And there came two angels to Sodom at even; and Lot sat in the gate of Sodom: and Lot seeing [them] rose up to meet them; and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground;
1. the two angels ] See Gen 18:22. It has been conjectured that the original text had here, as in Gen 19:5 ; Gen 19:8 ; Gen 19:10 ; Gen 19:12, “the men” (i.e. the “three men” of Gen 18:2); and that the substitution of the words “the two angels” has been made from motives of reverence, in order (1) to harmonize the action of this chapter with the scene of Abraham’s pleading with Jehovah in chap. 18, and (2) to separate Jehovah from contact with the evil of Sodom.
at even ] They had visited Abraham at noon: see Gen 18:1.
in the gate of Sodom ] The wide arches of ancient Oriental city gates, contained recesses which were the resort of leading citizens; and in which business was transacted, bargains made, and justice administered, cf. Gen 23:10; Gen 23:18, Gen 34:20; Deu 21:19; Rth 4:1.
bowed himself ] See Gen 18:2.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
– The Destruction of Sodom and Amorah
9. < gesh–hal’ah, approach to a distant point, stand back.
11. saneverym, blindness, affecting the mental more than the ocular vision.
37. mo’ab, Moab; me’ab, from a father. ben–amy, Ben-ammi, son of my people. amon, Ammon, of the people.
This chapter is the continuation and conclusion of the former. It records a part of Gods strange work – strange, because it consists in punishment, and because it is foreign to the covenant of grace. Yet it is closely connected with Abrahams history, inasmuch as it is a signal chastisement of wickedness in his neighborhood, a memorial of the righteous judgment of God to all his posterity, and at the same time a remarkable answer to the spirit, if not to the letter, of his intercessory prayer. His kinsman 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.
Gen 19:1-3
The two angels. – These are the two men who left Abraham standing before the Lord Gen 18:22. Lot sat in the gate, the place of public resort for news and for business. He courteously rises to meet them, does obeisance to them, and invites them to spend the night in his house. Nay, but in the street will we lodge. This is the disposition of those who come to inquire, and, it may be, to condemn and to 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 Gen 31:35. He afterward styled 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 of a mere delegate. He is pre-eminently the Saviour, as he who communed with Abraham was the hearer of prayer. And he who hears prayer and saves life, appears also as the executor of his purpose in the overthrow of Sodom and the other cities of the vale. 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 in the discharge of the divine purpose. These three men, then, either immediately represent, or, if created angels, mediately shadow forth 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 made a lowly obeisance to them. The Sodomites heed not the strangers. Lots invitation; at first declined, is at length accepted, because Lot is approved of God as righteous, and excepted from the doom of the city.
Gen 19:4-11
The wicked violence of the citizens displays itself. They compass the house, and demand the men for the vilest ends. 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 spoken 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 menace to frighten Lot out of the way of their perverse will. It is probable, indeed, that he and his family would not have been so long safe in this wicked place, had he not been the occasion 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 sorely vexed 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 smite the rioters with blindness, or a wandering of the senses, so that they cannot find the door. This ebullition of the vilest passion seals the doom of the city.
Gen 19:12-23
The visitors now take steps for the deliverance of Lot and his kindred before the destruction of the cities. All that are related to him are included in the offer of deliverance. There is a blessing in being connected with the righteous, if men will but avail themselves 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, notwithstanding 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. But though these thoughts make him linger, the mercy of the Lord prevails. The angels use a little violence to hasten their escape. The mountain was preserved by its elevation from the flood of rain, sulphur, and fire which descended on the low ground on which the cities were built. Lot begs for a small town to which he may retreat, as he shrinks from the perils of a mountain dwelling, and his request is mercifully granted.
Gen 19:24-26
Then follows the overthrow of the cities. The Lord rained brimstone and fire from the Lord from the skies. Here the Lord is represented as present in the skies, whence the storm of desolation comes, and on the earth where it falls. The dale of Siddim, in which the cities were, appears to have abounded in asphalt and other combustible materials Gen 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 Amo 1:1. An earthquake in 1759 destroyed many thousands of persons in the valley of Baalbec. Josephus (De Bell. Jud. iii. 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 valley of the Jordan, and its surface is about thirteen hundred feet below the level of the sea. In such a hollow, exposed to the burning rays of an unclouded sun, its waters evaporate as much as it receives by the influx of the Jordan. Its present area is about forty-five miles by eight miles. A peninsula pushes into it from the east called the Lisan, or tongue, the north point of which 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 dale of Siddim, in which were the cities of the vale. The remarkable salt hills lying on the south of the lake are still called Khashm Usdum (Sodom). A tremendous storm, accompanied with flashes of lightning, and torrents of rain, impregnated with sulphur, 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 with the awful conflagration there was a subsidence of the ground, so that the waters of the upper and original lake flowed in upon the former fertile and populous dale, and formed 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, and left behind them no vestiges of their existence. Lots wife lingering behind her husband, and looking back, contrary to the express command of the Lord, is caught in the sweeping tempest, and becomes a pillar of salt: so narrow was the escape of Lot. The dashing spray of the salt sulphurous 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 halting and the backsliding.
Gen 19:27-29
Abraham rises early on the following morning, to see what had become of the city for which he had interceded so earnestly, and views from afar the scene of smoking desolation. Remembering Abraham, who was Lots uncle, and had him probably in mind in his importunate pleading, God delivered Lot from this awful overthrow. 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 potencies of his nature were signally displayed.
Gen 19:30-38
The descendants of Lot. Bewildered by the narrowness of his escape, and the awful death of his wife, Lot seems to have left Zoar, and taken to the mountain west of the Salt Sea, in terror of impending ruin. It is not improbable that all the inhabitants of Zoar, panic-struck, may have fled from the region of danger, and dispersed themselves for a time through the adjacent mountains. He was now far from the habitations of people, with his two daughters as his only companions. The manners of Sodom here obtrude themselves upon our view. Lots daughters might seem to have been led to this unnatural project, first, because they thought the human race extinct with the exception of themselves, in which case their conduct may have seemed a work of justifiable necessity; and next, because the degrees of kindred within which it was unlawful to marry had not been determined by an express law. But they must have seen some of the inhabitants of Zoar after the destruction of the cities; and carnal intercourse between parent and offspring must have been always repugnant to nature. Unto this day. This phrase indicates a variable period, from a few years to a few centuries: a few years; not more than seven, as Jos 22:3; part of a lifetime, as Num 22:30; Jos 6:25; Gen 48:15; and some centuries, as Exo 10:6. This passage may therefore have been written by one much earlier than Moses. Moab afterward occupied the district south of the Arnon, and east of the Salt Sea. Ammon dwelt 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.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Gen 19:1-3
And there came two angels to Sodom at even; and Lot sat in the gate of Sodom
The eve of judgment to the righteous
I.
THE RIGHTEOUS MAN IS FOUND IN THE WAY OF DUTY.
1. The duty of his calling.
2. The duty arising from the relations of human life.
II. THE RIGHTEOUS MAN IS SEPARATE FROM SINNERS. In the world, but living above it. This separateness, which is necessarily the mark of the righteous character, involves:–
1. Sorrow for the spiritual state of men alienated from God.
2. A principle which regulates choice of companionship. A good man will avoid the contagion of evil example, and be attracted to that which is most Godlike. (T. H. Leale.)
Angel work in a bad town
I. THE REASONS WHICH JUSTIFIED THIS SUPREME ACT OF DESTRUCTING.
1. It was a merciful warning to the rest of mankind.
2. Moreover, in this terrible act, the Almighty simply hastened the result of their own actions.
3. Besides, this overthrow only happened after careful investigation.
4. There is this consideration also–that, during the delay, many a warning was sent.
5. It is worthy of notice that God saved all whom He could.
II. THE MOTIVES OF THE ANGELS VISIT.
1. The proximate or nearest cause was their own love to man.
2. The efficient cause was Abrahams prayer.
3. The ultimate cause was Gods mercy.
III. THE ANGELS WENT TO WHERE LOT WAS–to Sodom. As a ray of light may pass through the foetid atmosphere of some squalid court, and emerge without a stain on its pure texture, so may angels spend a night in Sodom, surrounded by crowds of sinners, and yet be untainted angels still. If you go to Sodom for your gains, as Lot did, you will soon show signs of moral pollution. But if you go to save men, as these angels did, you may go into a very hell of evil, where the air is laden with impurity and blasphemy, but you will not be befouled. No grain of mud shall stick.
IV. THEY WERE CONTENT TO WORK FOR VERY FEW. It has been said that the true method of soul-winning is to set the heart on some one soul; and to pursue it, until it has either definitely accepted, or finally rejected, the Gospel of the grace of God. We should not hear so many cries for larger spheres, if Christians only realized the possibilities of the humblest life. Christ found work enough in a village to keep Him there for thirty years. Philip was torn from the great revival in Samaria to go into the desert to win one seeker after God.
V. THEY HASTENED HIM. Let us hasten sinners. Let us say to each one: Escape for thy life; better lose all than lose your soul. Look not behind to past attainments or failures. Linger nowhere outside the City of Refuge, which is Jesus Christ Himself. Haste ye; habits of indecision strengthen; opportunities are closing in; the arrow of destruction has already left the bow of justice; now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation. (F. B.Meyer, B. A.)
I. THE WARNING.
1. How given. The messenger an angel! The deliverance of one man from a temporary calamity worthy of an angels powers. The great privilege of those who are permitted to save souls from eternal death. We have had many warnings. Prophets, apostles, &c., &c. If the word spoken by angels was steadfast, &c.
2. To whom given. Lot. Even he, an imperfect man, shall be saved. Not one of these little ones shall perish. None shall by any means pluck you out of My Fathers hand.
3. Its nature. Unprecedented. Startling. Life and death. Several cities to be destroyed.
4. When given. On the eve of the event predicted. No time for saving property. Life the only thing to be carried away. Presently the time will come when we can carry nothing away with us. Are we now prepared? We may have but a short warning, or none at all.
II. THE ESCAPE.
1. Lot receives the warning. Informs his sons-in-law. They ridiculed it. Scoffers. Many make a mock at sin. Still worse to make a mock of religion. Many do even this. Their day is coming. Was there any cause in Lot for their scoffs? Had they not sufficient reason, in his known character, to believe him? Imperfect piety has little influence. Probably his influence in Sodom was not very great.
2. He lingered.
(1) The time. Not a moment to be lost.
(2) The place. Sodom. Sinful and doomed.
(3) The reason. Did not doubt the warning. Not doubt, but sinful attachments. Had friends and property in this wicked place.
3. Compulsion was needful. The angels had to lead him forth. Strange that men need to be coerced into accepting a great deliverance. Yet this brand was plucked from the burning. Men have to be compelled to come in, &c.
4. Even then Lot did not wish to go as far as he could from destruction, but to remain as near as possible.
III. THE JUDGMENT.
1. The people were employed, as usual, in their pleasures, labours, or sins. Did not think their end was so near. So will it be at the judgment of the world. Death may overtake us unawares.
2. Lot being at a safe distance, the fearful tempest commenced. Fire destroyed the city, and water soon flowed over and submerged the smoking ruins.
3. Lots wife, looking back, was changed into a pillar of salt. None who are on the way to heaven can look back longing on the world they leave without injury. Old attachments are thereby strengthened, and new occupations, &c., are made distasteful. Such declension displeasing to God.
1. The wonderful mercy of God for even imperfect Christians.
2. The duty of thankfully receiving the warning He sends.
3. The duty that lays upon us of warning men to flee from the wrath to come.
4. Gods great love in providing a deliverer for us. (J. C. Gray.)
Angels word to Lot
1. Their humanity.
(1) They showed themselves susceptible of human influence.
(2) They appeared in human form.
(3) They partook of human food.
2. Their power.
I. THAT THEY HAVE A NATURE SUPERIOR TO HUMAN INFIRMITIES.
II. THAT THEY REGARD PARENTS AS ESPECIALLY BOUND TO SEEK THE WELFARE OF THEIR FAMILIES.
III. THAT THEY REGARD SIN AS TOUCHING THE HEART OF THE GREAT GOD.
1. God being omniscient is cognisant of every sin.
2. God being holy must be pained by every sin.
IV. THAT THEY REGARD THEMSELVES AS DIVINELY COMMISSIONED TO INFLICT CALAMITIES WHERE THERE IS SIN. Conclusion:
1. Life is solemn.
2. God is great.
3. Sin is ruinous. (Homilist.)
The character of Lot
Lots character is a singularly mixed one. With all his selfishness he was hospitable and public-spirited. Lover of good living, as undoubtedly he was, his courage and strength of character are yet unmistakable. His sitting at the gate in the evening to offer hospitality may fairly be taken as an indication of his desire to screen the wickedness of his townsmen, and also to shield the stranger from their brutality. From the style in which the mob addressed him it is obvious that he had made himself offensive by interfering to prevent wrongdoing. He was nick-named the Censor, and his eye was felt to carry condemnation. It is true there is no evidence that his opposition had been of the slightest avail. How could it avail with men who knew perfectly well that, with all his denunciation of their wicked ways, he preferred their money-making company to the desolation of the hills, where he would be vexed with no filthy conversation, but would also find no markets? Still it is to Lots credit that in such a city, with none to observe, none to applaud, and none to second him, he should have been able to preserve his own purity of life and steadily to resist wrong-doing. It would be cynical to say that he cultivated austerity and renounced popular vices as a salve to a conscience wounded by his own greed. That he had the courage which lies at the root of strength of character became apparent as the last dark night of Sodom wore on. To go out among a profligate, lawless mob, wild with passion and infuriated by opposition–to go out and shut the door behind him–was an act of true courage. His confidence in the influence he had gained in the town cannot have blinded him to the temper of the raging crowd at his door. To defend his unknown guests he put himself in a position in which men have frequently lost life. In the first few hours of his last night in Sodom there is much that is admirable and pathetic in Lots conduct. But when we have said that he was bold and that he hated other mens sins, we have exhausted the more attractive side of his character. The inhuman collectedness of mind with which, in the midst of a tremendous public calamity, he could scheme for his own private wen-being is the key to his whole character. He had no feeling, lie was cold-blooded, calculating, keenly alive to his own interest, with all his wits about him to reap some gain to himself out of every disaster; the kind of man out of whom wreckers are made, who can with gusto strip gold rings off the fingers of doomed corpses; out of whom are made the villains who can rifle the pockets of their dead comrades on a battle-field, or the politicians who can still ride on the top of the wave that hurls their country on the rocks. (M. Dods, D. D.)
Lots hospitality
Lot would fain have been as hospitable as Abraham. Deeper in his nature than any other consideration was the traditional habit of hospitality. To this he would have sacrificed everything; the rights of strangers were to him truly inviolable. Lot was a man who could as little see strangers without inviting them to his house as Abraham could. He would have treated them handsomely as his uncle; and what he could do he did. But Lot had by his choice of a dwelling made it impossible he should afford safe and agreeable lodging to any visitor, lie did his best, and it was not his reception of the angels that sealed Sodoms doom, and yet what shame he must have felt that he had put himself in circumstances in which his chief virtue could not be practised. So do men tie their own hands and cripple themselves so that even the good they would take pleasure in doing is either wholly impossible or turns to evil. (M. Dods, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
CHAPTER XIX
The two angels mentioned in the preceding chapter, come in
the evening to Sodom, 1.
Lot, who was sitting at the gate, invites them to enter his
house, take some refreshment, and tarry all night; which they
at first refuse, 2;
but on being pressingly solicited, they at last comply, 3.
The abominable conduct of the men of Sodom, 4, 5.
Lot’s deep concern for the honour and safely of his guests, which leads
him to make a most exceptionable proposal to those wicked men, 6-8.
The violent proceedings of the Sodomites, 9.
Lot rescued from their barbarity by the angels, who smite them with
blindness, 10, 11.
The angels exhort Lot and his family to flee from that wicked place,
as God was about to destroy it, 12, 13.
Lot’s fruitless exhortation to his sons-in-law, 14.
The angels hasten Lot and his family to depart, 15, 16.
Their exhortation, 17.
Lot’s request, 18-20.
He is permitted to escape to Zoar, 21-23.
Fire and brimstone are rained down from heaven upon all the cities
of the plain, by which they are entirely destroyed, 24, 25.
Lot’s wife, looking behind, becomes a pillar of salt, 26.
Abraham, early in the morning, discovers the desolation of those
iniquitous cities, 27-29.
Lot, fearing to continue in Zoar, went with his two daughters
to the mountain, and dwelt in a cave, 30.
The strange conduct of his daughters, and his unhappy
deception, 31-36.
Moab and Ammon born, from whom sprang the Moabites and
Ammonites, 37, 38.
NOTES ON CHAP. XIX
Verse 1. Two angels] The two referred to Ge 18:22.
Sat in the gate] Probably, in order to prevent unwary travellers from being entrapped by his wicked townsmen, he waited at the gate of the city to bring the strangers he might meet with to his own house, as well as to transact his own business. Or, as the gate was the place of judgment, he might have been sitting there as magistrate to hear and determine disputes.
Bowed himself] Not through religious reverence, for he did not know the quality of his guests; but through the customary form of civility. See on verses Ge 18:3-5 of the preceding chapter.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
And there came two angels, even those two which departed from Abraham, Gen 18:22, and now were come to Lot, the third yet staying and communing with Abraham. Angels they truly were, though they be called men, Gen 18:1-33.
At even of the same day on which they departed from Abraham.
In the gate of Sodom, where he sat either to observe the administration or corruption of justice there; for the seats of judicature were in the gates: or rather to wait for strangers, to whom he might exercise kindness and hospitality.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
1. there came two angelsmostprobably two of those that had been with Abraham, commissioned toexecute the divine judgment against Sodom.
