reputation as a God of justice.¹⁶ But his selfish nephew begged God to spare Bela purely because of personal convenience. Nonetheless, God agreed to his request. Bela was later renamed Zoar (tsoʿar), which sounds like the Hebrew word for “small” (tsaʿar).¹⁷

Faithful

But Lot begged them, “Please, no, my Lord! You have been gracious to your servant and have shown your great faithfulness to me by saving my life.”

Image by Mayur Gala from Unsplash

Genesis 19:19 contains the first occurrence in the Bible of the important Hebrew word hesed (“faithfulness,” “devotion”). Hesed is one of Yahweh’s essential character traits proclaimed in his self-disclosure in Exodus 34:6–7. It is an inherently relational term, always occurring between two parties. Hesed also describes Ruth’s devotion to Naomi, as well as David and Jonathan’s devotion to each other.¹⁸

Depending on the context, it is often translated as “love,” “kindness,” or “mercy.” All of these are included in hesed, but none of them adequately expresses its depth. They are merely different ways devotion is manifested. Yahweh proved his faithfulness by showing Lot mercy and saving his life even though Lot did not trust him.

Yahweh is a faithful Husband and a devoted Father. He is faithful when we are faithless. He doesn’t just make promises. He keeps them. And he expects his people to be devoted to him and to each other.

Burning Sulfur

As the sun rose, Lot reached Zoar. Then Yahweh rained burning sulfur down on Sodom and Gomorrah. It came from Yahweh in heaven. He destroyed these cities and the entire valley, including all the inhabitants of the cities and the vegetation that grew there.

Image by Simon from Pixabay

Lot and his family left Sodom at the crack of dawn and reached Zoar at sunrise, approximately half an hour later.¹⁹ Their arrival coincided with the beginning of the disaster. God sent burning sulfur hurling down on the whole plain except Zoar. Although burning sulfur does occur naturally, especially during volcanic eruptions, Scripture leaves no room for a natural explanation. Twice it states that Yahweh was the source of the disaster.

When sulfur burns, it produces a noxious gas called sulfur dioxide, which the Environmental Protection Agency classifies as a pollutant.²⁰ A high concentration of sulfur dioxide, combined with the fires that broke out as the burning sulfur hit the ground, wiped out all the people, plants, and animals in the area. In a single day, the fertile plain became a wasteland.

Lot’s Wife

Behind Lot, his wife looked back, and she became a salt formation.

Image by Ri_Ya from Pixabay

As the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah started, Lot and his daughters ran straight into Zoar. But Lot’s wife lagged behind. On the very threshold of safety, she could not resist pausing to look back toward Sodom, disobeying the angels’ command. She shared her husband’s hesitancy to leave their doomed home, and it cost her her life.²¹ In that moment, the calamity overtook her.

Although the burning sulfur raining down was not a natural phenomenon, the transformation of Lot’s wife into a salt formation actually was. The Dead Sea, called the Salt Sea (yam hammelah) in Hebrew, is the saltiest body of water on earth. The area is famous for the incredible formations created by salt crystals left behind by the evaporating salt water.²² The intense heat from the burning sulfur would have caused a lot of water to evaporate quickly, filling the air with salt.

The Hebrew word netsiv, from the verb natsav (“to stand straight”), means that salt crystals covered the body of Lot’s wife so quickly that she died standing up. The result looked like a pillar or statue made of salt.

Looking Down

Abraham rose early that morning and returned to the place where he had stood in Yahweh’s presence. He looked down over Sodom, Gomorrah, and the entire valley and saw smoke rising from the land like smoke from a kiln.

So it was that when God destroyed the cities of the valley, he remembered Abraham and sent Lot away from the cataclysm that destroyed the cities where Lot lived.

Image by Sweet Publishing from Free Bible Images, CC BY-SA 3.0

The morning Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed, Abraham returned to the place overlooking Sodom where he had discussed its fate with God the day before.⁸ By the time he arrived, the plain was ablaze, and all Abraham could see was the cloud of billowing smoke that engulfed the area. Then he knew Yahweh had not found even ten righteous people there.

Although Abraham is mentioned only in these three verses, he is the central figure of the entire narrative. For his sake, Yahweh had compassion on Lot, led him out of Sodom, and spared Zoar.²³ But seeing the destruction, Abraham must have assumed his nephew was dead. The somber scene of this man of God gazing down toward the city he failed to save reflects how all such tragedies, no matter how just, break Yahweh’s heart and should break the hearts of his people.

The Bible doesn’t tell us if Abraham ever found out Lot survived.

The Cave

Then Lot left Zoar with his two daughters to live in the hill country because he was afraid to stay in Zoar. Instead he and his two daughters lived in a cave.

