Albert Barnes Commentary Genesis 19:1-38

"And the two angels came to Sodom at even; and Lot sat in the gate of Sodom: and Lot saw them, and rose up to meet them; and he bowed himself with his face to the earth; and he said, Behold now, my lords, turn aside, I pray you, into your servant`s house, and tarry all night, and wash your feet, and ye shall rise up early, and go on your way. And they said, Nay; but we will abide in the street all night. And he urged them greatly; and they turned in unto him, and entered into his house; and he made them a feast, and did bake unleavened bread, and they did eat. But before they lay down, the men of the city, [even] the men of Sodom, compassed the house round, both young and old, all the people from every quarter; and they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where are the men that came in to thee this night? bring them out unto us, that we may know them. And Lot went out unto them to the door, and shut the door after him. And he said, I pray you, my brethren, do not so wickedly. Behold now, I have two daughters that have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing, forasmuch as they are come under the shadow of my roof. And they said, Stand back. And they said, This one fellow came in to sojourn, and he will needs be a judge: now will we deal worse with thee, than with them. And they pressed sore upon the man, even Lot, and drew near to break the door. But the men put forth their hand, and brought Lot into the house to them, and shut to the door. And they smote the men that were at the door of the house with blindness, both small and great, so that they wearied themselves to find the door. And the men said unto Lot, Hast thou here any besides? son-in-law, and thy sons, and thy daughters, and whomsoever thou hast in the city, bring them out of the place: for we will destroy this place, because the cry of them is waxed great before Jehovah: and Jehovah hath sent us to destroy it. And Lot went out, and spake unto his sons-in-law, who married his daughters, and said, Up, get you out of this place; for Jehovah will destroy the city. But he seemed unto his sons-in-law as one that mocked. And when the morning arose, then the angels hastened Lot, saying, Arise, take thy wife, and thy two daughters that are here, lest thou be consumed in the iniquity of the city. But he lingered; and the men laid hold upon his hand, and upon the hand of his wife, and upon the hand of his two daughters, Jehovah being merciful unto him; and they brought him forth, and set him without the city. And it came to pass, when they had brought them forth abroad, that he said, Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the Plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed. And Lot said unto them, Oh, not so, my lord: behold now, thy servant hath found favor in thy sight, and thou hast magnified thy lovingkindness, which thou hast showed unto me in saving my life; and I cannot escape to the mountain, lest evil overtake me, and I die: behold now, this city is near to flee unto, and it is a little one. Oh let me escape thither (is it not a little one?), and my soul shall live. And he said unto him, See, I have accepted thee concerning this thing also, that I will not overthrow the city of which thou hast spoken. Haste thee, escape thither; for I cannot do anything till thou be come thither. Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar. The sun was risen upon the earth when Lot came unto Zoar. Then Jehovah rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from Jehovah out of heaven; and he overthrew those cities, and all the Plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground. But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt. And Abraham gat up early in the morning to the place where he had stood before Jehovah: and he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the Plain, and beheld, and, lo, the smoke of the land went up as the smoke of a furnace. And it came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the Plain, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in which Lot dwelt. And Lot went up out of Zoar, and dwelt in the mountain, and his two daughters with him; for he feared to dwell in Zoar: and he dwelt in a cave, he and his two daughters. And the first-born said unto the younger, Our father is old, and there is not a man in the earth to come in unto us after the manner of all the earth: come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father. And they made their father drink wine that night: and the first-born went in, and lay with her father; and he knew not when she lay down, nor when she arose. And it came to pass on the morrow, that the first-born said unto the younger, Behold, I lay yesternight with my father: let us make him drink wine this night also; and go thou in, and lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father. And they made their father drink wine that night also: and the younger arose, and lay with him; and he knew not when she lay down, nor when she arose. Thus were both the daughters of Lot with child by their father. And the first-born bare a son, and called his name Moab: the same is the father of the Moabites unto this day. And the younger, she also bare a son, and called his name Ben-ammi: the same is the father of the children of Ammon unto this day." — Genesis 19:1-38 (ASV)

גשׁ־ < הלאה (gesh - hāl'âh), meaning “approach to a distant point,” or “stand back.”

סנורים (san'evērı̂ym)—meaning “blindness,” affecting the mental more than the ocular vision.