Lot sat in the gate ofSodomIn Eastern cities it is the market, the seat of justice,of social intercourse and amusement, especially a favorite lounge inthe evenings, the arched roof affording a pleasant shade.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And there came two angels to Sodom at even,…. Or “the two angels” h, the two men who were angels in the likeness of men, that had been with Abraham in the heat of the day at Hebron, on the evening of the same day came to Sodom:
and Lot sat in the gate of Sodom: not as a civil magistrate to try causes there, being appointed a judge over them, as Jarchi relates; yea, the Jews say i: that that day five judges were appointed by the men of Sodom, and Lot was the chief of them; but this is not likely, and seems to be contradicted, Ge 19:9; but he sat there to observe strangers that might pass by, and invite them into his house, and that they might not fall into the hands of the wicked Sodomites, who might abuse them; this being a time when not only travellers would be glad to put up and take refreshment, but his wicked neighbours lay in wait for them to satisfy their lusts on them: he had learnt this hospitality from Abraham;
and Lot seeing [them], rose up to meet them: he arose from his seat and went forward to meet them, which showed his readiness and heartiness to receive them:
and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground; not in a religious way, as paying worship to angels, for as yet he did not know them to be such, and if he had, would not have given them divine adoration; but in a civil way, as was the custom of the eastern countries to bow very low in their civil respects to men, especially to great personages; and such Lot took these to be by their goodly looks and by their dress, as appears by his salutation of them in Ge 19:2.
h “duo illi angeli”, Tigurine version, Cocceius; so Ar. “duobus illis angelis”, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator. i Bereshit Rabba, sect. 50. fol. 44. 4.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
The messengers (angels) sent by Jehovah to Sodom, arrived there in the evening, when Lot, who was sitting at the gate, pressed them to pass the night in his house. The gate, generally an arched entrance with deep recesses and seats on either side, was a place of meeting in the ancient towns of the East, where the inhabitants assembled either for social intercourse or to transact public business (vid., Gen 34:20; Deu 21:19; Deu 22:15, etc.). The two travellers, however (for such Lot supposed them to be, and only recognised them as angels when they had smitten the Sodomites miraculously with blindness), said that they would spend the night in the street – the broad open space within the gate – as they had been sent to inquire into the state of the town. But they yielded to Lot’s entreaty to enter his house; for the deliverance of Lot, after having ascertained his state of mind, formed part of their commission, and entering into his house might only serve to manifest the sin of Sodom in all its heinousness. While Lot was entertaining his guests with the greatest hospitality, the people of Sodom gathered round his house, “ both old and young, all people from every quarter ” (of the town, as in Jer 51:31), and demanded, with the basest violation of the sacred rite of hospitality and the most shameless proclamation of their sin (Isa 3:9), that the strangers should be brought out, that they might know them. is applied, as in Jdg 19:22, to the carnal sin of paederastia, a crime very prevalent among the Canaanites (Lev 18:22., Lev 20:23), and according to Rom 1:27, a curse of heathenism generally.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| Assault on the House of Lot. | B. C. 1898. |
1 And there came two angels to Sodom at even; and Lot sat in the gate of Sodom: and Lot seeing them rose up to meet them; and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground; 2 And he said, Behold now, my lords, turn in, 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 ways. And they said, Nay; but we will abide in the street all night. 3 And he pressed upon 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.
These angels, it is likely, were two of the three that had just before been with Abraham, the two created angels that were sent to execute God’s purpose concerning Sodom. Observe here, 1. There was but one good man in Sodom, and these heavenly messengers soon found him out. Wherever we are, we should enquire out those of the place that live in the fear of God, and should choose to associate ourselves with them. Matt. x. 11, Enquire who is worthy, and there abide. Those of the same country, when they are in a foreign country, love to be together. 2. Lot sufficiently distinguished himself from the rest of his neighbours, at this time, which plainly set a mark upon him. He that did not act like the rest must not fare like the rest. (1.) Lot sat in the gate of Sodom at even. When the rest, it is likely, were tippling and drinking, he sat alone, waiting for an opportunity to do good. (2.) He was extremely respectful to men whose mien and aspect were sober and serious, though they did not come in state. He bowed himself to the ground, when he met them, as if, upon the first view, he discerned something divine in them. (3.) He was hospitable, and very free and generous in his invitations and entertainments. He courted these strangers to his house, and to the best accommodations he had, and gave them all the evidences that he could of his sincerity; for, [1.] When the angels, to try whether he was hearty in the invitation, declined the acceptance of it, at first (which is the common usage of modesty, and no reproach at all to truth and honesty), their refusal did not make him more importunate; for he pressed upon them greatly (v. 3), partly because he would by no means have them to expose themselves to the inconveniences and perils of lodging in the street of Sodom, and partly because he was desirous of their company and converse. He had not seen two such honest faces in Sodom this great while. Note, Those that live in bad places should know how to value the society of those that are wise and good, and earnestly desire it. [2.] When the angels accepted his invitation, he treated them nobly; he made a feast for them, and thought it well-bestowed on such guests. Note, Good people should be (with prudence) generous people.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
GENESIS – CHAPTER NINETEEN
Verses 1-3:
The “two men” were the two angels who had accompanied Jehovah on His visit to Abraham, and who were the Divine messengers of God’s judgment upon Sodom and the wicked cities of the plain.
Lot “sat in the gate of Sodom,” shaar, denoting the entrance of a camp (Ex 32:26, 27), a palace (Ex 2:19), a temple (Eze 8:5), or a city (Jos 2:7). This was not a portal, but a wide, open area (plaza) where the magistrates sat to hear and adjudicate cases and settle disputes, as well as a place of social gathering for the men of the city (De 21:19; Ru 4:1; Pr 31:23). The implication is that Lot had become a magistrate in Sodom. He did not condone their wickedness, but he was willing to share in their lifestyle (2Pe 2:7, 8).
Lot greeted the two angels as they arrived in the city, although he did not at this point recognize them as supernatural visitors. He extended them the customary amenities of hospitality, as Abraham had done (Ge 18:1-8). He urged them to accept his hospitality. Perhaps he knew the danger they would face at the hands of the men of Sodom.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
1. And there came two angels to Sodom. The question occurs, why one of the three angels has suddenly disappeared, and two only are come to Sodom? The Jews (with their wonted audacity in introducing fables) pretend that one came to destroy Sodom, the other to preserve Lot. But from the discourse of Moses, this appears to be frivolous: because we shall see that they both assisted in the liberation of Lot. What I have before adduced is more simple; namely, that it was granted to Abraham, as a peculiar favor, that God would not only send him two messengers from the angelic host, but that, in a more familiar manner, he would manifest himself to him, in his own Son. For (as we have seen) one of the messengers held the principal place, as being superior to the others in dignity. Now, although Christ was always the Mediator, yet, because he manifested himself more obscurely to Lot than he did to Abraham, the two angels only came to Sodom. Since Moses relates, that Lot sat in the gate of the city about evening, many contend that he did so, according to daily custom, for the purpose of receiving guests into his house; yet, as Moses is silent respecting the cause, it would be rash to affirm this as certain. I grant, indeed, that he did not sit as idle persons are wont to do; but the conjecture is not less probable, that he had come forth to meet his shepherds, in order to be present when his sheep were folded. That he was hospitable, the courteous invitation which is mentioned by Moses clearly demonstrates; yet, why he then remained in the gate of the city is uncertain; unless it were, that he was unwilling to omit any opportunity of doing an act of kindness, when strangers presented themselves on whom he might bestow his services. What remains, on this point, may be found in the preceding chapter Gen 17:1
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
ABRAHAMTHE FRIEND OF GOD
Gen 11:10 to Gen 25:10.
ONE week ago we gave this hour to a study in Genesis, our subject being, The Beginnings. The birds-eye view of ten chapters and ten verses brought us to Babel, and impressed upon us the many profitable lessons that come between the record of creation and the report of confusion.
Beginning with the 10th verse of the 11th chapter of Genesis (Gen 11:10), and concluding with the 10th verse of the 25th chapter (Gen 25:10), we have the whole history of Abraham, the friend of God; and while other important persons, such as Sarai, Hagar, Lot, Pharaoh, Abimelech, Isaac, Rebecca and even Melchisedec appear in these chapters, Abraham plays altogether the prominent part, and aside from Melchisedec, the High Priest, is easily the most important person, and the most interesting subject presented in this inspired panorama. It may be of interest to say that Abraham lived midway between Adam and Jesus, and such was his greatness that the Chaldeans, East Indians, Sabeans and Mohammedans all join with the Jew in claiming to be the offspring of Abraham; while it is the Christians proud boast that he is Abrahams spiritual descendant.
It is little wonder that all these contend for a kinship with him whom God deigns to call His friend. The man who is a friend of God is entitled to a large place in history. Fourteen chapters are none too many for his record; and hours spent in analyzing his character and searching for the secrets of his success are hours so employed as to meet the Divine approval.
The problem is how to so set Abrahams history before you as to make it at once easy of comprehension, and yet thoroughly impress its lessons. In trying to solve that question it has seemed best to call attention to
THE CALL AND THE COVENANT.
Now the Lord had said unto Abraham, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy fathers house, unto a land that I will show thee, and I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing; and I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee, and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed (Gen 12:1-3).
Did you ever stop to think of the separations involved in this call?
It meant a separation from home. From thy fathers house. How painful that call is, those of us who have passed through it perfectly understand; and yet many of us have gone so short a distance from home, or else have made the greater journey with such extended stops, that we know but little how to sympathize with Abrahams more effective separation from that dear spot. To go from Chaldea to Canaan in that day, from a country with which he was familiar to one he had never seen; and from a people who were his own, to sojourn among strangers, was every whit equal to William Careys departure from England for India. But as plants and flowers have to be taken from the hot-bed into the broad garden that they may best bring forth, so God lifts the subject of His affection from the warm atmosphere of home-life and sets him down in the far field that he may bring forth fruit unto Him; hence, as is written in Hebrews, Abraham had to go out, not knowing whither he went.
This call also involves separation from kindred. And from thy kindred. In Chaldea, Abram had a multitude of relatives, as the 11th chapter fully shows. Upon all of these, save the members of his own house, and Lot, his brothers son, Abram must turn his back. In the process of time the irreligion of Lot will necessitate also a separation from him. In this respect, Abrahams call is in no whit different from that which God is giving the men and women today. You cannot respond to the call of God without separating yourself from all kin who worship at false shrines; and you cannot make the progress you ought and live in intimate relation with so worldly a professor of religion as was Lot.
We may have marvelled at times that Abraham so soon separated himself from Lot, but the real wonder is that the man of God so long retained his hold upon him. No more difficult task was ever undertaken than that of keeping in the line of service a man who, in the lust of his eyes and the purpose of his heart, has pitched his tent toward Sodom. It is worthy of note that so soon as Abraham was separated from Lot, the Lord said unto him,
Lift up now thine eyes and look from the place that thou art, northward and southward, and eastward and westward, for all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it and to thy seed forever (Gen 13:14-15).
The men of the broadest view in spiritual things, the men upon whom God has put His choicest blessing, have been from time immemorial men who have separated themselves from idolaters and pretenders that they might be the more free to respond to the call of God, and upon such, God has rested His richest favors.
This call also involves separation from the Gentiles. The Gentiles of Chaldea and the Gentiles of Canaan; from the first he was separated by distance and from the second by circumcision. Gods appeal has been and is for a peculiar people, not that they might be queer, but that He might keep them separatedunspotted from the world. God knows, O so well, how few souls there are that can mingle with the unregenerate crowd without losing their testimony and learning to speak the shibboleth of sinners. Peter was a good man; in some respects greater than Abraham; but Peter in that porch-company was a poor witness for Jesus Christ, while his profanity proved the baneful effect of fellowship with Gods enemies. The call to separation, therefore, is none other than the call to salvation, for if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him, for all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not of the Father but is of the world.
But Gods calls are always attended by
GODS COVENANTS.
As this call required three separations with their sacrifices, so its attendant covenant contained three promised blessings. God never empties the heart without filling it again, and with better things. God never detaches the affections from lower objects without at once attaching them to subjects that are higher; consequently call and covenant must go together.
I will make of thee a great nation. That was the first article in His covenant. To the Jew, that was one of the most precious promises. This ancient people delighted in progeny. The Psalmist wrote, As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man, so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them. They shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate. If our Puritan fathers, few in number and feeble as they were, could have imagined the might and multitude of their offspring, they would have found in the prospect an unspeakable pride, and a source of mighty pleasure. It was because those fathers did, in some measure, imagine the America to come, that they were willing to endure the privations and dangers of their day; but the honor of being fathers of a nation, shared in by a half hundred of them, was an honor on which Abraham had a close corporation, for to him God said,
I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth; so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall also thy seed be numbered.
If the heart, parting from parents and home, is empty, the arms into which children have been placed are full; and homesickness, the pain of separation, is overcome when, through the grace of God, one sits down in the midst of his own.
This covenant contained a further promise. I will . . . make thy name great. We may believe that the word great here refers not so much to empty honors as to merited praise. The Jewish conception of such a promise was expressed by Solomon when he said, A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches. And, notwithstanding the fact that our age is guilty of over-estimating the value of riches, men find it difficult to underrate the value of a good name.
Years ago, Jonas Chickering decided to make a better piano than had ever appeared on the market. He spared neither time nor labor in this attempt. His endeavor was rewarded in purity and truthfulness of tone as well as in simplicity of plan, and there came to him the ever-attendant result of success. His name on a piano was that instruments best salesman.
A Massachusetts man, seeing this, went to the Massachusetts legislature and succeeded in getting them to change his name to Chickering, that he might put it upon his own instruments.
As Marden said when referring to this incident, Character has a commercial value.
And, when God promised Abraham to make his name great, He bestowed the very honor which men most covet to this hour.
But the climax of His covenant is contained in this last sentence, In thee shall all the families of the earth be blest. That is the honor of honors! That is the success of all successes! That is the privilege of all privileges!
When Mr. Moody died some man said, Every one of us has lost a friend, and that speaker was right, for there is not a man in America who has not enjoyed at least an opportunity to be better because Moody lived. No matter whether the individual had ever seen him or no; had ever read one of his sermons or no; yet the tidal waves of Moodys work have rolled over the entire land, over many lands for that matter, and even the most ignorant and debased have breathed the better atmosphere on account of him. George Davis claims that Moody traveled a million miles, and addressed a hundred million people, and dealt personally with 750,000 individuals! I think Davis claim is an overstatement, and yet these whom he touched personally are only a tithe of the multitudes blessed indirectly by that evangelism for which Moody stood for forty years. If today I could be privileged to make my choice of the articles of this covenant, rather than be the father of a great nation, rather than enjoy the power of a great name, I would say, Give me the covenant that through me all the nations of the earth should be blessed. Such would indeed be the crowning glory of a life, and such ought to be the crowning joy of a true mans heart.
In the next place, I call your attention to
ABRAHAMS OBEDIENCE AND BLUNDERS.
His obedience was prompt No sooner are the call and covenant spoken than we read,
So Abraham departed as the Lord had spoken unto him (Gen 12:4).
In that his conduct favorably contrasted with the behavior of some other of the Old Testaments most prominent men. Moses was in many respects a model, but he gave himself to an eloquent endeavor to show God that He was making a mistake in appointing him Israels deliverer. Elijah at times indulged in the same unprofitable controversy, and the story of Jonahs criticism of the Divine appointment will be among our later studies. I am confident that Abraham brings before every generation a much needed example in this matter. In these days, men are tempted to live too much in mathematics and to regard too lightly Gods revelations of duty. That is one of the reasons why many pulpits are empty. That is one of the reasons why many a Sunday School class is without a teacher. That is the only reason why any man in this country can say with any show of truthfulness, No man careth for my soul. If the congregations assembled in Gods sanctuary should go out of them, as Abram departed from his home in Haran, to fulfil all that the Lord had spoken unto them, the world would be turned upside down in a fortnight, and Christ would quickly come.
In his obedience Abraham was steadfast also. There are many men who respond to the calls of God; there are only a few who remain faithful to those calls through a long and busy life. There were battles ahead for Abram. There were blunders in store for Abram. There were bereavements and disappointments to come. But, in spite of them all, he marched on until God gathered him to his people. I thank God that such stedfastness is not wholly strange at the present time. When we see professors of religion proving themselves shallow and playing truant before the smaller trials, and we are thereby tempted to join in Solomons dyspeptic lament, All is vanity and vexation of spirit, it heartens one to remember the history that some have made and others are making. Think of Carey and Judson, Jewett and Livingstone, Goddard and Morrison, Clough and Ashmoremen who, through long years, deprivations and persecutions, proved as faithful as was ever Abraham; and so, long as the world shall stand, stedfastness in obedience to the commands of God will be regarded highly in Heaven. Why is it that we so much admire the company of the apostles, and why is it that we sing the praises of martyrs? They withstood in the evil day, and having done all, stood.
Again, Abrams obedience was inspired by faith.
When he went out from Chaldea to come into Canaan, he was not yielding to reason but walking according to revelation. His action was explained in the sentence, He believed in the Lord. Joseph Parker commenting on the world believed as here employed says, This is the first time the word believed occurs in the Bible. * * * * What history opens in this one word. Abram nourished and nurtured himself in God. * * * * He took the promise as a fulfilment. The word was to him a fact. The stars had new meanings to him, as, long before, the rainbow had to Noah. Abram drew himself upward by the stars. Every night they spoke to him of his posterity and of his greatness. They were henceforward not stars only but promises and oaths and blessings.
One great need of the present-day church is a truer trust in God. Oh, for men who like Columbus can let the craft of life float out on the seas of thought and action, and look to the starry heavens for the guidance that shall land them upon newer and richer shores! Oh, for men that will turn their ears heavenward to hear what God will say, and even though His commissions contain sacrifice will go about exercising it! Such men are never forgotten by the Father. We are not surprised to hear Him break forth in praise of Abraham, saying,
Because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, m blessing 1 will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the seashore; and thy seed shall possess the gates of the enemy, and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because thou hast obeyed my voice.
No sacrifice made in faith is ever forgotten, and when Gods rewards for service are spoken, good men always regard them more than sufficient. If you could call up today the souls of Carey, Judson, Livingstone and Morrison, and assemble Clough, Ashmore, Taylor, Powell, Clark, Richards and a hundred others worthy to stand with them, and ask them the question Has God failed in any particular to keep with you any article of His covenant? they would answer in a chorus, No. And has God more than met the expectations of your faith? they would reply without dissent, Yes. As He was faithful to our father Abraham, so He is faithful to the present-day servant.
And yet Abraham, the obedient, was
GUILTY OF BLUNDERING.
Twice he lied, and the third time he approached the utmost limits of truth. He told Sarai to say she was his sister. She was his half-sister, and so he thought to excuse himself by dissembling and keeping back a part. But a lie is not a question of words and phrases! It may be acted as easily as spoken! When God comes to make a report upon your conduct and mine, dissembling will be labeled falsehood, for God does not cover up the sins of men. Somebody has asked, Do you suppose, if the Bible had been written by some learned Doctor, revised by a committee of some eminent scholars, and published by some great ecclesiastical society, we would ever have heard of Noahs drunkenness, of Abrams deception, of Lots disgrace, of Jacobs rascality, of the quarrel between Paul and Barnabas, or of Peters conduct on the porch? Not at all. But when the Almighty writes a mans life, He tells the truth about him.
I heard a colored preacher at Cincinnati say, The most of us would not care for a biography of ourselves, if God was to be the Author of it. Yet the work of the Recording Angel goes on, and as surely as we read today the report of Abrams blunders, we will be compelled to confront our own. Let us cease, therefore, from sin.
But Abrams few blunders cannot blacken his beautiful record. The luster of his life is too positive to be easily dimmed; and like the sun, will continue to shine despite the spots. Run through these chapters, and in every one of the fourteen you will find some touch of his true life. It was Abraham whose heart beat in sweetest sympathy with the sufferings of Hagar. It was Abraham who showed the most unselfish spirit in separating from Lot and dividing the estate. It was Abraham who opened his door to strangers in a hospitality of which this age knows all too little. It was Abram who overcame the forces of the combined kings and snatched Lot out of their hands. It was Abraham whose prayers prevailed with God in saving this same weakkneed professor out of Sodom. It was Abraham who trusted God for a child when Nature said the faith was foolish. It was Abraham who offered that same child in sacrifice at the word, not halting because of his own heart-sufferings. It was Abraham who mourned Sarahs death as deeply as ever any bereft bride felt her loss.