Image by Charl Christiani from CreationSwap

After the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, greed no longer ruled Lot’s life. It was replaced not by faith in the God who had saved him but by fear. He feared staying in Zoar, so he and his daughters left to live in the hill country, ironically where the angels had originally told him to go.²⁴ He was free to leave and could have returned to his uncle or moved to another place where he could rebuild his life. But he was too afraid to even do that. Instead he chose to live as a recluse in a cave. A broken man who had lost all hope, Lot completely removed himself and his daughters from society.

Lot moved to Sodom a wealthy man because of his association with Abraham.²⁵ He chose Sodom out of greed for the further riches he thought he could attain there, fully knowing the wicked character of the people.²⁶ But as a result, he lost everything he had gained.

Lot’s Descendants

The firstborn said to the younger daughter, “Our father is old, and there is no man in the world to sleep with us, as is the custom everywhere on earth. Let’s make our father drunk with wine and sleep with him. That way we can produce offspring from our father.”

That very night, they made their father drunk with wine, and the firstborn slept with her father. He was unaware when she lay down and when she got up.

The next day, the firstborn said to her younger sister, “Look, I slept with my father last night. Let’s make him drunk with wine again tonight. Then you go and sleep with him so we can produce offspring from our father.”

That very night, they made their father drunk with wine again, and the younger sister slept with him. He was unaware when she lay down and when she got up.

Both of Lot’s daughters become pregnant by their father. The firstborn gave birth to a son and named him Moab. He is the ancestor of the present-day Moabites. The younger daughter also gave birth to a son, and she named him Ben-Ammi. He is the ancestor of the present-day Ammonites.

Image by Aline Ponce from Pixabay

The story of the survivors of Sodom parallels that of the survivors of the flood. Like Noah, Lot became drunk and exposed himself to his children, who dishonored their father.²⁷ Lot’s daughters were raised in Sodom and proved they weren’t any better than the rest of its inhabitants.²⁸

Unlike Noah’s family, Lot and his daughters were not the last people on earth. Nor did Lot’s daughters think they were, since they knew the inhabitants of Zoar had also survived. But they also knew their father would never allow them to marry a man from the accursed plain, and their isolation ensured they would have no other prospects. So they decided to take the situation into their own hands. Lot had offered to allow the Sodomites to rape his daughters, and now his daughters plotted to rape him.²⁹

Their plan went off without a hitch. A broken man, Lot willingly became so drunk that he was completely oblivious to what his daughters were doing. As a result, they both conceived and gave birth to sons. The firstborn named her son Moab (moʾav), which sounds like the Hebrew meʾav (“from father”). The younger sister named her son Ben-Ammi (ben-ʿammi), which means “son of my people.”

And with that, Lot disappeared from history. But his descendants, the Moabites and Ammonites, would play a major role in the history of Israel. For the most part, they were hostile.³⁰ But through Ruth, a descendant of Moab, Lot also became an ancestor of Jesus.³¹

← Genesis 18:1–33

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Genesis 20:1–18 →

See Isaac; Sarah’s Laughter.
See Genesis 14:10–16; Abram at War.
This does not indicate that Lot had become a leader participating in judgments. He was still a foreigner, not a respected elder. See Genesis 19:9.
See Hospitality.
See Genesis 13:12.
See Hyperbole.
Genesis 14:8–23.
See Negotiations.
See Genesis 15:16.
Hamilton, Book of Genesis: Chapters 18–50, 37–38; Kidner, Genesis, 145.
For similar language when Joseph and Mary were engaged, see Matthew 1:19.
Genesis 6:22; 7:5; 12:4; 22:3.
Genesis 19:29.
2 Peter 2:7–8.
See The Value of Human Life.
Genesis 18:23–25.
See Genesis 14:2.
Genesis 19:15.
United States Environmental Protection Agency, “Sulfur Dioxide Basics,” accessed October 15, 2021, https://www.epa.gov/so2-pollution/sulfur-dioxide-basics.
See Hesitant.
See Amusing Planet, “Strange Salt Formations in the Dead Sea,” by Kaushik Patowary, September 17, 2012, https://www.amusingplanet.com/2012/09/strange-salt-formations-in-dead-sea.html.
See Remembered.
Genesis 19:17.
See Internal Conflict.
See The Valley of the Jordan.
See The Fall of Ham.
Sailhamer, “Genesis,” 200; Wenham, Genesis 16–50, 64.
See Lot’s Plea.
Numbers 22:1–6; 25:1–3; Judges 3:12–14; 10:6–9; 11:4; 1 Samuel 11:1–11; 14:47; 2 Samuel 10:1–8; 1 Kings 11:7; 2 Kings 24:2; 2 Chronicles 20:10–11; Jeremiah 49:1–2; Zephaniah 2:8–9.
Ruth 1:22; 4:13–22; Matthew 1:5, 16.