מואב (mô'āb)—Moab; מאב (mē'āb)—meaning “from a father”; בן־עמי (ben-‛amı̂y), Ben-Ammi, meaning “son of my people”; עמון (‛amôn), Ammon, meaning “of the people.”

This chapter is the continuation and conclusion of the previous one. It records a part of God’s strange work—strange because it consists in punishment and because it is foreign to the covenant of grace.

Yet it is closely connected with Abraham’s history, as it is a significant punishment of wickedness in his neighborhood, a memorial of the righteous judgment of God to all his descendants, and at the same time a remarkable answer to the spirit, if not to the letter, of his intercessory prayer. His relative Lot, the only righteous man in Sodom, with his wife and two daughters, is delivered from destruction in accordance with his earnest appeal on behalf of the righteous (Genesis 19:1–3).

The two angels. These are the two men who left Abraham standing before the Lord (Genesis 18:22). Lot sat in the gate, the place of public gathering for news and business. He courteously rises to meet them, bows down to them, and invites them to spend the night in his house. They replied, Nay, but in the street will we lodge. This is the disposition of those who come to inquire and, perhaps, to condemn and punish.

They are twice in this chapter called angels, being sent to perform a delegated duty. This term, however, defines their office, not their nature. Lot, in the first instance, calls them my lords, which is a term of respect that may be addressed to men (Genesis 31:35). He afterward called one of them Adonai, with the special vowel pointing which limits it to the Supreme Being. He at the same time calls himself his servant, appeals to his grace and mercy, and ascribes to him his deliverance.

The person thus addressed replies, in a tone of independence and authority: I have accepted thee. I will not overthrow this city for which thou hast spoken. I cannot do anything until thou go thither. All these circumstances point to a divine personage and are not so easily explained as referring to a mere delegate. He is pre-eminently the Saviour, just as he who communed with Abraham was the hearer of prayer.

And he who hears prayer and saves life also appears as the executor of his purpose in the overthrow of Sodom and the other cities of the valley. It is remarkable that only two of the three who appeared to Abraham are called angels. Of the persons in the divine essence, two might be the angels or deputies of the primary person in carrying out the divine purpose.

These three men, then, either immediately represent, or, if created angels, indirectly symbolize persons in the Godhead. Their number indicates that the persons in the divine unity are three.

Lot seems to have recognized something extraordinary in their appearance, for he humbly bowed to them. The Sodomites paid no attention to the strangers. Lot’s invitation, at first declined, is eventually accepted because Lot is approved by God as righteous and exempted from the city's doom (Genesis 19:4–11).

The wicked violence of the citizens is displayed. They surround the house and demand the men for the most vile purposes. How familiar Lot had become with vice, when any necessity whatever could induce him to offer his daughters to the lust of these Sodomites! We may suppose it was said rashly, in the heat of the moment, and with the expectation that he would not be taken at his word. So it turned out. Stand back. This seems to be a threat intended to frighten Lot out of the way of their perverse will.

Indeed, it is probable that he and his family would not have been safe for so long in this wicked place if he had not been the cause of a great deliverance to the whole city when they were carried away by the four kings. The threat is followed by a taunt when the greatly distressed host hesitated to give up the strangers: He will needs be a judge. It is evident Lot had been in the habit of remonstrating with them.

From threats and taunts, they soon proceed to violence. His guests now interfere. They rescue Lot and strike the rioters with blindness, or a wandering of the senses, so that they cannot find the door. This outburst of the vilest passion seals the city's doom.

The visitors now take steps for the deliverance of Lot and his relatives before the destruction of the cities. All who are related to him are included in the offer of deliverance. There is a blessing in being connected with the righteous, if people will only take advantage of it. Lot seems bewildered by the contemptuous refusal of his connections to leave the place. His early choice and his growing habits have attached him to the place, despite its temptations. His married daughters, or at least the intended husbands of the two who were at home (who are here), are to be left behind (Genesis 19:12–23).

But though these thoughts make him linger, the mercy of the Lord prevails. The angels use a little force to hasten their escape. The mountain was preserved by its elevation from the flood of rain, sulfur, and fire that descended on the low ground where the cities were built. Lot begs for a small town to which he may retreat, as he shrinks from the dangers of a mountain dwelling, and his request is mercifully granted.