The more I search these chapters, the more I feel that she was right who wrote, A holy life has a voice. It speaks when the tongue is silent and is either a constant attraction or a continued reproof. Put your ear close to these pages of Genesis, and if Abraham does not whisper good to your heart, then be sure that your soul is dead and you are yet in your sins.
There remains time for but a brief review of these fourteen chapters in search of
THEIR TYPES AND SYMBOLS
Abrams call is a type of the Church of Christ. The Greek word for Church means the called-out. Separation from the Chaldeans was essential to Abrams access to the Father, and separation from the world is essential to the Churchs access to God and also essential to its exertion of an influence for righteousness. I believe Dr. Gordon was right when, in The Two-Fold Life he said, The truest remedy for the present-day naturalized Christianity and worldly consecration is to be found in a strenuous and stubborn non-conformity to the world on the part of Christians. With the most unshaken conviction, we believe that the Church can only make headway, in this world, by being loyal to her heavenly calling. Towards Ritualism her cry must be not a rag of popery; towards Rationalism, not a vestige of whatsoever is not of faith; and towards
Secularism, not a shred of the garment spotted by the flesh. The Bride of Christ can only give a true and powerful testimony in this world as she is found clothed with her own proper vesture even the fine linen clean and white, which is the righteousness of the saints.
Isaacs offering is a type of Gods gift of Jesus. He was an only son and Abraham laid him upon the altar of sacrifice. And, if one say that he fails as a type because he passed not through the experience of death, let us remember what is written into Heb 11:17 following,
By faith Abraham when he was tried, offered up Isaac; and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, *** accounting that God was able to raise him up even from the dead, from whence also he received him, in a figure.
It might be written in Scripture, Abraham so believed God that he gave his only begotten son, for Gods sake. It is written in Scripture, God so loved the world that He gave His only Begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Melchisedec is a type of our High Priest, Jesus Christ. His record in Gen 14:18-20 is brief, but the interpretation of his character in Hebrews 7 presents him as either identical with the Lord Himself, or else as one whose priesthood is the most perfect type of that which Jesus Christ has performed, and performs today for the sons of men.
In Sodom, we find the type of the days of the Son of Man. Of it the Lord said,
Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous, I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto Me.
Jesus Christ referred to that city and likened its condition to that which should obtain upon the earth at the coming of the Son of Man, saying, As it was in the days of Lot, they did eat; they drank; they bought; they sold; they planted; they builded; but the same day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all, even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed.
The newspapers some time ago reported great religious excitement in a Southern city through the work of two evangelists. Doctors said, We will prescribe no more liquor for patients, druggists said, We will sell no more liquor as a beverage; gamblers gave up their gambling; those called the toughs of the town turned to the Lord; the people of means put off their jewels, changed their frivolous clothes to plainer style; and wherever one went he heard either the singing of hymns or the utterance of prayers, and a great newspaper said this had all come about because the people in that little college town expected the speedy return of Christ. You may call it fanaticism, if you will, and doubtless there would be some occasion, and yet call it what you may, this sentence will remain in the Scriptures, Therefore, be ye also ready, for in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of Man cometh.
Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley
CRITICAL NOTES.
Gen. 19:1. And there came two angels to Sodom at even.] Heb. And there came two of the angels. The third remained with Abraham, being held by him in his pleadings for Sodom. (Ch. Gen. 18:22; Gen. 18:33.) Sat in the gate. The usual place for public gatherings, and for the judges to sit in court. (Job. 27:7-12.) The Jewish commentators understand this phrase as implying the exercise of the authority and office of a magistrate. Possibly Lot might have occupied such a position. He was an aged man, and the elders of the city used to assume this office without any formalities. (See Gen. 19:9.) Rose up to meet them; and bowed himself with his face towards the ground. It was the Oriental custom to rise up in the presence of superiors, and to pay them homage by bowing low with the face towards the ground.
Gen. 19:2. My lords.] The word is the same as that by which Abraham addressed God (ch. Gen. 18:3) in the singular, but it is differently pointed in the Hebrew, and evidently must be differently understood, as the sentence is in the second person plural, not singular, as there. And accordingly, while the Masoretic editors have a note against Adonai there, sacred, meaning that it is the name of God, here they note the profane, meaning that it is the name of man only. (Alford.) And they said, Nay; but we will abide in the street all night. Heb. Because we will lodge in the open square; i.e., the wide place in the gate.
Gen. 19:3. And he pressed upon them greatly.] The Heb. word implies an earnestness of importunity amounting almost to violence. The same word is used in Gen. 19:9, And they pressed sore upon the man. A feast. Heb. A banquet. It was a refreshment, whether called an eating or a drinking. In Est. 5:6-7, it is rendered a banquet of wine. This was Lots generous entertainmentthe best at his command, doubtless. (Jacobus.) Unleavened bread. Because this kind could be more expeditiously prepared.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PASAGRAPH.Gen. 19:1-3
THE EVE OF JUDGMENT TO THE RIGHTEOUS
This visitation of Gods vengeance upon the wicked cities of the plain is typical of the Last Judgment upon mankind; and the conduct of Lot declares to us something of the behaviour of the righteous under the immediate shadow of that judgment.
I. The righteous man is found in the way of duty.
Gen. 19:1. The duty of his calling. When the two angels came to Sodom at even, Lot was found sitting at the gate, which was the place for news and business. He was, probably, there in the capacity of a judge, (Gen. 19:9.) He was in the way of his ordinary duty to which Providence had called him. He was found at his post. So it shall be in the end of the world. Good men will be found walking in the humble ways of duty at the coming of the Lord. They are not to stand still gazing into heaven, and indifferent to all things around them, but to perform the tasks of their appointed day until the night cometh. The Lord expects, when He cometh to judge His servants, to find them carrying out the commands which He left with them.
2. The duty arising from the relations of human life. Lot treats these strangers with kindness and hospitality. (Gen. 19:2-3.) He even presses his favours upon them. There were special duties owing to the stranger, and he discharges them willingly from the best and purest motives. There are duties arising from our relations to society, duties which exercise us in the tender charities of human life. Up to the very eve of judgment the righteous will be found doing the deeds of love and kindness. (Mat. 25:35-41.)
II. The righteous man is separate from sinners. Lot was not engaged in the wicked practices of the place. He separated himself from the vile sinners of the citykept up the dignity of his character as a righteous man. It would have been better for him had he not lived amongst this wicked people; but now he had to accept the fact, and strive to separate himself from them in spirit, aim, and purpose. The righteous are in the world, and they maintain their godly life not by seeking seclusion from it, but by living above it, by cherishing a nobler purpose, and acting out the Divine idea of life. They are unworldly just as Christ was unworldly, mingling with men, and yet living the life of heaven upon earth; discharging common duties, and yet attending to the work of His high calling. This separateness, which is necessarily the mark of the righteous character, involves:
1. Sorrow for the spiritual state of men alienated from God. Lot was vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked, and in seeing and hearing day by day deeds of sin and lawlessness. (2Pe. 2:7-8.) It is one of the sorrows of the godly man that his spiritual sensibilities are wounded by the observation of sin around him. He feels pity for those who are in so sad a case, so infatuated and exposed to the danger of judgment; and yet his pity often acquires the temper of a righteous indignation that his God is so dishonoured.
2. A principle which regulates choice of companionship. A godly man will choose for intimate companionship those who are like-minded with himself, and who will further his spiritual interests. He avoids the contagion of evil example, and in the choice of his companions strives ever to seek those beings which are above. He is constantly attracted to that which is most godlike. Though Lot followed it so feebly, yet such was the direction in which he set his righteous soul. He is pleased with the company of those whom he felt to be kindred spirits. He offers them hospitality, and treats them with every consideration and courtesy. So it shall be when the last Judgment is about to come upon the world. The righteous will still be a separate people, sharing a common feeling and interest.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Gen. 19:1. Another instance where, under the form of ordinary hospitality, angels are entertained unawares.
A godly training must refine and polish the manners. The continual practice of the duties of religion tends to destroy the love of self, and to foster that consideration for others which is the soul of good behaviour in the intercourse of life. The righteous man does that from principle and real convictions which the man of the world does from a cold regard to artificial standards of duty and courtesy.
Superior beings inspire respect in those whose souls are open to impressions made by what is great and good. The worship of One who is supremely good, generates a regard for goodness wherever it may be found.
There is a humility and reverence due to the pious, for these are but angels in disguise. Such honour must be awarded to the saints, if we consider what they shall be in the great possibilities of the future.
When the two angels came to Sodom at even, Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. He was at his post, and on the watch, not forgetful to entertain strangers. This was pre-eminently the office of pious love which he had to discharge. As Abraham, at noon-day, ere he sat down to his mealso Lot, at night, ere he retired to rest, remained on the look-out for those who might need his hospitality. Especially, if any of the remnant of Gods people, persecuted by the idolatrous nations, and compelled to wander on the wide earth, without a home, should be passing through the accursed city where Lot dwelt, it was indeed a most essential service to intecept them at the gate, to prevent them from falling into the hands of the unprincipled and lawless crowd, whose companions or whose victims it was alike fatal to become, and to give them the shelter of a roof beneath which the Lord was worshipped. Thus was Lot employed, when all the rest of the city were probably either sunk in slumber or abandoned to riot. Had he been asleep, like the others, or had he been indulging in vain and sinful dissipation, he might have missed the visit of the friendly angels; they might have passed by his house.(Candlish.)
Gen. 19:2. Kindred natures assort easily together.
These minute attentions to the wants of travellers were among the hospitalities practised by all Oriental nations. But the inhabitants of these wicked cities had fallen far below these common standards of duty.
They would have determined to abide in the street all night but for Lots importunity. So our Saviour would have gone further but that the two disciples constrained Him to stay. (Luk. 24:29.) This was no simulation; or, if so, yet it was only explanatory, without deceit or hypocrisy. And if Solomon sinned not in making believe he would do that which was unlawful to be done (1Ki. 3:24), it can be no sin to do the like in things indifferent.(Trapp.)
Lot is approved of the Lord as righteous, and exempt from the doom of the city. Therefore the messengers of God can dwell with him.
We should seek opportunities to do good, and even press our favours upon others.
Gen. 19:3. He pressed them, not merely from an impulse of generosity that he might refresh them with the cheer of his house, or from a wish to enjoy their company and converse, but because he was too well aware of the danger to which they would be exposed were they to adhere to their declared purpose of lodging in the street.(Bush.)
There may be honest feasting in Lots house among the riot and gluttony of the Sodomites.(Hughes.)
Love, like authority, has its constraints. As there is a violence of wickedness, so there is a holy violence which will take no denial.
To Lots petition the reply is, Nay, but we will abide in the street all night. Eventually, indeed, they yield to his importunity, and he sups with them and they with him. But whereas in Abrahams case communion is reached, as it were, naturally without an effort, in Lots there is a struggle of prayer before his desire is granted. By the self-mortified pilgrim communion is easily obtained. Those who live in the world, judging it rather than themselves, though they would gladly welcome the Lord or His servants, find that before communion can be enjoyed a temporary denial and a spiritual struggle must be experienced.(Jukes: Types of Genesis.)
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
PART THIRTY-TWO
THE STORY OF ABRAHAM: LOTS LAST DAYS
Gen. 19:1-38
1. Lots Hospitality (Gen. 19:1-3)
1 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; 2 and he said, Behold now, my lords, turn aside, I pray you, into your servants 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. 3 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.
While Abraham had been pleading with God, the other two heavenly Visitants had entered the doomed city. Note, the two angels came. Speiser (ABG, 138): This identification is meant for the reader, who knows that Yahweh stayed behind with Abraham (Gen. 18:22) in order to tell him of the melancholy mission. The author was equally direct in introducing the other visit (Gen. 18:1). But Lot must discover the truth for himself, as Abraham did earlier. It was in the light of the miracle (Gen. 19:11) that the men (Gen. 19:5; Gen. 19:8; Gen. 19:10; cf. Gen. 18:22) were now clearly revealed as angels. It is at this point that the text becomes more specific. By thus viewing the action through the eyes of the actors, the spectator also is caught up in the unfolding drama, in spite of his advance knowledge. Note that the angels arrived at Sodom at even, that is, in the evening. Now the southern tip of what is now the Dead Sea is some forty miles from Hebron. Normal traveling time for that distance in the patriarchal age would have been about two days; supposing these visitors had left their sumptuous meal at Abrahams tent toward mid-afternoon, they must have had superhuman powers to have made the journey in such a short time. Note the following suggestions, from Jewish sources (SC, 93), in which they are treated as angels: It would surely not have taken them so long to go from Hebron to Sodom; but they were merciful angels, and they waited until Abraham finished his pleading, in the hope they would not have to destroy the place. . . . Similarly, they came there immediately after they left Abraham, but did not enter the city until even, hoping that Abrahams prayers would be efficacious. (The first of these suggestions is from the medieval commentator Rashi (d. 1105), the second from Sforno, who died at Bologna in 1550). (We must remember that angels are represented in Scripture as having superhuman knowledge, but not omniscience).
Lot sat in the gate of Sodom. The gate was the usual resort of all, and especially of the elders, of whatever city. There legal issues were adjudicated, transactions completed, bargains made, everyday affairs discussed. The gate was the focal point of all communal activities in an urban center like Sodom. Lot arose to meet his visitors, and bowed himself with his face to the earth (the manner in which courtiers and clients address their superiors in the Amarna letters; in the corresponding case of Abraham (Gen. 18:2), the term for face is significantly missing, ABG, 138).
Lots hospitality was, in the main, according to the usual ritual, but with significant overtones. (1) He urged them to turn aside, etc. Having gone out to meet them, he invited them to come to his house (in contrast to Abrahams tent, Gen. 18:1; Gen. 18:6; Gen. 18:9-10), suggesting that they turn aside to get there, that is, take a roundabout way. At the same time he invited them to tarry all night at his house, adding, and wash your feet, and ye shall rise up early, and go on your way. Customarily, this order would have been reversed, that is, the washing of feet should have been the first act of the, ritual. But, according to Rashi, Lot feared that if they washed their feet first, and would then be discovered, the Sodomites would accuse him of having harboured them already for a few days. He therefore asked them to spend the night there without washing their feet, to make it appear that they had only just arrived (SC, 93). When the celestial visitors modestly declined Lots invitation, stating their preference to abide in the street all night (for the purpose, it seems, of evaluating realistically the abhorrent vices of the Sodomites), Lot is said to have urged them greatly: evidently he pressured them as courteously as possible not to do this, because he knew well the lust and violence to which they would be subjected (undoubtedly a point in his favor). (To pass the night in the street was not an unusual thing. The climate permitted such a course; wrapped in their cloaks, travelers frequently spent the night sleeping in the street, especially in the broad place, the enlarged area just within the city gate which served as the market place and the concourse for all types of people). In response to Lots urgency the angels turned in unto him, and entered into his house: that is, they took a circuitous path to get there. Safely within the house, Lot proceeded with true. Oriental hospitality to bake unleavened bread and make a feast, and they did eat. The same excellent courtesy which we have noted in Abraham still characterizes the nephew.
We may well ask, Why was Lot in the gate of Sodom in the first place? Whitelaw (PCG, 252): In what capacity Lot was sitting in the gate is not narrated. That he was on the outlook for travelers on whom to practice the hospitality he had learned from his uncle (Poole, Willet, Calvin, Lange) is perhaps to form too high an ideal of his piety (Kalisch); while the explanation that he had been promoted to the dignity of one of the city judges, though not perhaps justified as an inference from Gen. 19:9, is not at all unlikely, considering his relationship to Abraham. Jamieson (CECG, 160), concerning the gate: In eastern cities it is the market, and is often devoted to other business transactions (Ruth, ch. 4), the administration of justice, and the enjoyment of social intercourse and amusement ; especially it is a favorite lounge in the evenings, the arched roof affording a pleasant shade. Or, was Lots presence at the gate of Sodom a further proof of his moral and spiritual degeneracy? As Leupold puts it (EG, 555556): Lots presence here will hardly be accounted for on the assumption that he was on the lookout for guests in order to afford his hospitality an opportunity to welcome chance strangers. Strangers cannot have been so common in those days. Rather, Lots presence in the gate constitutes a reproach to the otherwise good and righteous man (2Pe. 2:8). After having first moved into the Plain of Sodom (Gen. 13:11), he presently chose Sodom itself as his dwelling place (Gen. 13:12); and now finally he has arrived at the point where the activities, the bustle and stir, are looked upon with a more or less tolerant interest. This much cannot be denied in the reference to Lot, that when the approach of the strangers is noticed by him, he promptly advances to them with a gracious invitation. He is not ignorant of the danger that threatens chance visitors in such a town. He arises to meet them and bows with the customary respectful oriental salutation. . . . With anxiety for their welfarefor he knows what men in the open must faceand, perhaps, consciously at no small risk to himself, he makes his invitation as attractive as possible. (It should be recalled here that, according to Scripture, God does not look with favor on the concentration of population. His command was, at the first, be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it, Gen. 1:28. Replenish here means to stock the whole earth with progeny. But the rebellious race took the opposite course: they concentrated on a plain in Shinar and presumed to build a city and a towera tower whose top would reach unto heavenmaking it necessary for God to confound their speech and thus scatter them abroad: Gen. 11:1-9. Concentration of population invariably breeds vice, crime, violence, and strife of every kind.)
Review Questions
See Gen. 19:30-38.
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
XIX.
(1) And there came two angels.Heb., And the two angels came. It is a continuation of the preceding narrative, and takes up the history from Gen. 18:22.
Lot sat in the gate of Sodom.He had therefore become a citizen of Sodom, probably after the deliverance from the Elamite invasion, when, as a relative of Abraham, he would be treated with great honour. This personal respect had made him close his eyes to the sinfulness of the people, and he had consented to live inside the town, and even to let its citizens marry his daughters. Meanwhile all intercourse between him and Abraham apparently had ceased, and he had lost all share in the covenant of circumcision.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
LOT RESCUED BY THE ANGELS, Gen 19:1-23.
In this chapter we have another picture of the life and character of Lot. After his rescue from the eastern kings by Abraham, he went back again to his coveted Sodom. His daughters married men of the city, and his family appear to have become damagingly affected by the vices of the place. Lot himself lost not the uprightness of character developed by his long residence with Abraham, and he was often “vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked. For that righteous man, dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds.” 2Pe 2:8. But his moral force was altogether insufficient to stem the tide of evil which was against him . He was wont to sit in the gate of Sodom as one of the judges of the city, (comp . Rth 4:1,) and thus became familiar with the commerce and conversation of the inhabitants. All this would tend to blunt his moral sense, and lower him from the simplicity and purity of the shepherd life he had led among the hills with Abraham.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
1. Two angels Hebrews, the two angels, evidently the two who left Abraham on the heights . Gen 18:22. Knobel suggests that Jehovah, the most holy, sent his angels, but would not himself enter the wicked city .
At even They dined with Abraham in the heat of the day; they will sup with Lot .
Sat in the gate of Sodom “The gate of the city was, in the ancient towns of the East, the common place of public resort, both for social intercourse and for public business . This gate of the city nearly corresponded with the forum, or market-place of Greece and Rome.
