The destruction of Sodom
19
📚And two angels 📖 came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting at the gate 📖 of Sodom. Seeing them Lot got up to meet them, and he bowed with his face toward the ground, 2 📚and he said, “Please now, my lords, turn aside into your servant’s house, and spend the night, and wash your feet. Then you may rise up early and go on your way”. And they said, “No, but we will spend the night in the street”.19:2 Their preference to spend the night outdoors does not speak well of Lot’s home.⚜
3 📚And he urged them so strongly that they turned aside to him and went into his house. And he made a feast for them, and baked unleavened bread, and they ate. 4 📚But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both old and young, all the people from every quarter, surrounded the house, 5 📚and they called out to Lot and said to him, “Where are the men who came in to you tonight? Bring them out to us, so that we may know them 📖”.
6 📚And Lot went out the door to them and shut the door after him, 7 📚and said, “Please, brethren, do not act so wickedly. 8 📚Now look, I have two daughters who have not known a man. Please let me bring them out to you, and you do to them as you see fit. But do nothing to these men, because they have come under the shadow of my roof”.
19:8 According to the rules of hospitality in those times guests in a home had to be protected by their host. Still it was surely an act of desperation for Lot to basely offer his defenseless daughters to these vile men.⚜
9 📚And they said, “Stand back”. And they said again, “This one came in to town to stay a while, and he has to be a judge! Now we will we treat you worse than them”. And they crowded in on the man Lot, and came near to break in the door.
19:9 Lot, though he was a righteous man, had no influence whatever over the people of Sodom.⚜
10 But the men inside put out their hand and pulled Lot into the house to them and shut the door. 11 📚And they struck the men who were at the door of the house, both small and great, with blindness, so that they wearied themselves to find the door.
19:11 God has His own ways of protecting His people, and it does not involve any acts of desperation such as appear in v 8.⚜
12 📚And the men said to Lot, “Have you here anyone else? Sons-in-law and your sons and your daughters, and whoever you have in the city, bring them out of this place, 13 📚for we are going to destroy this place, because their outcry has become great in the presence of the LORD, and the LORD has sent us to destroy it”.
19:13 Justice and the good of the world demanded Sodom’s destruction.⚜
14 📚And Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who had married his daughters, and said, “Up! get out of this place, for the Lord is going to destroy this city”. But to his sons-in-law he seemed like someone who was joking 📖.
19:14 Lot had no influence over his sons-in-law either.⚜
15 📚And when the morning dawned the angels hurried Lot, saying, “Up! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here so that you will not be destroyed in the punishment for the wickedness of the city”.
16 📚And when he hesitated, the men took hold of his hand, of the hand of his wife, and of the hand of his two daughters, for the LORD was merciful to him. And they brought him out and set him outside the city.
19:16 It seems Lot still had not understood the seriousness of the situation and was reluctant to leave Sodom. His home and his wealth were there. In spite of his reluctance to leave, God was merciful to him. It was God’s mercy and not Lot’s goodness that was the reason for his deliverance. Compare Eph 2:4, 8; 2 Pet 3:9.⚜
17 📚And this took place when they had brought them out: one of them said, “Escape for your life! Do not look behind you, and do not stay anywhere on the plain. Escape 📖 to the mountain, so you will not be destroyed!”
18 📚And Lot said to them, “No, please, my Lord! 19 📚Now look, your servant has found favour in your sight, and you have magnified your mercy, which you have shown me in saving my life, but I cannot escape to the mountain, or some evil may overtake me and I will die. 20 📚Now see, that town is near to flee to, and it is a little one. Please let me escape there (is it not a little one?), and my soul will live”.
19:18-20 Lot would not leave the choice of the place for him in God’s hands. Still he wanted to make his own self-centered choice. Compare Gen 13:10-11.⚜
21 📚And he said to him, “See, I have accepted you for this thing also, so that I will not overthrow this town of which you have spoken. 22 📚Hurry! Escape there, for I cannot do any thing until you have gone there”. Therefore the name of the town was called Zoar.
19:22 God was going to rescue Lot in answer to Abraham’s prayer (v 29) and could not destroy Sodom until Lot was out of it. So with Noah (chapters 6,7); so with God’s people at the end of this age (Rev 14:14-16; 15:1). “Zoar” means small.⚜
23 The sun had risen over the earth when Lot went into Zoar. 24 📚Then the LORD rained sulfur and fire on Sodom and on Gomorrah out of the sky from the LORD. 25 📚And he overthrew those cities and the whole plain and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew in the ground. 26 📚But his wife, from behind him, looked back and she became a pillar of salt.
19:26 Lot had little or no influence over his wife. All she wanted was in Sodom. See Luke 17:32.⚜
27 📚And Abraham got up early in the morning and went to the place where he had stood before the LORD, 28 📚and he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and looking saw that the smoke of the country was going up like the smoke of a furnace.
29 📚And when God destroyed the cities of the plain, it came about that God remembered Abraham and so sent Lot out of the center of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in which Lot lived.
19:29 Lot was rescued for Abraham’s sake and in answer to Abraham’s prayer.⚜
Lot and his daughters
30 📚And Lot went up out of Zoar and lived in a mountain, and his two daughters went with him, for he was afraid to live in Zoar. And he lived in a cave, he and his two daughters. 31 📚And the firstborn said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is not a man on earth to come in to us according to the way of the whole earth. 32 📚Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie down with him, so that we may bring to life offspring of our father”.
33 📚And they made their father drink wine that night, and the first born went in and lay with her father. And he did not know when she lay down, or when she got up.
34 📚And it came about on the next day that the firstborn said to the younger, “Look, last night I lay with my father. Let us make him drink wine tonight also, and you go in and lie with him, so that we may bring to life offspring of our father”. 35 📚And they made their father drink wine that night also. Then the younger got up and lay with him. And he did not know when she lay down, or when she got up.
36 📚In this way both the daughters of Lot were pregnant by their father. 37 📚And the firstborn gave birth to a son, and called his name Moab. He is the father of the Moabites of today. 38 📚As to the younger, she also gave birth to a son, and called his name Ben Ammi. He is the father of the children of Ammon of today.
19:30-38 Lot had no godly influence over his daughters either. And he was responsible for what happened there. This story of Lot is very sad, but very instructive. He was a man who believed God and was counted righteous (2 Pet 2:6-8). But he made a bad choice because of greed, and did not keep his distance from Sodom. He knew what Sodom was like and felt bad about the behavior of its people. But he chose to live there. And obviously he did not bring up his daughters in the instruction and fear of God. He is a picture of carnal believers who, though saved, will experience great loss – 1 Cor 3:1-15. Let us learn from God’s Word what the world is really like and how to live in it (1 John 2:16-17; 2 Cor 6:14-18), and what great loss we can suffer by selfishness and compromise.⚜
19:36-38 The Moabites and Ammonites later became enemies of Israel. Such sin as the daughters of Lot committed with him, indeed all sin, can have far-reaching consequences.⚜
19:38 “Ben-Ammi” means “son of my people”.⚜