Then follows the overthrow of the cities (Genesis 19:24–26). The Lord rained brimstone and fire from the Lord from the skies. Here the Lord is represented as present in the skies, from where the storm of desolation comes, and on the earth where it falls. The Valley of Siddim, in which the cities were, appears to have been rich in asphalt and other combustible materials (Genesis 14:10).

The district was liable to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions from the earliest to the latest times. We read of an earthquake in the days of King Uzziah (Amos 1:1). An earthquake in 1759 destroyed many thousands of people in the valley of Baalbek. Josephus (De Bello Judaico 3.10.7) reports that the Salt Sea sends up in many places black masses of asphalt, which are not unlike headless bulls in shape and size.

After an earthquake in 1834, masses of asphalt were thrown up from the bottom, and in 1837 a similar cause was attended with similar effects.

The lake lies in the lowest part of the Jordan Valley, and its surface is about thirteen hundred feet below sea level. In such a hollow, exposed to the burning rays of an unclouded sun, its waters evaporate as much as it receives by the inflow of the Jordan. Its present area is about forty-five miles by eight miles.

A peninsula, called the Lisan (or tongue), pushes into it from the east; its north point is about twenty miles from the south end of the lake. North of this point, the depth is from forty to two hundred and eighteen fathoms. This southern part of the lake seems to have been the original Valley of Siddim, which contained the cities of the valley. The remarkable salt hills lying to the south of the lake are still called Khashm Usdum (Sodom).

A tremendous storm, accompanied by flashes of lightning and torrents of rain mixed with sulfur, descended upon the doomed cities.

From the injunction to Lot to flee to the mountain, as well as from the nature of the soil, we may infer that at the same time as the terrible conflagration, there was a subsidence of the ground. Consequently, the waters of the upper and original lake flowed in upon the formerly fertile and populous valley, forming the shallow southern part of the present Salt Sea.

In this pool of melting asphalt and sweltering, seething waters, the cities seem to have sunk forever, leaving behind them no traces of their existence. Lot’s wife, lingering behind her husband and looking back contrary to the Lord's express command, was caught in the sweeping tempest and became a pillar of salt. Lot’s escape was so narrow.

The dashing spray of the salty, sulfurous rain seems to have suffocated her and then encrusted her whole body. She may have burned to a cinder in the furious conflagration. She is a memorable example of the indignation and wrath that overtakes the hesitant and the backsliding.

Abraham rises early on the following morning to see what had become of the city for which he had interceded so earnestly, and he views from a distance the scene of smoking desolation. Remembering Abraham, who was Lot’s uncle and probably had Lot in mind in his persistent pleading, God delivered Lot from this terrible overthrow (Genesis 19:27–29). The Eternal is here designated by the name Elohim, the Everlasting, because in the war of elements in which the cities were overwhelmed, the eternal powers of his nature were strikingly displayed.

The descendants of Lot. Bewildered by the narrowness of his escape and the terrible death of his wife, Lot seems to have left Zoar and gone to the mountain west of the Salt Sea, in terror of approaching ruin. It is not improbable that all the inhabitants of Zoar, panic-stricken, may have fled from the region of danger and dispersed themselves for a time throughout the adjacent mountains. He was now far from human settlements, with his two daughters as his only companions. The ways of Sodom here become apparent (Genesis 19:30–38).

Lot’s daughters might seem to have been led to this unnatural plan, first, because they thought the human race was extinct except for themselves, in which case their conduct may have seemed a work of justifiable necessity. Second, the degrees of kinship within which it was unlawful to marry had not yet been determined by an express law. However, they must have seen some of the inhabitants of Zoar after the destruction of the cities, and sexual relations between parent and child must always have been repugnant to nature.

The phrase Unto this day indicates a variable period, from a few years to a few centuries: a few years, not more than seven, as in Joshua 22:3; part of a lifetime, as in Numbers 22:30, Joshua 6:25, and Genesis 48:15; and some centuries, as in Exodus 10:6. This passage may therefore have been written by someone much earlier than Moses. Moab later occupied the district south of the Arnon and east of the Salt Sea.

Ammon lived to the northeast of Moab, where they had a capital called Rabbah. They both ultimately merged into the more general class of the Arabs, as a second Palgite element.