Not only was it the place of public sale, but judges and even kings held courts of justice there. The gate itself was probably an arch, with deep recesses, in which were placed the seats of the judges, and benches on either side were arranged for public convenience. Comp. Gen 34:20; Deu 21:19; Deu 21:22; Deu 21:15; Rth 4:1. ” Speaker’s Com .
‘And the two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot sat in the gate of Sodom. And Lot saw them and rose to meet them, and he bowed himself with his face to the earth.’
Compare Gen 18:1-2. What a contrast. Abraham sat in the door of his tent, a place of thought and meditation and repose. Lot sits in the gate of Sodom, a place of evil thoughts, sensuousness and perverted activity. Abraham runs to meet his guests. Lot merely stands up for them, although both bow themselves to the ground in welcome. While Lot is not to be faulted he is shown as lacking the effusiveness of Abraham. This is surely not accidental. It is intended to bring out their differing attitudes of heart towards God which is brought out in their attitude to distinguished strangers.
Sitting in the gate of the city suggests Lot was involved with the ‘elders’ who helped to rule Sodom (compare Rth 4:1-2). He would have obtained much reflected credit from Abraham’s activity in Genesis 14. He is now well settled in Sodom and had put down his roots, regardless of the behaviour of its inhabitants. After all it was ‘business’. By many that is taken as excusing anything.
The gate of the city is probably a tower gate, possibly with two gates (compare 2 Samuel 18 24) so that there is a space between the gates, protecting the way in. During the day it would be used for business and as a courtroom for the trial in public of local offenders. In the evening men would gather there, especially the elders of the city.
His concern for them constrains him to welcome the new arrivals. He even hopes to save them from the fate worse than death that he knew might await them.
Some point to the speed of the men’s passage. In the middle of the day they are at the oaks of Mamre. By evening they are at the gates of Sodom, forty miles away along a difficult road. But it may not be the same day. They may well have travelled through the night and even the following night. The mention of evening is to bring out that they will spend the night there rather than to stress the time. However, it is true that angels are not constrained like others.
Gen 19:2 a
‘And he said, “Behold now my lords, turn aside I beg you into your servant’s house, and stay all night, and wash your feet, and you shall rise early and go on your way”.’
This again compares with Abraham’s welcome. Much the same hospitality, but in what different circumstances. Unlike Abraham he dare not leave them outside.
“My lords” contrasts with ‘my lord’ (18:3). Lot only has angels to address. He is not ‘the friend of Yahweh’ (compare Jas 2:23).
Gen 19:2 b
‘And they said, “No but we will abide in the street all night”.’
The men are making clear that they had not come specifically to see Lot. They were there to check out the city. Again this is in contrast to the personal approach to Abraham. The test is to be a genuine one. Sodom is being given a chance, even though a slight one.
Perhaps they were also testing out Lot, for Lot knew what a dangerous place the street in Sodom was for strangers. It is to his credit that he would not be restrained. There is still much good in him. This is in deliberate contrast to the men of the city. He does not realise that he is passing God’s test and proving himself the only one who is ‘righteous’.
The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah Gen 19:1-38 gives us the famous story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. We see in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah how careful Abraham and Lot were in their lives to entertain strangers. The Scriptures tell us to be careful to entertain strangers, because they may be angels (Heb 13:2).
Heb 13:2, “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.”
Extra-biblical References to Sodom and Gomorrah – I find it amazing in the story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah how Abraham would find it within himself to intercede for such a wicked people. Yet somehow, Abraham found enough compassion to pray for them. Perhaps he was able to do this because he understood the eternal aspects of a man’s soul.
Homosexuality We read in Rom 1:18-32 about the three-fold progression of man’s depravity. Mankind start out in idolatry, he moves into fornication and finally into homosexuality. Thus, there was no more remedy for the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. They had become utterly depraved and the only remedy left was their destruction.
Lot Since the time that Lot parted from Abraham, he does not seem to walk in the blessings of Abraham. He is taken captive by the kings of the East and rescued by Abraham (Gen 14:1-24). He now lives in the midst of a wicked city, gives his daughters in marriage to the men of that city (Gen 19:14), and his soul is grieved day by day (2Pe 2:7-9). He eventually lives in a cave and impregnates his two daughters. The point is that a man is blessed while dwelling in the household of a man of faith like Abraham. In like manner, when a young minister leaves the covering of his spiritual father prematurely, and is now out of God’s will, the anointing will cease and this young minister will become like any other man.
Gen 19:1 And there came two angels to Sodom at even; and Lot sat in the gate of Sodom: and Lot seeing them rose up to meet them; and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground;
Gen 19:1 Gen 19:1 “and Lot sat in the gate of Sodom” Comments – The fact that Lot sat in the gate is an indication that Lot was a man of influence in the city of Sodom, for it was here that judgment was made by the city elders ( 2Sa 19:8 , 1Ki 22:10, Pro 31:23, Dan 2:49). It is very possible that they respected him after his uncle Abraham delivered them from the hands of kings of the East.
2Sa 19:8, “ Then the king arose, and sat in the gate . And they told unto all the people, saying, Behold, the king doth sit in the gate. And all the people came before the king: for Israel had fled every man to his tent.”
1Ki 22:10, “And the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat the king of Judah sat each on his throne, having put on their robes, in a void place in the entrance of the gate of Samaria; and all the prophets prophesied before them.”
Pro 31:23, “ Her husband is known in the gates, when he sitteth among the elders of the land .”
Dan 2:49, “Then Daniel requested of the king, and he set Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, over the affairs of the province of Babylon: but Daniel sat in the gate of the king .”
Gen 19:1 “and Lot seeing them rose up to meet them; and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground” – Comments – The Mosaic Law later requires the Jews to treat the stranger with love (Deu 10:18-19).
Deu 10:18-19, “He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment. Love ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.”
Gen 19:2 And he said, Behold now, my lords, turn in, 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 ways. And they said, Nay; but we will abide in the street all night.
Gen 19:3 Gen 19:3 Gen 19:4 But before they lay down, the men of the city, even the men of Sodom, compassed the house round, both old and young, all the people from every quarter:
Gen 19:4 Gen 19:4 “the men of the city, even the men of Sodom, compassed the house round, both old and young, all the people from every quarter” – Comments – God will judge all homosexuality.
Lev 20:13, “If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.”
Eze 16:49-50, “Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me: therefore I took them away as I saw good.”
Jud 1:7, “Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.”
A similar story is found in Jdg 19:22.
Jdg 19:22, “Now as they were making their hearts merry, behold, the men of the city, certain sons of Belial, beset the house round about, and beat at the door, and spake to the master of the house, the old man, saying, Bring forth the man that came into thine house, that we may know him.”
Gen 19:5 And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where are the men which came in to thee this night? bring them out unto us, that we may know them.
Gen 19:6 Gen 19:7 Gen 19:8 Gen 19:9 Gen 19:9 Gen 19:14 Comments – In the phrase “sons in law,” Gen 19:14 may imply that Lot had several other married daughters beside his virgin daughters. However, it is also possible that they were married to the two daughters he brought with him out of the city and by whom he eventually fathered two sons.
Ten Genealogies (Calling) – The Genealogies of Righteous Men and their Divine Callings (To Be Fruitful and Multiply) – The ten genealogies found within the book of Genesis are structured in a way that traces the seed of righteousness from Adam to Noah to Shem to Abraham to Isaac and to Jacob and the seventy souls that followed him down into Egypt. The book of Genesis closes with the story of the preservation of these seventy souls, leading us into the book of Exodus where we see the creation of the nation of Israel while in Egyptian bondage, which nation of righteousness God will use to be a witness to all nations on earth in His plan of redemption. Thus, we see how the book of Genesis concludes with the origin of the nation of Israel while its first eleven chapters reveal that the God of Israel is in fact that God of all nations and all creation.
The genealogies of the six righteous men in Genesis (Adam, Noah, Shem, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob) are the emphasis in this first book of the Old Testament, with each of their narrative stories opening with a divine commission from God to these men, and closing with the fulfillment of prophetic words concerning the divine commissions. This structure suggests that the author of the book of Genesis wrote under the office of the prophet in that a prophecy is given and fulfilled within each of the genealogies of these six primary patriarchs. Furthermore, all the books of the Old Testament were written by men of God who moved in the office of the prophet, which includes the book of Genesis. We find a reference to the fulfillment of these divine commissions by the patriarchs in Heb 11:1-40. The underlying theme of the Holy Scriptures is God’s plan of redemption for mankind. Thus, the book of Genesis places emphasis upon these men of righteousness because of the role that they play in this divine plan as they fulfilled their divine commissions. This explains why the genealogies of Ishmael (Gen 25:12-18) and of Esau (Gen 36:1-43) are relatively brief, because God does not discuss the destinies of these two men in the book of Genesis. These two men were not men of righteousness, for they missed their destinies because of sin. Ishmael persecuted Isaac and Esau sold his birthright. However, it helps us to understand that God has blessed Ishmael and Esau because of Abraham although the seed of the Messiah and our redemption does not pass through their lineage. Prophecies were given to Ishmael and Esau by their fathers, and their genealogies testify to the fulfillment of these prophecies. There were six righteous men did fulfill their destinies in order to preserve a righteous seed so that God could create a righteous nation from the fruit of their loins. Illustration As a young schoolchild learning to read, I would check out biographies of famous men from the library, take them home and read them as a part of class assignments. The lives of these men stirred me up and placed a desire within me to accomplish something great for mankind as did these men. In like manner, the patriarchs of the genealogies in Genesis are designed to stir up our faith in God and encourage us to walk in their footsteps in obedience to God.
The first five genealogies in the book of Genesis bring redemptive history to the place of identifying seventy nations listed in the Table of Nations. The next five genealogies focus upon the origin of the nation of Israel and its patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
There is much more history and events that took place surrounding these individuals emphasized in the book of Genesis, which can be found in other ancient Jewish writings, such as The Book of Jubilees. However, the Holy Scriptures and the book of Genesis focus upon the particular events that shaped God’s plan of redemption through the procreation of men of righteousness. Thus, it was unnecessary to include many of these historical events that were irrelevant to God’s plan of redemption.
In addition, if we see that the ten genealogies contained within the book of Genesis show to us the seed of righteousness that God has preserved in order to fulfill His promise that the “seed of woman” would bruise the serpent’s head in Gen 3:15, then we must understand that each of these men of righteousness had a particular calling, destiny, and purpose for their lives. We can find within each of these genealogies the destiny of each of these men of God, for each one of them fulfilled their destiny. These individual destinies are mentioned at the beginning of each of their genealogies.
It is important for us to search these passages of Scripture and learn how each of these men fulfilled their destiny in order that we can better understand that God has a destiny and a purpose for each of His children as He continues to work out His divine plan of redemption among the children of men. This means that He has a destiny for you and me. Thus, these stories will show us how other men fulfilled their destinies and help us learn how to fulfill our destiny. The fact that there are ten callings in the book of Genesis, and since the number “10” represents the concept of countless, many, or numerous, we should understand that God calls out men in each subsequent generation until God’s plan of redemption is complete.
We can even examine the meanings of each of their names in order to determine their destiny, which was determined for them from a child. Adam’s name means “ruddy, i.e. a human being” ( Strong), for it was his destiny to begin the human race. Noah’s name means, “rest” ( Strong). His destiny was to build the ark and save a remnant of mankind so that God could restore peace and rest to the fallen human race. God changed Abram’s name to Abraham, meaning, “father of a multitude” ( Strong), because his destiny was to live in the land of Canaan and believe God for a son of promise so that his seed would become fruitful and multiply and take dominion over the earth. Isaac’s name means, “laughter” ( Strong) because he was the child of promise. His destiny was to father two nations, believing that the elder would serve the younger. Isaac overcame the obstacles that hindered the possession of the land, such as barrenness and the threat of his enemies in order to father two nations, Israel and Esau. Jacob’s name was changed to Israel, which means “he will rule as God” ( Strong), because of his ability to prevail over his brother Esau and receive his father’s blessings, and because he prevailed over the angel in order to preserve his posterity, which was the procreation of twelve sons who later multiplied into the twelve tribes of Israel. Thus, his ability to prevail against all odds and father twelve righteous seeds earned him his name as one who prevailed with God’s plan of being fruitful and multiplying seeds of righteousness.
In order for God’s plan to be fulfilled in each of the lives of these patriarchs, they were commanded to be fruitful and multiply. It was God’s plan that the fruit of each man was to be a godly seed, a seed of righteousness. It was because of the Fall that unrighteous seed was produced. This ungodly offspring was not then nor is it today God’s plan for mankind.
Outline Here is a proposed outline:
1. The Generation of the Heavens and the Earth Gen 2:4 to Gen 4:26
a) The Creation of Man Gen 2:4-25
b) The Fall Gen 3:1-24
c) Cain and Abel Gen 4:1-26
2. The Generation of Adam Gen 5:1 to Gen 6:8
3. The Generation of Noah Gen 6:9 to Gen 9:29
4. The Generation of the Sons of Noah Gen 10:1 to Gen 11:9
5. The Generation of Shem Gen 11:10-26
6. The Generation of Terah (& Abraham) Gen 11:27 to Gen 25:11
7. The Generation Ishmael Gen 25:12-18
8. The Generation of Isaac Gen 25:19 to Gen 35:29
9. The Generation of Esau Gen 36:1-43
10. The Generation of Jacob Gen 37:1 to Gen 50:26
The Genealogy of Terah (and of Abraham) The genealogies of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob have a common structure in that they open with God speaking to a patriarch and giving him a commission and a promise in which to believe. In each of these genealogies, the patriarch’s calling is to believe God’s promise, while this passage of Scripture serves as a witness to God’s faithfulness in fulfilling each promise. Only then does the genealogy come to a close.
Gen 11:27 to Gen 25:11 gives the account of the genealogy of Terah and his son Abraham. (Perhaps the reason this genealogy is not exclusively of Abraham, but rather of his father Terah, is because of the importance of Lot and the two tribes descended from him, the Moabites and the Ammonites, who will play a significant role in Israel’s redemptive history.) Heb 11:8-19 reveals the central message in this genealogy that stirs our faith in God when it describes Abraham’s acts of faith and obedience to God, culminating in the offering of his son Isaac on Mount Moriah. The genealogy of Abraham opens with God’s promise to him that if he would separate himself from his father and dwell in the land of Canaan, then God would make from him a great nation through his son (Gen 12:1-3), and it closes with God fulfilling His promise to Abraham by giving Him a son Isaac. However, this genealogy records Abraham’s spiritual journey to maturity in his faith in God, as is typical of each child of God. We find a summary of this genealogy in Heb 11:8-19. During the course of Abraham’s calling, God appeared to Abraham a number of times. God reappeared to him and told him that He would make his seed as numerous as the stars in the sky (Gen 15:5). God later appeared to Abraham and made the covenant of circumcision with him and said, “I will make My covenant between Me and you, and will multiply you exceedingly.”(Gen 17:2) After Abraham offered Isaac his son upon the altar, God reconfirmed His promise that “That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies.” (Gen 22:17). The event on Mount Moriah serves as a testimony that Abraham fulfilled his part in believing that God would raise up a nation from Isaac, his son of promise. Thus, Abraham fulfilled his calling and destiny for his generation by dwelling in the land of Canaan and believing in God’s promise of the birth of his son Isaac. All of God’s promises to Abraham emphasized the birth of his one seed called Isaac. This genealogy testifies to God’s faithfulness to fulfill His promise of giving Abraham a son and of Abraham’s faith to believe in God’s promises. Rom 9:6-9 reflects the theme of Abraham’s genealogy in that it discusses the son of promise called Isaac.
Abraham’s Faith Perfected ( Jas 2:21-22 ) – Abraham had a promise from God that he would have a son by Sarai his wife. However, when we read the Scriptures in the book of Genesis where God gave Abraham this promise, we see that he did not immediately believe the promise from God (Gen 17:17-18).
Gen 17:17-18, “Then Abraham fell upon his face, and laughed, and said in his heart, Shall a child be born unto him that is an hundred years old? and shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear? And Abraham said unto God, O that Ishmael might live before thee!”
Instead of agreeing with God’s promise, Abraham laughed and suggested that God use Ishmael to fulfill His promise. However, many years later, by the time God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son, he was fully persuaded that God was able to use Isaac to make him a father of nations. We see Abraham’s faith when he told his son Isaac that God Himself was able to provide a sacrifice, because he knew that God would raise Isaac from the dead, if need be, in order to fulfill His promise (Gen 22:8).
Gen 22:8, “And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together.”
Heb 11:17-19, “By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, Of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called: Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure.”
The best illustration of being fully persuaded is when Abraham believed that God would raise up Isaac from the dead in order to fulfill His promise. This is truly being fully persuaded and this is what Rom 4:21 is referring to.
What distinguished Abraham as a man of faith was not his somewhat initial weak reaction to the promises of God in Gen 17:17-18, but it was his daily obedience to God. Note a reference to Abraham’s daily obedience in Heb 11:8.
Heb 11:8, “By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed ; and he went out, not knowing whither he went.”
Abraham was righteous before God because he believed and obeyed God’s Words on a daily basis. A good illustration how God considers obedience as an act of righteousness is found in Genesis 19. Abraham had prayed for ten righteous people to deliver Sodom from destruction. The angels found only four people who hearkened to their words. These people were considered righteous in God’s eyes because they were obedient and left the city as they had been told to do by the angels.
Abraham’s ability to stagger not (Rom 4:20) and to be fully persuaded (Rom 4:21) came through time. As he was obedient to God, his faith in God’s promise began to take hold of his heart and grow, until he came to a place of conviction that circumstances no longer moved him. Abraham had to learn to be obedient to God when he did not understand the big picture. Rom 5:3-5 teaches us that tribulation produces patience, and patience produces experience, and experience hope. Abraham had to pass through these four phases of faith in order to develop strong faith that is no longer moved by circumstances.
Let us look at Abraham’s history of obedience to God. He had first been obedient to follow his father from Ur to Haran.
Gen 11:31, “And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son’s son, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram’s wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there.”
He was further obedient when he left Haran and went to a land that he did not know.
Gen 12:1, “Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee:”
He was further obedient for the next twenty-five years in this Promised Land, learning that God was his Shield and his Reward. Note:
Gen 15:1, “After these things the word of the LORD came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward.”
God called Himself Abraham’s shield and reward because Abraham had come to know Him as a God who protects him and as a God who prospers him. Note that Abraham was living in a land where people believed in many gods, where people believed that there was a god for every area of their lives. God was teaching Abraham that He was an All-sufficient God. This was why God said to Abraham in Gen 17:1, “I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect.” In other words, God was telling Abraham to be obedient. Abraham’s role in fulfilling this third promise was to be obedient, and to live a holy life. As Abraham did this, he began to know God as an Almighty God, a God who would be with him in every situation in life. As Abraham fulfilled his role, God fulfilled His divine role in Abraham’s life.
God would later test Abraham’s faith in Gen 22:1 to see if Abraham believed that God was Almighty.
Gen 22:1, “And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am.”
God knew Abraham’s heart. However, Abraham was about to learn what was in his heart. For on Mount Moriah, Abraham’s heart was fully persuaded that God was able to raise Isaac from the dead in order to fulfill His promise:
Heb 11:19, “Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure.”
Abraham had to die to his own ways of reasoning out God’s plan. He had taken Eliezer of Damascus as his heir as a result of God’s first promise. Then, he had conceived Ishmael in an attempt to fulfill God’s second promise. Now, Abraham was going to have to learn to totally depend upon God’s plan and learn to follow it.
The first promise to Abraham was made to him at the age of 75, when he first entered the Promised Land.
Gen 12:7, “And the LORD appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land: and there builded he an altar unto the LORD, who appeared unto him.”
This first promise was simple, that God would give this land to Abraham’s seed. So, Abraham took Eliezer of Damascus as his heir. But the second promise was greater in magnitude and more specific.
Gen 15:4-5, “And, behold, the word of the LORD came unto him, saying, This shall not be thine heir; but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir. And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be.
This next promise said that God would give Abraham this land to Abraham’s biological child and that his seed would proliferate and multiply as the stars of heaven. So, Abraham has a son, Ishmael, by Hagar, his handmaid in order to fulfill this promise.
The third promise, which came twenty-five years after the first promise, was greater than the first and second promises. God said that Abraham would become a father of many nations through Sarah, his wife. Abraham had seen God be his Shield and protect him from the Canaanites. He had seen God as his Reward, by increasing his wealth (Gen 15:1). But now, Abraham was to learn that God was Almighty (Gen 17:1), that with God, all things are possible.
It was on Mount Moriah that Abraham truly died to himself, and learned to live unto God. In the same way, it was at Peniel that Jacob died to his own self and learned to totally depend upon God. After Mount Moriah, Abraham stopped making foolish decisions. There is not a fault to find in Abraham after his experience of sacrificing his son. When Abraham was making wrong decisions, he had the wisdom to build an altar at every place he pitched his tent. It was at these altars that he dealt with his sins and wrong decisions.
At Peniel God called Jacob by the name Israel. Why would God give Jacob this name? Because Jacob must now learn to totally trust in God. His thigh was limp and his physical strength was gone. The only might that he will ever know the rest of his life will be the strength that he finds in trusting God. Jacob was about to meet his brother and for the first time in his life, he was facing a situation that he could not handle in his own strength and cunning. He has been able to get himself out of every other situation in his life, but this time, it was different. He was going to have to trust God or die, and Jacob knew this. His name was now Israel, a mighty one in God. Jacob would have to now find his strength in God, because he had no strength to fight in the flesh. Thus, his name showed him that he could look to God and prevail as a mighty one both with God and with man. After this night, the Scriptures never record a foolish decision that Jacob made. He began to learn how to totally rely upon the Lord as his father Abraham had learned.
After Mount Moriah and Peniel, we read no more of foolish decisions by Abraham and Jacob. We just see men broken to God’s will and humble before God’s mercy.
Obedience is the key, and total obedience is not learned quickly. I believe that it takes decades, as we see in the life of Abraham, to learn to be obedient to a God whom we know as Almighty. This is not learned over night.
Abraham had a word from God before he left Ur. When he reached Canaan, he received a promise from God. Don’t mess with a man and his promise. Pharaoh tried to mess with this man’s promise and God judged him. King Abimelech tried to take Abraham’s promise, but God judged him.
Like Abraham, we may start the journey making some poor judgments, but God is greater than our errors.
We will first know God as our shield and our reward. He will protect us throughout our ministry. He will reward us. He will prosper our ministry. As we learn to be obedient, we will come to know our God as the Almighty in a way that we have never known Him before.
Do not mess with a man who has laid Isaac on the altar. I have heard Gen 17:17 taught as the laugh of faith.
Gen 17:17-18, “Then Abraham fell upon his face, and laughed, and said in his heart, Shall a child be born unto him that is an hundred years old? and shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear? And Abraham said unto God, O that Ishmael might live before thee!”
I see very little faith in Abraham’s words in these verses. On the other hand, I have heard other preachers criticize Abraham for his lack of faith at these times in his life; yet, I do not see God criticizing his faith. Abraham was not fully persuaded at this point, but he did not fail God. Abraham simply continued being obedient and living holy until the faith grew in his heart. Every wrong decision that Abraham made brought him that much closer to the right decision. We call this the school of hard knocks. As a result, faith continued to grow in his heart. By Genesis 22, Abraham was fully persuaded and strong in faith that God was Almighty.
Watch out, lest you criticize a man learning to walk in his promise. He may look foolish at times, but do not look on the outward appearance. You either run with him, or get out of the way, but don’t get in the way.
When I left Seminary and a Master’s degree, I was given a job driving a garbage truck while learning to pastor a Charismatic church. I was learning to walk in a promise from God. I will never forget riding on the back of these garbage trucks in my hometown, while the church members who had given money to send me to Seminary watched me in disbelief.
God does not measure a man by the size of his ministry, but by the size of his heart. When Jimmy Swaggart fell into sin, Alethia Fellowship Church was one of his partners, so this church was receiving his monthly ministry tapes during this period in his ministry. In a cassette tape immediately after his fall, he gave a testimony of how he told the Lord that he had failed. The Lord replied to him that he had not failed; rather the Lord had to get some things out of his life. [170] That word from God gave him the courage to go on in the midst of failure. You see, God was more pleased with Jimmy Swaggart living a godly life in fellowship with Him than preaching in great crusades while living in sin.
[170] Jimmy Swaggart, “Monthly Partner Cassette Tape,” (Baton Rouge, Louisiana: Jimmy Swaggart Ministries, February 1988), audiocassette.
Joyce Meyer said that if God measured our success by the way the world measured us, He would have called us “achievers” and not “believers.” [171] Abraham was justified by faith and not by his works. Our work is to believe, not to achieve.
[171] Joyce Meyer, Life in the Word (Fenton, Missouri: Joyce Meyer Ministries), on Trinity Broadcasting Network (Santa Ana, California), television program.
Many of my church friends and relatives criticized me as a failure. However, I knew somehow that the walk of faith was obedience to the Word of God, and not a walk of pleasing man. I obviously did not spend much time with people who thought that I was nuts. Instead, I spent so much time in my bedroom studying my Bible that I looked dysfunctional. Yet, the Lord strengthened me. I will never forget, after riding the garbage truck during the day, and hiding in God’s Word in the night. One night, I laid down about 1:00 a.m. and the glory of God filled my room until 5:00 a.m. in the morning. It was during these most difficult times that the Lord strengthened me the most.
The Lord strengthened Abraham in the midst of his questions and errors. If you will just stay obedient, God will see His Word come to pass through you, as did Abraham learn to see God as Almighty.
Gen 11:27 Now these are the generations of Terah: Terah begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran begat Lot.
Gen 11:28 Gen 11:28 “And in the thirty-fifth jubilee, in the third week, in the first year [1681 A.M.] thereof, Reu took to himself a wife, and her name was ‘Ora, the daughter of ‘Ur, the son of Kesed, and she bare him a son, and he called his name Seroh, in the seventh year of this week in this jubilee. And ‘Ur, the son of Kesed, built the city of ‘Ara of the Chaldees, and called its name after his own name and the name of his father. And they made for themselves molten images, and they worshipped each the idol, the molten image which they had made for themselves, and they began to make graven images and unclean simulacra, and malignant spirits assisted and seduced (them) into committing transgression and uncleanness.” ( The Book of Jubilees 11.1-5)
Gen 11:29 And Abram and Nahor took them wives: the name of Abram’s wife was Sarai; and the name of Nahor’s wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah, and the father of Iscah.
Gen 11:29 Gen 20:12, “And yet indeed she is my sister; she is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife.”
Compare the comments in Gen 11:29 where Nahor, Abraham’s brother, took his niece, the daughter of Haran, as his wife.
Gen 11:29 “and the name of Nahor’s wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah, and the father of Iscah” – Word Study on “Milcah” Gesenius tells us that by Chaldean usage the Hebrew name “Milcah” “Milkah” ( ) (H4435) means “counsel.” Strong tells us that the name means, “queen.” PTW tells us it means, “counsel.” She is daughter of Haran and sister to Lot and Iscah. She married her uncle named Nahor and bare him eight children. She is first mentioned in Gen 11:29 in the genealogy of Terah. She is mentioned a second time in Scripture Gen 22:20-24, where Nahor’s genealogy is given. Her name is mentioned on a third occasion in the chapter where Isaac takes Rebekah as his bride (Gen 24:15; Gen 24:24; Gen 24:47). She is mentioned no more in the Scriptures.
Word Study on “Iscah” Gesenius says the Hebrew name “Iscah” “Yickah” ( ) (H3252) means, “one who beholds, looks out” from ( ). Strong tells us that it comes from an unused word meaning “to watch.” PTW tells us it means, “Jehovah is looking” or “who looks.” Iscah was the sister to Milcah and Lot. Nothing more is mentioned of this person in the Scriptures, her significance being her relationship to her siblings, of whom Lot is the best known.
Gen 11:30 But Sarai was barren; she had no child.
Gen 11:30 Gen 11:31 And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son’s son, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram’s wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there.
Gen 11:31 “And Terah went forth from Ur of the Chaldees, he and his sons, to go into the land of Lebanon and into the land of Canaan, and he dwelt in the land of Haran, and Abram dwelt with Terah his father in Haran two weeks of years.” ( The Book of Jubilees 12.15-16)
However, Act 7:1-4 says that it was Abraham who moved out from Ur due to a Word from the Lord.
Act 7:1-4, “Then said the high priest, Are these things so? And he said, Men, brethren, and fathers, hearken; The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Charran, And said unto him, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and come into the land which I shall shew thee. Then came he out of the land of the Chaldaeans, and dwelt in Charran: and from thence, when his father was dead, he removed him into this land, wherein ye now dwell.”
Gen 11:31 Scripture References – Note:
Jos 24:2, “And Joshua said unto all the people, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood in old time, even Terah , the father of Abraham, and the father of Nachor: and they served other gods.”
Gen 11:32 And the days of Terah were two hundred and five years: and Terah died in Haran.
Gen 12:1-3 The Calling of the Patriarchs of Israel We can find two major divisions within the book of Genesis that reveal God’s foreknowledge in designing a plan of redemption to establish a righteous people upon earth. Paul reveals this four-fold plan in Rom 8:29-30: predestination, calling, justification, and glorification.
Rom 8:29-30, “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.”
The book of Genesis will reflect the first two phase of redemption, which are predestination and calling. We find in the first division in Gen 1:1 to Gen 2:3 emphasizing predestination. The Creation Story gives us God’s predestined plan for mankind, which is to be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth with righteous offspring. The second major division is found in Gen 2:4 to Gen 50:25, which gives us ten genealogies, in which God calls men of righteousness to play a role in His divine plan of redemption.
The foundational theme of Gen 2:4 to Gen 11:26 is the divine calling for mankind to be fruitful and multiply, which commission was given to Adam prior to the Flood (Gen 1:28-29), and to Noah after the Flood (Gen 9:1). The establishment of the seventy nations prepares us for the calling out of Abraham and his sons, which story fills the rest of the book of Genesis. Thus, God’s calling through His divine foreknowledge (Gen 11:27 to Gen 50:26) will focus the calling of Abraham and his descendants to establish the nation of Israel. God will call the patriarchs to fulfill the original purpose and intent of creation, which is to multiply into a righteous nation, for which mankind was originally predestined to fulfill.
The generations of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob take up a large portion of the book of Genesis. These genealogies have a common structure in that they all begin with God revealing Himself to a patriarch and giving him a divine commission, and they close with God fulfilling His promise to each of them because of their faith in His promise. God promised Abraham a son through Sarah his wife that would multiply into a nation, and Abraham demonstrated his faith in this promise on Mount Moriah. God promised Isaac two sons, with the younger receiving the first-born blessing, and this was fulfilled when Jacob deceived his father and received the blessing above his brother Esau. Jacob’s son Joseph received two dreams of ruling over his brothers, and Jacob testified to his faith in this promise by following Joseph into the land of Egypt. Thus, these three genealogies emphasize God’s call and commission to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and their response of faith in seeing God fulfill His word to each of them.
1. The Generations of Terah (& Abraham) Gen 11:27 to Gen 25:11
2. The Generations Ishmael Gen 25:12-18
3. The Generations of Isaac Gen 25:19 to Gen 35:29
4. The Generations of Esau Gen 36:1-43
5. The Generations of Jacob Gen 37:1 to Gen 50:26
The Origin of the Nation of Israel After Gen 1:1 to Gen 9:29 takes us through the origin of the heavens and the earth as we know them today, and Gen 10:1 to Gen 11:26 explains the origin of the seventy nations (Gen 10:1 to Gen 11:26), we see that the rest of the book of Genesis focuses upon the origin of the nation of Israel (Gen 11:27 to Gen 50:26). Thus, each of these major divisions serves as a foundation upon which the next division is built.
Paul the apostle reveals the four phases of God the Father’s plan of redemption for mankind through His divine foreknowledge of all things in Rom 8:29-30, “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.” Predestination – Gen 1:1 to Gen 11:26 emphasizes the theme of God the Father’s predestined purpose of the earth, which was to serve mankind, and of mankind, which was to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth with righteousness. Calling – Gen 11:27 to Gen 50:26 will place emphasis upon the second phase of God’s plan of redemption for mankind, which is His divine calling to fulfill His purpose of multiplying and filling the earth with righteousness. (The additional two phases of Justification and Glorification will unfold within the rest of the books of the Pentateuch.) This second section of Genesis can be divided into five genealogies. The three genealogies of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob begin with a divine calling to a patriarch. The two shorter genealogies of Ishmael and Esau are given simply because they inherit a measure of divine blessings as descendants of Abraham, but they will not play a central role in God’s redemptive plan for mankind. God will implement phase two of His divine plan of redemption by calling one man named Abraham to depart unto the Promised Land (Gen 12:1-3), and this calling was fulfilled by the patriarch. Isaac’s calling can also be found at the beginning of his genealogy, where God commands him to dwell in the Promised Land (Gen 26:1-6), and this calling was fulfilled by the patriarch Isaac. Jacob’s calling was fulfilled as he bore twelve sons and took them into Egypt where they multiplied into a nation. The opening passage of Jacob’s genealogy reveals that his destiny would be fulfilled through the dream of his son Joseph (Gen 37:1-11), which took place in the land of Egypt. Perhaps Jacob did not receive such a clear calling as Abraham and Isaac because his early life was one of deceit, rather than of righteousness obedience to God; so the Lord had to reveal His plan for Jacob through his righteous son Joseph. In a similar way, God spoke to righteous kings of Israel, and was silent to those who did not serve Him. Thus, the three patriarchs of Israel received a divine calling, which they fulfilled in order for the nation of Israel to become established in the land of Egypt. Perhaps the reason the Lord sent the Jacob and the seventy souls into Egypt to multiply rather than leaving them in the Promised Land is that the Israelites would have intermarried the cultic nations around them and failed to produce a nation of righteousness. God’s ways are always perfect.
1. The Generations of Terah (& Abraham) Gen 11:27 to Gen 25:11
2. The Generations Ishmael Gen 25:12-18
3. The Generations of Isaac Gen 25:19 to Gen 35:29
4. The Generations of Esau Gen 36:1-43
5. The Generations of Jacob Gen 37:1 to Gen 50:26
Divine Miracles It is important to note that up until now the Scriptures record no miracles in the lives of men. Thus, we will observe that divine miracles begin with Abraham and the children of Israel. Testimonies reveal today that the Jews are still recipients of God’s miracles as He divinely intervenes in this nation to fulfill His purpose and plan for His people. Yes, God is working miracles through His New Testament Church, but miracles had their beginning with the nation of Israel.
The Arrival of the Angels
v. 1. And there came two angels to Sodom at even; and Lot sat in the gate of Sodom. And Lot, seeing them, rose up to meet them; and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground. v. 2. And he said, Behold now, my lords, turn in, 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 ways. v. 3. And he pressed upon 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. EXPOSITION
Gen 19:1
And there came two angelsliterally, the two angels, i.e. the two men of the preceding chapter who accompanied Jehovah to Mature; (LXX.)to Sodom at even (having left the tent of Abraham shortly after noon); and Lotlast heard of in the narrative as captured by the Asiatic kings, and delivered by his uncle (Gen 14:12, Gen 14:16)sat in the gate of Sodom. , from the idea of opening, signified the gateway or entrance of a camp (Exo 32:26, Exo 32:27), of a palace, of a land (Jer 15:7), or of a city (Jos 2:7). Corresponding to the ancient forum of the Romans, or agora of the Greeks, the city gate among the Hebrews was the customary place of resort for the settlement of disputes, the transaction of business, or the enjoyment of ordinary social intercourse (cf. Gen 34:20; Deu 21:19; Deu 22:15; Rth 4:1; Pro 31:23). It was probably an arch with deep recesses, in which were placed chairs for the judges or city magistrates, and seats or benches for the citizens who had business to transact. So Homer describes the Trojan elders as sitting at the Scaean gate. In what capacity Lot was sitting in the gate is not narrated. That he was on the outlook for travelers on whom to practice the hospitality he had learned from his uncle (Poole, Calvin, Willet, Lange) is perhaps to form too high an ideal of his piety (Kalisch); while the explanation that he had been pro-meted to the dignity of one of the city judges, though not perhaps justified as an inference from verse 9, is not at all unlikely, considering his relationship to Abraham. And Lot seeing them (and recognizing them to be strangers by their dress and looks) rose up to meet them;having not yet abandoned the practice of hospitality, or forgotten, through mingling with the Sodomites, the respectful courtesy which was due to strangers, since the writer addsand he bowed himself with his face toward the ground (cf. Gen 18:2).
Gen 19:2
And he said, Beheld new, my lords,Adonai (vide Gen 18:3). As yet Lot only recognized them as menturn in, I pray you, into your servant’s house, and tarry all night, and wash your feet (of. Gen 18:1-33 :44 and ye shall rise up early, and go on your ways. Though an act of kindness on the part of Lot, his invitation was not accepted by the angels obviously with a view to try his character (cf. Luk 24:28). And they said, Nay; but we will abide in the street all night. Literally, for in the broad open spaces (i.e. the streets of the town) we will pass the night; no great hardship in that climax.
Gen 19:3
And he pressed upon them greatly. Being himself sincerely desirous to extend to them hospitality, and knowing well the danger to which they would be exposed from the violence and licentiousness of the townsmen. And they turned in unto him, and entered into his house; and he made them a toast,mishteh, from shathah, to drink, is rightly rendered (LXX.), a drink, or refreshing beverage (cf. Est 5:6; Est 7:7)and did bake unleavened broadliterally, bread of sweetness, that is, bread not soured by leaven. The banquet was thus of the simplest kind, chiefly, it may be hoped, for the sake of dispatch. And they did eat.
Gen 19:4
But before they lay down, the men of the city, even the men of Sodom, compassed the house round, both old and young, all the people from every quarter. i.e. of the town, as in Jer 51:31 (Lange); from the extremity, or extremities, of the town (Kalisch); from the extremities, i.e. all the population contained within the extremities (Rosenmller); all the citizens to the last man (Keil). The text probably conveys the writer’s idea.
Gen 19:5
And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where are the men which came in to thee this night? Josephus supposes them to have been of beautiful countenances (‘Ant.,’ 1.11, 3), which excited the lust of the Sodomites, and caused them to assault Lot’s house with shameful cries. Bring them out unto us, that we may know them. The sin here euphemistically referred to (cf. Jdg 19:22) was exceedingly prevalent among the Canaanites (Le Gen 18:22) and other heathen nations (Rom 1:27). Under the law of Moses it Was punishable by death.
Gen 19:6-8
And Lot went out at the door unto them,literally, at the doorway, or opening (pethach, from pathach, to open; cf. pateo, Latin; , LXX.); in which the gate or hanging door (deleth, from dalai, to be pendulous) swings, and which it closesand shut the door (deleth, ut supra; , LXX.) after him,to protect his visitors, which he also sought to accomplish by personal exhortationand said, I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedlyand also by an infamous proposal which nothing can extenuate and the utmost charity finds difficult to reconcile any pretence of piety on the part of. Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man;i.e. unmarried (cf. Gen 4:1), though, according to some, already betrothed to two Sodomites (Gen 19:14)let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes. The usual apologiesthat in sacrificing his daughters to the Sodomites instead of giving up his guests to their unnatural lust. Lot
(1) selected the lesser of two sins (Ambrose);
(2) thereby protected his guests and discharged the duties of hospitality incumbent on him (Chrysostom);
(3) believed his daughters would not be desired by the Sodomites, either because of their well-known betrothal (Rosenmller), or because of the unnatural lust of the Sodomites (Lunge);
(4) acted through mental perturbationare insufficient to excuse the wickedness of one who in attempting to prevent one sin was himself guilty of another (Delitzsch), who in seeking to be a faithful friend forgot to be an affectionate father (Kalisch), and who, though bound to defend his guests at the risk of his own life, was not at liberty to purchase their safety by the sacrifice of his daughters (‘Speakers Commentary’). Only unto these men, an archaic form of , a proof of the antiquity of the Pentateuch (cf. Gen 19:25; Gen 26:3, Gen 26:4; Le Gen 18:27; Deu 4:42; Deu 7:22; Deu 19:11)do nothing (i.e. offer to them neither violence nor dishonor); for therefore (vide Gen 18:5) came they under the shadow of my roofin order to find protection.
Gen 19:9
And they said, Stand back. (LXX.); recede illuc (Vulgate); “Make way,” i.e. for us to enter (Keil, Knobel, Gesenius); Approach hither (Baumgarten, Kalisch); Come near, farther off (‘Speaker’s Commentary’). And they said again, This one fellow (literally, the one, an expression of the Sodomites’ contempt) came in to sojourn, and he will heeds be a judge:literally, and shall he judge, judging; shall he continually play the judge, referring doubtless to Lot’s daily remonstrances against their wickedness (cf. 2Pe 2:7, 2Pe 2:8)now will we deal worse with thee, than with them. And they premed Bore upon the man, even Lot (literally, upon Lot, who appears to have offered a sturdy resistance to their violence no less than to their clamors), and came near to break (, to break to pieces, to shiver) the door.
Gen 19:10
But the men (i.e. the angels) put forth their hand, and pulled Lot into the house to them, and shut to the doordeleth (vide Gen 19:6).
Gen 19:11
And they smote the men that were at the doorthe pethaeh, or opening (vide Gen 19:6)of the house with blindness, (sanverim), from an unused quadrilateral signifying to dazzle, is perhaps here intended not for natural blindness, but for confused or bewildered vision, involving for the time being loss of sight, and accompanied by mental aberration; what Aben Ezra calls “blindness of eye and mind” (cf. 2Ki 6:18)both small and great: so that they wearied themselves to find the doorwhich they would hardly have done bad it been natural blindness only.
HOMILETICS
Gen 19:1-11
Warning lights in Sodom.
I. THE FLICKERING LIGHT OF LOT‘S PIETY.
1. That the light of Lot’s piety was still burning, though he had long been subjected to the moral contamination of the licentious Pentapolis, is apparent from
(1) The practice of hospitality, which he appears to have maintained, having probably learnt it while in his uncle’s tent. So men often cling to the outward forms of religion when its living power is ceasing to exert an influence upon the heart; and though adherence to the former is not to be mistaken for the latter, yet it renders the decline of the latter less rapid and disastrous than it would otherwise be.
(2) The kindly reception which he extended to his celestial visitors. If scarcely so elaborate as the sumptuous entertainment of Abraham at Mamre, the banquet of Lot was at least as outwardly reverential and as unaffectedly sincere and earnest. It clearly testified that Lot had not yet become insensible to the practical duties of religion, as at that time understood. Early religious training is exceedingly difficult to eradicate.
(3) The courageous defense which he made of his threatened guests. At the risk of his personal safety he endeavored to repel the violence with which the citizens assailed them; and by the proffer of a sacrifice, the greatest surely that a parent could make, he sought to beguile the infamous designs which the townsmen cherished. Whatever may be said of Lot’s conduct in this latter action, his behavior throughout towards the angels proved that the life of grace within his soul was not quite extinct.
2. That the light of Lot’s piety, though still burning, was fast fading, may be gathered from the circumstances
(1) That he had remained so long among the Sodomites. Unless a process of moral deterioration had been going on within the soul of Lot, residence among a people so depraved would eventually have become impossible. Instead of being merely vexed in his righteous soul while in Sodom, he would have taken the earliest opportunity to escape from Sodom.
(2) That he had betrothed his daughters to two of Sodom‘s citizens. That his prospective sons-in-law were infected by the bad taint of the city may be inferred from their subsequent behavior, as well as from the preceding judgment of God on the universal corruption of the city’s inhabitants. Hence Lot should rather have kept his daughters virgins than have suffered them to enter into matrimonial engagements with ungodly suitors.
(3) That he actually offered to sacrifice his daughters‘ purity to the lust of the Sodomites. Whatever apology may be offered for so extraordinary a proposal on the part of Lot, nothing can be plainer than that it implied a strange obliquity of moral vision, and a serious deadening of fine moral feeling. It was a clear proof that the immoral contagion had begun to affect Lot, and that it was high time for him to leave Sodom.
II. THE LURID LIGHT OF SODOM‘S IMPIETY. Already well enough known as to its character, the wickedness of Sodom is at length unveiled in all its revolting features and frightful dimensions. The history of that last night in the doomed city proclaimed the sin of Sodom to be
1. Unnatural. In the unbridled license of their appetites they had far outstripped common sinners; even the natural brute beasts they had left behind; they had sunk to a monstrosity of wickedness of which shame forbids to speak. Paul enumerates their sin amongst the forms of impurity by which the heathen world has at times defiled itself (Rom 1:26, Rom 1:27).
2. Shameless. Disgusting and repulsive as their ‘wickedness was, instead of shrinking into darkness and doing it in secret, they openly proclaimed their filthiness, and would have gratified their lusts in public. It is a lower deep in moral degradation when one not only does “those things which are not convenient,” but glories in his shame (Php 3:19).
3. Violent. This marked a third degree in the wickedness of Sodom, that, rather than be baulked of their lewd design, the citizens were prepared to set at naught the laws of hospitality, which insured the safety of strangers within their city, and, if need were, the rights of property, by breaking into Lot’s house, and, still further, the liberties of the person, by laying hands on the objects of their unhallowed lusts. Ordinary sinners are satisfied if they can gratify an unholy impulse without an undue expenditure of crime; these were ready to trample on all laws of God and man to accomplish their desire, “adding sin to sin” (Isa 30:1).
4. Obdurate. Even when struck with blindness they did not discontinue their impious attempt. They wearied themselves groping about in the darkness, but it was still in an endeavor “to find the door.” Common sinners pause when confronted with the just judgments of Heaven; these were only maddened into greater fury (Psa 73:7). And, to complete the picture, this appalling wickedness was
5. Universal. From all quarters and of all ages they clustered and clamored round the door of Lot’s house. There does not seem to have been any dissension in the multitude. They were all of one mind. Could anything more signally attest Sodom’s ripeness for destruction?
Learn
1. How rapidly a good man can deteriorate in evil company.
2. How completely a nation can resist the ameliorating influences of its good men.
3. How disgustingly repulsive sin is when fully developed.
Gen 19:1. And there came, &c. This perhaps might be rendered more properly, And the two angels [who had been with Abraham at noon] came to Sodom at even. And Lot sat at the gate of the city, according to the custom of those times, when the elders used to sit at the gates of cities to transact either public or private business. See ch. Gen 34:20. Deu 21:19. Rth 4:1. It is, however, probable, that Lot took his station at the gate for the purposes of hospitality, knowing the general corruption of the people, and the ill-treatment strangers might expect among them. And accordingly we find he invited these strangers to his house with the same respectful civility as Abraham had shewed to them before. And this seems the more probable, as the rites of hospitality were so sacred, and the virtue deemed so important in the first ages; when, there being no public inns (as is the case in the eastern countries in general at this day), unless a stranger came among hospitable people, he must have lodged in the street all night. See Jdg 19:15. Among the Greeks and Romans also nothing was more sacred than the rites of hospitality, by means of which many friendships were contracted. AElian records a law of the ancient Lucanians, that if a stranger came to them after sun-set, and wanted to take shelter under any one’s roof, and was not received, the master of the house was to be fined, and branded with the infamous name of an inhospitable. The angels, Jdg 19:2 refuse Lot’s invitation, in order to give him an opportunity to display his hospitality, asserting that “they would not be troublesome to him, but would abide in the street, continue in the open air all night,” which in those hot countries was not unusual, especially in summer.
REFLECTIONS.We have, here, the angels’ arrival at Sodom, and Lot’s kind reception of them.
1. The two angels came to Sodom at even. The Lord sends his executioners of vengeance; and who shall stand before these ministers of flame? 3. The angels at first seem courteously to excuse themselves, but at last yield to his solicitations. Note; (1.) Every invitation which is given us must not be hastily complied with, lest we should seem to run, where we should wait to be drawn. (2.) Those who are hearty solicitors, however they may fail with men, shall prevail with God.
See Gen 18:1 ff for the passage quote with footnotes.
3. The entrance and sojourn of the two angels in Sodom, and the completed manifestation of its corruption in opposition to the better conduct of Lot (Gen 19:1-11).And there came two angels.Stier: without the article; the peculiar personal angels who here first appear definitely in the history of the kingdom of God, although the idea of the angel, in its wider sense, had been in existence since Genesis 3. They arrive at Sodom at evening, having left Hebron after midday. The idea of an actual human journey from place to place is thus complete; but the inmost central points of the narrative are the two great manifestations, of which the first was given to Abraham about midday, and now Lot shares the second at evening. But here the objective character of the manifestation is far more prominent than the possession and extent of the power to perceive the vision, for Lot did not recognize them at first as angels, and they appear to have been seen by the Sodomites, unless we prefer the supposition that they had learned from Lots household of the two shining youthful forms who had turned in there for the night. [The term which Lot uses in his address, , shows that he regarded them as men.A. G.]And Lot sat in the gate of Sodom.Knobel well says: Jehovah, as the most holy, will not enter the unholy city, while Delitzsch asserts that Jehovah came in them to Sodom. That Lot sat in the gate of Sodom, is mentioned rather to his reproach than to praise his hospitality. [It is a reproach to him that he is in Sodom at all, but his sitting in the gate is not mentioned here as his reproach.A. G.] He sits at the gate in order to invite approaching travellers to a lodging for the night, and is thus hospitable like his uncle. Knobel remarks, Gen 19:1 : This polite hospitality is still practised among the Arabians; they count it an honor to entertain the approaching stranger, and often contend with each other who shall have the honor. Tavernier, Travels, i. p. 125; Burckhardt, Bedouins, p. 280, and Travels in Syria, p. 641 ff.; Buckingham, Syria, i. p. 285; Seetzen, Travels, i. p. 400. The gate in the East is usually an arched entrance, with deep recesses upon both sides, which furnish an undisturbed seat for the observer; here below and at the gate they gather, to transact business, as there are usually also stands for merchandise in these recesses, and to address narrower or wider circles upon the affairs of the city (Gen 34:20; Deu 21:19). Delitzsch.Behold now, my lords ().He does not recognize them immediately as angels, which is the less remarkable since the doctrine of angels must first make its way into the world through such experiences, and which is not excluded by the disposition or fitness to perceive visions (comp. Heb 13:2).Nay, but we will abide in the street [i.e., the open, wide place in the gate.A. G.] (comp. Luk 24:29).It appears to have been the object of the angels to ascertain the state of the city from the street; but Lots hospitable conduct seems, on the other hand, to them a favorable sign for the city, which they will follow.But before they lay down.The wickedness of the city immediately develops itself in all its greatness. That the old and young should come; that they should come from every quarter of the city [literally the end; see Jer 51:31. Keil: As we say, to the very last man.A. G.]; that they assault the house, notwithstanding the sacred rights of guests; that they so shamelessly avow their pederastic purpose; that they will not even be appeased by Lot, to whom they once owed their salvation (Genesis 14), and (as one may say, preferred their demonic, raging, unnatural lusts, to natural offences) that they did not cease to grope for the door, after they were stricken with blindness; this is the complete portraiture of a people ripe for the fiery judgment.That we may know them.A well-known euphemism, but, therefore, here an expression of shameless effrontery. It is the mark of their depravity that they seek pleasure in the violation of nature, and have their vile passions excited by the look or thought of heavenly beauty (see Gthes Faust, ii. division, at the close). The lustful abomination, according to Rom 1:27 the curse of heathenism, according to Judges 7. a copy of demonic error, according to the Mosaic law (Lev 18:22; Lev 20:13) an abomination punishable with death, here had no mask, not even the sthetic glory with which it was surrounded in Greece. Delitzsch. The vice of pederasty was reckoned among the abominations of Canaan, and even the Israelites were sometimes stained with it (Jdg 19:22).Behold now, I have two daughters.The Arab holds his guest who lodges with him as sacred and inviolable, and if necessary defends him with his life (see Russel, Natural History of Aleppo, i. p. 334, etc). Knobel. He commits sin, seeking to prevent sin through sin. Delitzsch. Keil remarks, his duty as a father should have been held more sacred. But it may be questioned whether there is not to be brought into account in Lot an element of cunninga kind of ironysince he could reckon with certainty upon the taste for unnatural lust in the Sodomites (he so speaks because he knew his people); or whether, rather, the important thing is not found in the supposition that he acted in the confusion of the greatest amazement and anxiety. [Which would naturally be increased if he had discovered by this time that they were heavenly visitors.A. G.] We must take into account, in this whole history, that a premonitory feeling of the destruction of Sodom rested upon their minds, which had released in Lot the spiritually awakened disposition or preparedness for desperate acts of virtue, as it had in the Sodomites the demonic rage in wickedness; as the same influence has elsewhere appeared during earthquakes and similar events. In any case Lot could not have miscalculated in the thought of a stratagem in which he relied not only upon the opposition of his sons-in-law, but much more upon the unnatural lusts of the Sodomites.1He will needs be a Judge (Judge and Judge).See the original text. We may thus see that there is a sting in the words of Lot, because he would now reprove their unnatural passions, as he had indeed done before (see 2Pe 2:7).2We will deal worse with thee than with them.They would smite and kill him, but abuse his guests. Knobel. In the words, they pressed sore upon the man, the narrator intimates more than lies upon the face of the words. They at the same time attempt to break through the door. The angels interfered, and the Sodomites were stricken with blindness. It is not natural blindness which is meant, but the blinding in which the spiritual power of the angels works together with the demonic fury of the Sodomites. [, a blindness produced by dazzling light, probably combining total privation of sight and a confusion or wandering of mind.A. G.] It marks the excess of their wickedness, the continuance of their abomination until the very midst of the judgment, that they do not, even in this condition, cease from seeking the door.
4. Lots comparative unfitness for salvation, his salvation with difficulty, and the entrance of the judgment (Gen 19:12-29).And the men said unto Lot.They reveal themselves now as heavenly messengers; and no less distinctly their calling to destroy the city and their mission to save him and his household (any one related by marriageson-in-law). We regard the usual construction, hast thou here any besides? son-in-law and thy sons, and thy daughters, and whatsoever thou hast, etc., as incorrect. 1. Because then son-in-law would precede the sons and daughters, and is used in the singular. 2. Because in the words whatsoever thou hast, sons-in-law, as well as sons and daughters are included. [The probable reference is to those in the city and not in the houseany one related to him.A. G.]And the Lord hath sent us.The Angel of the Lord never speaks in this way.And Lot went out and spake, etc.There are two explanations: 1. Those taking his daughters, i.e., who had taken his daughters to wife. Thus the Septuagint, the Targums, Jonathan, Jewish interpreters, Schumann, Knobel, Delitzsch. According to this explanation, Lot had, besides his married daughters in the city, two unmarried daughters. 2. , those about to accept or take, bridegrooms. Thus Josephus, the Vulgate, Clericus, Ewald, Keil, and others. Knobel quotes () Gen 19:15 in favor of the first explanation; but Keil remarks that this does not designate an opposition between the unmarried and married daughters, but between these and the sons-in-law who remained behind. We may add, moreover, that there is no intimation that Lot had warned married daughters to rise up.The angels hastened Lot.3Since they were sent to execute the destruction, there does not seem any occasion for the haste, as if it proceeded from some fatefrom an agency beyond themselves. But there is a threefold reason for their haste: 1. The zeal of the righteousness of God, since the measure of the iniquity of Sodom was full; 2. their own holy affection; 3. the connection of their mission with the preparation of the judgment in the natural relations of Sodom.And while he lingered.It is clear in every way that Lot, from his spiritless, half-hearted nature, which made it difficult to part from his location and possessions, was rescued with the greatest difficulty. [The Lord being merciful to him, literally, by the mercy of Jehovah upon him, i.e., which was exercised towards him.A. G.]And set him down.This completes the work of the two angels in saving Lot, and their work of destruction now begins.That he said (see the remarks upon the Angel of the Lord, Genesis 12)It is Jehovah speaking through the angel, says Delitzsch. But why then does this form occur first here? Before, the angels had said, Jehovah has sent us. Because the approach of Jehovah is not expressly mentioned, Keil also admits here that the angel speaking, speaks, as the messenger of Jehovah, in the name of God. Upon the ground of the miraculous help given to him, Jehovah calls him now to personal activity in his own salvation. But Lot, on the contrary, clings to the receding forms of the two angels, and it cannot surprise us, that in his agitation he should confound their appearance and the voice of Jehovah.For thy life.Life and soul are here one, not merely according to the verbal expression, but in the very idea of the situation; it includes the thought: Save thy soul.Look not behind thee.The cause is given in Lots wife. It is the religious expression for the desire to return, the hesitation, the lingering, as if one could easily hasten from the divine judgment (see Luk 9:62). Knobel draws analogies from the sphere of heathen religions. In order not to see the divine providence, or working, which is not permitted the eye of mortals. For similar reasons the ancients in completing certain religious usages did not look around them (p. 173). Certainly the Lord might take into account the holy horror in Lot at the spectacle of the fiery judgment. Still the first word is explained by the second: Neither stay thou in all the plain; and the second by the third: Escape to the mountain.It is the mountains of Moab, on the other side of the Dead Sea, which are intended.And Lot said unto them: Oh, not so, my Lord.He could not distinguish the miraculous vision of the appearance of the angels and the miraculous report of the voice of Jehovah which now came to him. He pleads in excuse for his want of energy that fear presses heavily upon him; and fear weighs upon him because, while he was free from the abominations of Sodom, he was not free from its worldly mind. [The evil, i.e., the destruction which was to come upon Sodom. He feared that he could not reach the mountain.A. G.] Lot also now becomes, in his own interest, an intercessor for others. He points to the little Bela, the smallest of the cities of the pentapolis, and thinks it is a small matter for the Lord to grant him this as a place of refuge, because it is so small, and therefore exempt it from destruction. The name Zoar was derived from these events. Zoar is not to be sought in the Ghor el Mezrah, i.e., upon the peninsula which here stretches into the Dead Sea (see Isa 15:5), but rather in the Ghor el Szaphia, at the south-eastern end of the Sea, in the outlet of the Wady el Ahhsa. This locality is well watered and covered with shrubs and trees at the present time, but is unhealthy. It is inhabited and well cultivated by the Bedouins, who have here a permanent settlement; and in the winter it is the gathering place for more than ten tribes. Thus Seetzen, Burckhardt, Robinson. Knobel. For further references to Zoar, see in Knobel, p. 174; Keil, p. 165; and the Bible-Dictionaries. [Robinson, Researches, ii. p. 480, 648, 661.A. G.]The sun was risen upon the earth.According to Keil, Lot was now just on the way, but the text says expressly, that he had entered Zoar. For the distances in the vale of Siddim see Knobel, p. 175.Then the Lord rained [Heb. caused it to rain.A. G.] fire from the Lord.The antithesis which lies in this expression, between the manifestation of Jehovah upon the earth, and the being and providence of Jehovah in heaven, is opposed by Keil. The is according to Calvin an emphatic repetition. This does not agree with Keils explanation of the Angel of the Lord. Delitzsch remarks here: There is certainly in all such passages a distinction between the historically revealed, and the concealed, or unrevealed God (comp. Hos 1:7), and thus a support to the position of the Council of Sirmium: the Son of God rains it down from God the Father. The decisive execution of the judgment proceeds from the manifestation of Jehovah upon the earth, in company with the two angels; but the source of the decree of judgment lies in Jehovah in heaven. The moral stages of the development of the kingdom of God upon the earth, correspond with the providence of the Almighty in the heavens, and from the heavens reaching down into the depths of cosmical nature.Brimstone and fire.Keil, in the interest of the literal interpretation, misses here the religious and symbolical expression. The rain of brimstone and fire was no mere thunder-storm, which kindled into a fire the ground already saturated with naphtha. [Whatever may be the explanation of this catastrophe, whether we suppose, as seems most probable, that God used natural agencies, or make more prominent and exclusive the storm from heaven, it is clear on either supposition that the event was miraculous, the result of the direct interposition of God. Upon the Dead Sea, the Notes of Bush and Jacobus; the Dictionaries of Smith and Kitto; Robinson: Researches; Stanley on Palestine; and the numerous books of travels may be consulted.A. G.] For it cannot be proved from such passages as Psa 11:6 and Eze 38:22 that lightning is ever called in the Scriptures brimstone and fire, since these passages evidently refer to the event narrated here. The words must be understood in an entirely peculiar sense, that brimstone with fire, i.e., the burning brimstone, fell from heaven, etc. But the words are not thus peculiarly understood, brimstone with fire, i.e., burning brimstone, but brimstone and fire. Brimstone cannot mix with fire, in the air, without becoming fire. We might, indeed, think of burning meteors, which stood in reciprocal relations and efficiency with the burning ground. Knobel adopts the explanation of Josephus: Antiq. i. 11, 4; Bell Jud. iv. 8, 4; and Tacit.: History, v. 7. Fire and brimstone appear also elsewhere as the instruments of divine punishment (Psa 11:6; Eze 38:22). The author does not point out more fully what was the concern of the two angels in the destruction. But in analogous cases, when God was about to send evil diseases or pestilences, he used the angels as his instruments (2Sa 24:16; Isa 37:36). Delitzsch: Not only Sodom and Gomorrah, but, with the exception of Zoar, the other cities of the pentapolis (Gen 14:2), as is stated Deu 29:23 (comp. Hos 11:8), or as it is here, the whole circle, all the plain, was submerged in fire and brimstone; a catastrophe which also Strabo, Tacitus, and Solinus Polyhistor, fully attest, and which is constantly referred to in the later literature, e.g., Psa 11:6 (see Hupfield upon this passage), even down to the Revelation.But his wife looked back from behind him.4Some conclude from this expression, that she went behind Lot, and thus looked back. But the looking back is plainly not more to be understood in a strict literal sense than the account that she became a pillar of salt. Female curiosity, and the longing for her home at Sodom, led her to remain behind Lot, and delay, so that she was overtaken in the destruction (see Luk 17:31-32). Keil even departs from the literal interpretation in the term, pillar of salt, when he explains: she was encrusted with salt; resembled a pillar of salt, just as now objects in the neighborhood of the Dead Sea, are soon encrusted from its salty evaporations. This salt-pillar is mentioned as still existing in the Book of Wisdom, Gen 11:7, and in Clemens of Rome to the Cor. 11; Josephus:Antiq. i. 11, 4, as that which they had seen. The biblical tradition has here passed into a mere legend, which points out a pillar-like salt-cone, about forty feet high, at the lower end of the Dead Sea, as this pillar of salt (see Knobel, p. 176, Seetzen: Travels, ii. p. 240; Lynch: Report, p. 183 ff.). This salt-cone is connected with the salt-mountain of Usdum (Sodom). Robinson: Researches, ii. p. 481485. [Also Groves article on the Salt Sea, in Smiths Dictionary.A. G.]And Abraham gat up early in the morning. [That is, the morning of the destruction.A. G.]The catastrophe of the judgment was soon completed. The destruction, viewed from its universal aspect and relations, is ascribed to Elohim. But it is God, as Elohim also, who saves Lot, for Abrahams sake (see the remarks upon his intercession).Out of the midst of the destruction.A vivid description of the salvation of Lot from the extremest peril, in a place which itself lay in the skirts of the overthrow,a statement which Knobel, without the least ground, attempts to prove differs from the earlier account.
The destination of this judgment, whose preconditions lay in the terrestrial volcanic character of the vale of Siddim (see Gen 14:10), for an eternal warning to the descendants of Abraham, i.e., all the members of the kingdom of God, appears clearly in the constant quotation in the Holy Scriptures. Sodom is alone named, as the most important city (Isa 3:9; Lam 4:6; Eze 16:48; Mat 11:23), Sodom and Gomorrah as the two greatest (Isa 1:9; Isa 1:13; Isa 1:19, and in other passages), Admah and Zeboim (Hos 11:8), and in the Book of Wisdom the five cities are named in a vague and general way.
The catastrophe, conditioned through the nature of the ground, corresponds with the divine decree of judgment. The fundamental idea is the burning of the earth, through the fire from heaven; but that an earthquake, which are frequent in Palestine, may have been in action, and that volcanic eruptions might have wrought together with this, is intimated in the expression: All the plain was overthrown. The Dead Sea was formed through the flowing in of the Jordan, in connection with the sinking of the ground.
But there are two views concerning the Dead Sea. According to one (Leake, Hoff, and others), the Jordan before this flowed through the vale of Siddim to the Ailanitic gulf of the Red Sea. In the other view (Robinson and others), there was an inland sea, before the catastrophe of Sodom, which forms part of the Dead Sea. For the reasons in favor of the latter view, see Knobel, p. 177. A principal reason is found in the fact that the northern part of the Dead Sea has a depth throughout of nearly 1300 feet, while the southern is only 15 feet deep, is rich in asphaltum, has hot places, and is hot at the bottom. Bunsen: That northern basin, according to Ritters statement (xv. 767, 778), is due to the falling in of the ground; the local elevation of the southern part, to the peculiar character of the ground. Upon the Dead Sea, see Knobel, p. 177; Keil, p. 165; Delitzsch, p. 398; and the Dictionaries, especially the article Salt Sea, in the Bible Dictionary for Christian People. [The earlier view is now abandoned, and it has no decisive ground in the sacred history. Delitzsch, p. 289. See also Grove, in S. D. p. 1339.A. G.]
5. Lots departure, and his descendants (Gen 19:30-38).And Lot went out of Zoar.[Lots rescue is ascribed to Elohim, as the judge of the whole earth, not to the covenant God, Jehovah, because Lot in his separation from Abraham was removed from the special leading and providence of Jehovah. Keil, p. 166.A. G.] After he had recovered from the paralyzing terrors which fettered him in Zoar, a calculating fear took possession of him and drove him from Zoar further into the mountains of Moab, in the east. It was an unbelieving fear, for the Lord had granted Zoar to him as an asylum; he could not trust that divine promise further. The result is, that, poor and lonely, he must dwell with his two daughters in a cave in those cavernous chalk mountains. Lot is thus now a poor troglodyte. There are in that region now those who dwell in caves and grottoes (Buckingham and Lynch). Knobel, p. 178.And the first-born said to the younger.[Our father is old. This confirms the assertion of St. Stephen, in which it is implied that Abraham was not the oldest son of Terah; for Lot was now old, and he was the son of Haran, and Haran was Abrahams brother. Thus one part of Scripture confirms another, when perhaps we least expect it. Wordsworth, p. 89.A. G.] The desire for posterity led her to the iniquitous thought of incest, which she believes excusable because there is not a man in the earth, etc. According to Keil and Knobel, they did not think that the human race had perished, but only that there was no man who would unite himself with them, the remnant of a region stricken with the curse. Their idea of the world, according to the terms of the narrative, appears to have been sad and gloomy. What did they know of the world, in their mountain solitude? This deed was worthy of Sodom, says Keil. But there is a distinction and a wide difference between incest and pederasty (see introduction). Knobel thinks that they were represented by the writer as moulded by the mother, who was probably a Sodomite; and, on the other hand, that Lot, as the nephew of Abraham, was more favorably (i.e., partially) represented. Every one of these points is fiction! The narrative, Knobel remarks, lacks probability. It assumes that Lot was so intoxicated both times that he should know nothing of what took place, and still, an old man should, with all this, be capable of begetting seed. Keil, on the contrary, says it does not follow from the text that Lot was in an unconscious state during the whole interval, as the Rabbins have, according to Jerome, described this as an incredible thing, taken in connection with the issue of the event. Indeed, the narrative says only that Lot was in an unconscious state, both when his daughters lay down, and when they rose up; in the evening perhaps through intoxication, in the morning through profound, heavy sleep. In any view, a certain measure of voluntariness must be assumed, according to the degree in which he was conscious, and therefore his intoxication can only be urged as an excuse, and this a wretched excuse, since the intoxication was, like the deed itself, immediately repeated. Psychologically, the reaction from great mental effort and tension is to be taken into account in pronouncing upon the pleasures of rest in an indolent and sensual nature.Moab.There are two derivations: , from the father, or , water (as the semen virile is euphemistically called in Arabic), for semen and . Keil decides in favor of the first derivation, from a reference to the explanatory expressions (Gen 19:32; Gen 19:34; Gen 19:36). [And also the analogy of the .A. G.]Ammon., son of my people. According to Delitzsch, the form designates simply the descendants of the people. For the character of the Moabites and Ammonites, especially in reference to their origin, see Knobel, p. 178, who, however, in his usual method, draws the inference as above remarked, that this narrative has its origin in Jewish animosity. Besides the reply of Keil [See Deu 2:9; Deu 2:19; Deu 23:4. Lot here disappears from the history, and, as Kurtz remarks, it is the design of this narrative to give a support for the later records of the relation of these tribes with the Israelites.A. G.] Delitzsch also may be consulted (p. 401). Knobel himself recognizes the fact of the descent of both of these peoples from Lot. The nomadic hordes of Lot gradually extended themselves east and northeast, and partly subdued and destroyed, and partly incorporated among themselves, the original tribes of the Emim and Susim.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
See the preliminary and Exegetical remarks.
1. Upon the manifestation in the oak grove of Mamre compare Genesis 12. We observe, however, that the manifestation which was given to Abraham, was complex, because it had reference in part to him and the birth of Isaac, and in part to Lot and Sodom. Hence it resolves itself, in the course of the history, into two manifestations.
2. The connection of the promise of redemption and the announcement of judgment, which is peculiar to this section, runs throughout the whole sacred Scripture.
3. The oriental virtue of hospitality appears here in the light of the theocratic faith, and so likewise its blessing, which is proclaimed throughout the whole Scripture, down even to the epistle to the Hebrews (Heb 13:2.) It is a contradiction in the natural custom of the Arabs, that they will rob the pilgrim in the desert before he enters their tents, but receive him with the greatest hospitality, as it is generally true that the natural virtues of people are tainted by contradictions. Hospitality, however, is the specific virtue of the Arab, his inheritance from his father Abraham. But in Abraham himself this virtue is consecrated to be the spiritual fruit of faith.
4. The feast of God with Abraham. [How true it is that Abraham has now become the friend of God, Jam 2:23. And what light this history casts upon the meaning of that term.A. G.] A New Testament and heavenly sign, whose later reflection is the table of shew-bread in the temple, the Lords Supper in the New Covenant, and the Marriage Supper of the Lamb in the new world.
5. The distinction between the laughing of Abraham and Sarah (see above). In Gen 26:6 there appears still another, a third laugh, in order to determine the name Isaac (comp. Gen 5:9). The laughter of a joyful faith, the laughter of a doubting little faith, and the laughter of astonishment or even of the animosity of the world, appear and participate in the name of the son of promise, as indeed at that of every child of the promise.
6. The initiation of Abraham into the purposes of God. In Gen 18:17, the Scripture has the addition of () to , for which Philo reads (comp. Jam 2:23). There is scarcely any passage in which this or (Isa 41:8; 2Ch 20:7), would be more fitting than in this. Abraham is the friend of Jehovah (among the Moslems it has become a surname; chall Allah, or merely el-chalil, from which Hebron is also called Beit-el-chall, or simply El-chall), and we have no secrets from a friend. Delitzsch (comp. Joh 15:15 ff.). The first reason is, that God has chosen Abraham, and that he, as the chosen, has the destination to found in his race for all time, a tradition and school of the revelation of God, of righteousness and judgment. The doctrine of the election first appears here in its more definite form. [God says, I know him, but also that he will command, &c. We ought not to overlook how early family relations, instructions and discipline, assume an important place in the progress of the kingdom of God; and what a blessing descends upon those who are faithful as parents. Family religion is Gods method for propagating his church. This would lead him to exercise a careful parental authority for controlling his house in the name of God. Jacobus.A. G.]
7. A further and more peculiar reason, why God reveals to Abraham the impending judgment upon Sodom, lies in this, that not only the history of Sodom, but also the Dead Sea, should be for all time a constituent part of the sacred history, a solemn warning for the people of God, and for all the world. At the same time this history should make illustrious the justice of God, according to which a people are ripe for judgment, when a cry of its iniquity ascends to heaven. 9. It is evident from the intercession of Abraham, that the father of the faithful had a very different idea of righteousness from that which regards it as consisting only in the non plus ultra of punishment. See upon the idea of , Mat 1:19. Moreover, in the reflection, the prudence, and the constancy of the intercession, the Abrahamic or even the Israelitish character appears here in its true worth and in its sanctified form, as it enters afterward in the life of Jacob at first less sanctified, but at the same fitted for sanctification. But in regard to the thought of Abrahams intercession, we would make the following remarks: 1. His intercession takes more and more the form of a question. 2. He does not pray that the godless should be freed from punishment, but for the sparing of the righteous, and the turning away of the destructive judgment from all, in case there should be found a sufficient salt of the righteous among them. 3. His prayer includes the thought that God would not destroy any single righteous one with the wicked, although the number of the righteous should be too small to preserve the whole. [The righteous, of course, are not destroyed, although they are often involved in the punishment of the wicked.A. G.]
10. This history makes the truth conspicuous for all time, that the whole depraved world is preserved through a seed of believing and pious men, and that indeed, not according to a numerical, but according to their dynamic majority. Ten righteous would have saved Sodom. But when even the salt of the earth (Mat 5:13) does not avail to save a people or a community, then still God cares for the salvation of his chosen, as is seen in the history of Noah, the history of Lot, and the history of the destruction of Jerusalem. But the relative mediators who are given to the world in the salt of the earth, point to the absolute mediator, Christ, who is the central saving pivot in the history of the world. [We stand here on the verge of a most striking type of the judgment. We know that the storm is gathering and ready to burst, but in the awful silence which precedes it we hear the voice of the intercessor. Thus while the final judgment is preparing, the voice of the true intercessor is heard.A. G.]
11. The Angels in Sodom. In all such cases there must come a last final decision. See above. 13. The sin of Sodom runs, as a general characteristic, through the heathen world (see Rom 1:24); still, in this aspect some nations are far more innocent or guilty than others. Church history also, in this connection, preserves sad remembrances. Among the causes of the ruin of the Osmanic kingdom, this sin stands prominent whose analogue is found in the sin of Onan (Gen 38:8).
14. The description of the night scene in Sodom is a night piece of terrible aspect and impressiveness. It is plain (from the little prospect of the mass for the gratification of personal lusts, and from the probability that the inhabitants of the city only knew indirectly of Lots mysterious guests), that the uproar of the Sodomites was more than half an uprising against the judgment of Lot which they had already experienced, and a tumultuous manifestation that their abominable immorality must be held as a public custom, of which we have a purely analogous event in the uproar of the heathen at Ephesus (Act 19:28 ff). All the spirits of villainy, wantonness, and scoffing unbelief are to be regarded as unfettered. The ripeness of the city for destruction, however, is not to be viewed directly as a ripeness of the Sodomites for damnation (see Mat 11:23).
15. The demonic and bestial nature of sin appears in this history in frightful, full life, or rather death size. [So, also, its corrupting power. Lot felt its influence, even though he resisted and condemned their vile practices. The offer which he makes to save his guests, although made under great confusion, anxiety and terror, shows its influence.A. G.] 17. The Dead Sea serves to complete the symbolic meaning which is peculiar to the whole land of Canaan. The whole land is an illustration of the divine word, and of sacred history, and thus the Dead Sea in particular, is the glass of the divine judgment. As a monument of the miraculous judgment it stands opposed to the Red Sea, which is the monument of the miraculous deliverance. So, likewise, as the sea of the old covenant, it stands opposed to Genessaret, the sea of the new covenant. In the description of the Dead Sea, however, we must guard against those ancient assumptions, of the apples of Sodom, etc., although some one-sided apologies for these traditions of the Dead Sea have appeared again in recent times. [It is interesting to note how often this event is referred to in the New Testament, not only directly but incidentally. The phrases flee from the wrath to come, unquenchable fire, the description of the suddenness and completeness of the judgment, and its eternal duration in the smoke of their torment, which ascendeth for ever and ever. All have a more or less direct reference to this event.A. G.] 22. Lots disappearance. The chastising hand of God is seen in the gravest form, in the fact that Lot is lost in the darkness of the mountains of Moab, as a dweller in the caves. But it may be questioned whether one is justified by this, in saying that he came to a bad end, as Delitzsch does in a detailed description, after a characteristic outline by F. C. V. Mosers (p. 400, comp. Kiel, p. 167). His not returning poor and shipwrecked can be explained upon better grounds. In any case the testimony for him, 2Pe 2:7-8, must not be overlooked. There remains one light point in his life, since he sustained the assaults of all Sodom upon his house, in the most extreme danger of his life. [It may be said, moreover, that his leaving home and property at the divine warning, and when there were yet no visible signs of the judgment, and his flight without looking back, indicate the reality and genuineness of his faith.A. G.] His two-fold intoxication certainly has greater guilt than the one intoxication of Noah. His two-fold sin with his daughters may involve greater difficulty than the act of Judah. Both analogies show, however, that in judging so ancient a character we may easily place them too strictly in modern points of view. True, he appears, in comparison with Abraham, with whom he once entered upon the path of the faith of the promise, in a light similar to that in which Esau appears in relation to Jacob. He might have sufficient piety to save his soul, but he was no man of the future, who could found a line of blessing; he was too much like the mass, too much under the senses, and too much involved in respect to worldly things for such a calling. With the history of Lot, Delitzsch remarks, the side line from Haran is completed, and the origin of two people who are interwoven in the history of Israel is related.
23. The destruction of Sodom an example of the later destruction of the Canaanites. Note on the Destruction of SodomIts SuddennessThe Deep Impression it made on the Ancient MindIts Frequent Mention in the ScripturesTacitusThe Arabian Tradition.As the subversion by God of Sodom and Gomorrah. Such is the constant style of reference in the Bible. See Deu 29:22; Isa 13:19; Jer 49:18; Jer 50:40; Lam 4:6; Amo 4:11. Its ever occurring in the same form of words, shows that it was a proverbial or traditional saying; and this reveals to us how vividly the awful event had stamped itself upon the human memory. It is always described in language of its own. The peculiar Hebrew word is used in the same way of no other catastrophe. The word denotes utter subversion or reversal,the bringing of a thing, and all that belongs to it, in the direct opposite of its former condition. Land has become water, fertility barrenness and salt, beauty deformity, fragrance and freshness a vile and loathsome putridity. It is not simply decay and ruin, but an overthrow total and remediless.
These cities are thus referred to as a standing warninga judgment of God visible from generation to generation. It is a region cursed by the Almighty,doomed ever to bear the marks of its dreadful visitation, to which Peter refers, 2Pe 2:6, , : the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah he condemned with an overthrow, when he reduced them to ashes and set them forth as an example. The Greek word katastrophe is the exact counterpart of the Hebrew , having the same peculiar intensity of meaning as used in this connection. In Judges 7. the language is still stronger : they are set forth as an example, undergoing () the sentence of eternal fire. This eternal fire does not mean the punishment of the inhabitants in another world (though the event itself may be regarded as the first type of Hell, the first suggestive glimpse to the human mind of that awful doctrine), but has primary reference to their long earthly desolation. The language most graphically expresses the condition of those doomed plains, as showing the signs of their fearful burning, age after age, .
These regions were very near to Jerusalem, almost if not quite visible from the highest places; and this accounts for the prophets frequent appeal to them, , et in terrorem. How fearful is the allusion to it made by Eze 16:46; where the adulterous Judah is told to remember the startling proximity of this her younger or smaller sister, so early buried in volcanic fires: Thine elder sister, Samaria, that dwelleth on thy left (the N. W.), and thy smaller6 sister, Sodom, and her daughters (the other cities of the plain), that lie upon thy right. How awful the reminiscence of this lost sister Sodom lying for so many ages under the sulphurous waters of the Dead Sea, with all the burnt district a short distance to the right of Jerusalem, and ever presenting that terrific warning, the , to the oft rebellious city.
We find elsewhere evidence of the deep impression this early divine judgment made upon the ancient mind. The language of Tacitus, Hist. v. 7, could only have come from some vivid tradition prevailing in the East and brought thence to Rome: Haud procul inde campi, quos ferunt olim uberes, magnis que urbibus habitatos, fulminum jactu arsisse, et manere vestigia terramque ipsam specie torridam vim frugiferam perdidisse; nam cuncta atra et inania velut in cinerem vanescunt. Ego, sicut inclitas quondam urbes igne clesti flagrasse concesserim, etc. There is something in the language strikingly resembling that of Peter and Jude. Compare Tacitus fulminum jactu arsisseigne clesti flagrassemanere vestigia, with the , and in cinerem with . They appear to be the set terms in all descriptions. Nothing but an early, most vivid impression could have produced such fixedness and vividness in the language of the tradition.
The same feature of constancy in terms for which no others could be an adequate substitute, appears remarkably in the notices of the Koran, which strong internal evidence shows must have come from tradition independent of the O. T. scriptures. It manifests itself especially in one word ever found in connection. It is the Arabic , which is, etymologically, the same with the Hebrew , and used in a similar manner as a participial noun. The peculiarity, however, is, that in the Arabic the primary sense which belongs to it in this connection had long ceased, so that no traces of it are anywhere else found, even in the remains which we have of ante-Mohammedan writing. Both the form and the peculiar sense have become obsolete in all other applications of the root. In this recurring phrase, as used of these ancient cities, it has acquired something like the force of a proper name as a well known appellative, taking its place along with Midian, Egypt, Hud, Thamud, and other names of places that tradition gives as having been specially visited with the divine vengeance. Thus Sodom and Gomorrah are ever called Al–mow–ta–fe–kat, the overturned. As in Koran Surat, liii. 5155, where it occurs with others given as proper names: And that he destroyed Ad, and Thamud, and left no remainder; and also the people of Noah before them, and the Mow–ta–fe–kat (the overturned) he cast down, and that which covered them covered them. The last clause of this passage is meant to be intense in its repetition: that is, there is no conceiving the horrors under which they lay; that which covered them covered them,no tongue can tell it. So, also, Koran lxix. Genesis 9 : thus went on Pharoah and those who were before him, the Mow–ta–fe–kat (the overturned), in their sin. Thamud and Ad, as usual, had been mentioned just before. The constant introducing of the Mow-ta-fe-kat along with these, which are peculiar Arabic traditions, shows that the story of the overturned cities had a common origin with them, and was not derived from the Hebrew scriptures.
The usage appears still more clearly, Koran ix. 71, where the term in question occurs in connection with the people of Ad, and the wicked in the days of Abraham, who is the peculiar Mohammedan patriarch: Did there not come to them the story of those who were before themthe people of Noah and of Ad, and of the people of Abraham, and of the inhabitants of Midian, and of the Overturned (the Mow–ta–fe–kat), whose messengers came unto them with their prophecies? Now what makes this the more striking is the fact (as before indicated) that although the Arabic root, , or , is, in all other cases (and these are quite frequent), used solely in its secondary meaning of falsehood (coming from the primary sense of subversion, turning upside down, through the intermediate ideas of contrariness or opposition, ab invertendo, pervertendo), in these special usages from the Koran, and others like them, the word ever goes back to its primitive Hebrew sense, being taken precisely as and in the Bible. If the Hebrew verb had had a hoth-pa-hel form, its participle, , moth–hap–pek = motaffek, would be almost identical with the Arabic word so constantly used for this purpose (in this sense) and for no other. Evidently it was an archaism in the days of Mohammed, and this accounts for its being used as a proper name, in which form it had become fixed against change and substitution. The root is used in the same manner throughout the Syriac version, but in this branch of the Shemitic it had, in all its applications, kept nearer to its old primary sense preserved in the Hebrew.
What shows that it was an antique phrase in Arabic, or that (or ) had lost the sense of subversion in all other applications, and that its employment as a proper name in this particular connection came from traditional preservation, is the fact that even in translating the Old Testament, the Jewish Arabic interpreters never use it,not even in those places where the Hebrew and would have immediately suggested it as the more fitting word; and this, too, notwithstanding that they frequently give to an Arabic term a rarer Hebrew sense. Thus Rabbi Saad does not employ it in this very passage, Isa 13:19, but uses, instead, the more common Arabic verb, , to express the sense of overturning which is given by : . Now in the Arabic verb , the letter (or ) of the Hebrew has been softened into , but there can be no doubt of the two words being etymologically identical. So, too, in the Koran, sometimes, the Hebrew sense of the antique Arabic , is clearly given in different and more common Arabic words. As in Surat xv. 73, 74, where, speaking again of this very judgment, and the manner of it, it says: And a sudden storm took them at sunrise, and we made the highest parts of it to be the lowest, (that is, we turned it upside down), and we rained upon them stones of burning marla volcanic earthquake and a lava shower.
This standing epithet occurs, Lam 4:6, in the same connection and in the same way; that is, in the nature of a proper name, though there it has the form of the participle perfect of . It is , Sodom the overturned. Our English translation of the whole passage is far from being clear: Greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom which was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands stayed on her: . In this passage there is an uncertainty as to the etymology and meaning of the word , but that interpretation is to be preferred which is most in keeping with the ideas of suddenness, or quick alarm, that make so graphic a feature in all allusions to the event, whether Hebrew or Arabic. Gesenius makes from (torquere), and gives it the sense: non immiss sunt manus, no hands were sent upon, or against hermeaning, hands of the enemy. Rabbi Tanchums Arabic commentary is to the same effect: Of Sodom it is said here, that there did not come upon her the hand of man, but she was overturned, at one blow, by the divine command; the word being the same as that in Jer 23:19, on the head of the wicked shall rush () a rushing tempest, (a whirlwind slung or hurled), and also as found Ecc 5:12; Ecc 5:15. , there is a sore evil (an impending or threatening evil) that I have seen under the sun.
It may be a question here, however, whether refers to the hands of the enemy, or to the hands of the inhabitants of the doomed city. If we place the accent on the ultimate, may be from , and this would give us the rendering, when no hands were weak in herthat is, suddenly, when they were in their full strength and security. Or the same general idea may be obtained from , if we advert to its primary sense, which we find very clearly in the Arabic . It is a curving motion combined with the spiral or oblique. Hence the sense of pain as expressed by twisting, wringing (torquere). It is used to denote the most intense anguish, the wringing of the hands in despair; which is the language employed by the Peschito Syriac version to render (distress or perplexity), Luk 21:25. No hands were wrung in her. So sudden was the storm that there was no time for lamenting over their doom.
All this, too, is expressed by the way in which the frequent Koranic word, , is used when sudden judgments are described, and especially this particular event. It is rendered sometimes, punishment, or pain. It is also used of the crash of the thunder, fragor tonitru; but in its most literal sense it denotes one sharp cry or shriek. Or it may be rendered, a shock. Thus in the passage before quoted, Surat xv. Genesis 73: a sudden storm or shock took them at sunrise (comp. Gen 19:23). The same, verse 83 of the same Surat, took them early in the morning. Though literally denoting one sudden scream of terror, it is taken for the cause, the thunderstorm or earthquake that produces it. Thus is it most impressively employed to represent the suddenness and surprise of the judgment that came upon those people of Lot, as the Sodomites are styled, , only one shock; there was in it no waiting, no recovery. Or it may be rendered, only one cry, and all was over. The remedilessness, as well as the suddenness, is still more graphically set forth in the use of similar language, Surat xxxvi. Genesis 25 : Lo, one cry, and they are all stillliterally, burnt out, , extinguished, dead. So, again, Surat liv. Genesis 31 : Lo, we sent upon them one shock (one shriek) and they are all burnt stubble. In the same manner is it used of the day of judgment, xxxvi. Genesis 53: One shock, or one cry, and they (the risen dead) are all before us. For other similar passages with similar applications, see Koran, xi. 70, 97; xxiii. 43; xxix. 39; l. 41; xv. 73, 83; lxiii. 3.
In the most express terms do the Scriptures assign this catastrophe of Sodom and Gomorrah to the judicial action of God, the Lord of nature. No language can be clearer: Jehovah rained upon them fire from Jehovah out of heaven, Gen 19:24. And yet, in perfect consistency with this, may we regard it as brought about by natural causes, though belonging to those great movements in nature which marked the primitive period of our present earth, or before its constitution became settled in that comparative calm which leads the scoffer to say that all things continue as they were from the beginning. This fearful , or overthrow, has impressed indelible vestigia (to use the language of Tacitus) on the region in which it took place; but no less sharp and incisive are the marks it has left in the Oriental traditions, and the peculiar language to which it has given rise in them all. It sent one sharp cry through the ancient Eastern world, and that cry has echoed down to us through other channels than the Hebrew Scriptures. On this account has the peculiar language employed been so minutely traced, as furnishing evidence of the minute credibility of an event so ancient, and of the strong impression it must have made at the time. It was a divine judgment, a divine revelation in the earth, too awful and too unmistakable to allow much diversity of language in describing it, and it is this constant manner of telling the fearful story which separates it widely from the shadowy and changing mythical, with which some would compare it.T. L.]
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
See the Doctrinal and Ethical paragraphs.
The xviiith ch. Abraham, the xixth Lot. Prominent points in Abrahams life: 1. the great vision; 2. the feast of the angels; 3. the faith in the promise; 4. the intercession for Sodom. Prominent points in the life of Lot: 1. the entertaining of the angels; 2. the moral resistance of the assault of the whole city of Sodom; 3. his faith, and his mission to his two sons-in-law; 4. his emigration with his family in distress, before the judgment. The revelation of grace and of wrath.The connection of the announcement of salvation with the announcement of judgment.The oak grove of Mamre, and the burning Sodom.As Abraham saved Lot the first time through war, so the second time through his intercessory prayer.Abraham and Lot in their different positions.In their last position with respect to each other (Abraham the friend of God, Lot the fugitive from Sodom, etc.).The connection of the manifestation to Abraham and Lot.The great manifestation of God, in the life of Abraham, in its great significance: 1. A revelation of the incarnation of God, of the future Christ, and at the same time of the angelic world; 2. a revelation of the great sign of the coming redemption, and of the coming judgment. Gen 19:10, The promise of Isaac: 1. a promise; 2. an endless fulness and succession of promises.Sacred oak grove: sign of the sacred temples, especially of the Gothic Cathedral,the sacred feast, sign of the most sacred meals.Abrahams friendship with God as hospitality: 1. God as the guest of Abraham in this world; 2. Abraham as the guest of God in the other world (to sit down with Abraham, Abrahams bosom).Starke: Gen 19:1 (The manifestation of the Son of God, at first, is not through a natural nor even through a personal union, but through a voluntary and casual union, since he took from his free love a body, or rather the form of a body, for a time).To this person are ascribed divine works, omnipotence (Gen 19:10; Gen 19:14), omnipresence (Gen 19:13), the power to execute judgment (Gen 19:25).The virtue of hospitality is becoming to Christians, and should be practised especially by believers and the pious (Heb 13:2; Isa 58:7; 1Pe 4:9; Job 31:32; Rom 12:13; Gal 6:10); but still they must use circumspection here also.We should not permit strangers to rest in the streets, but receive them and show them kindness and help (Rom 12:13), to which now innkeepers are in a peculiar sense obliged (Luk 10:34-35).
Gen 19:15. From the fact that Sarah makes no further reply, but receives her rebuke patiently, we may see that she recognizes her fault, and that God had rebuked it, hence she also is graciously preserved, that she should be at the same time the type of the free New Testament Church (Gal 4:22; Gal 4:27; Gal 4:31) and the mother of believers (1Pe 3:6). How severely, on the other hand, Zacharias was chastised for his unbelief (see Luk 1:20.)A Christian must never measure the promises of God by what seems good to him, but give to the power of God the preference over his reason (Zec 8:6; Luk 1:37; 1Pe 3:6).Gerlach: In regard to Sarah. Even her unbelief which lay concealed within her, must be brought out into the light, since it was now designed to confirm her confidence in the promise, which should not be fulfilled without her faith.Schrder, (Luther): Now there is hospitality in all places where the church is. She has always a common purse and storehouse, according to Mat 5:42, and we should all so serve her, and furnish her, not only with doctrine but also with kindness, and that the spirit and the flesh may here at the same time find refreshment and consolation (Mat 25:35; Mat 25:40).Rambach: Gen 19:8. As Abrahams tent is here the house in which the Son of God and his angels are entertained, so is his bosom the common place of rest for the blessed in the other world (Luk 16:22).The power and susceptibility for intuition, and the absorbing and even careful attention to business, which were separated in Mary and Martha (Luk 10:39), are here seen united in the same person.That they must necessarily eat, would be in opposition to their spiritual nature, but the power to eat was given with the human form.
Gen 19:9. Now follows, as Luther says, the table talk, that nothing might be wanting in this description, and that the whole world might know that this feast was not so passed as among the monks, who must keep silence at the table.
2. Section. The revelation of God concerning Sodom, and Abrahams intercessory prayer (Gen 19:16-33).1. The communing of God with himself before the revelation (Gen 19:18), or the revelation of God throughout the fruit of the highest divine purpose, as the creation of Man 1:2. the reason for this revelation (Gen 19:19); 3. its contents (Gen 19:20-21); 4. its results: a. the departure of the men to the judgment (Gen 19:22); b. the intercession of Abraham (Gen 19:23-30).Abraham the friend of God (child of God, servant of God, the intimate confidant of God).The cry of the sin of Sodom.The intercession of Abraham for Sodom as the first long prayer and intercession communicated to us: 1. awakened or animated by the consciousness of salvation which was given to him; 2. as a pattern for all intercessory prayers.The great importance of intercession.Its features: 1. The boldness of faith; 2. caution in the fear of God; 3. truthfulness of love.Even the apparently unavailing intercessions are not in vain.Starke: Gen 19:20. They (the Sodomites) went so far that the greatness of their sin had become a proverb (Isa 1:9 ff.), and therefore they were destroyed 400 years earlier than the Canaanites.The sins crying to heaven are especially, in the Holy Scriptures: 1. the shedding of innocent blood (Gen 4:10; Job 16:18); 2. the sin of Sodom; 3. the oppression of the people of God (Exo 3:7), especially of widows and orphans. (Exo 22:22; Exo 22:27; Sir 35:19); 4. the withholding of the hire of the laborer (Jam 5:4).Therefore he could not understand by the righteous little children; for, although they are not righteous in their natural state, they could not have committed sins crying to the heavens.They were, however, included with those destroyed, without, it may be hoped, any injury to their blessedness, or (so will it be added by some in an uncertain way) because God saw that they would tread in the footpaths of their fathers. [But the Scriptures never allude to this knowledge of God as the ground of his acts, either saving or destructive.The same event bears a very different aspect and meaning as sent to the wicked and the good, e.g., death. So with these judgments.A. G.] The nearer Abraham comes to God in his prayers and intercession, the more clearly he recognizes his nothingness and entire unworthiness. A glorious fruit of faith.The people of Sodom, indeed, could not think what was determined in the purpose of the watchers concerning them, and how Abraham stood in the breach.
Gen 19:32. This I will is here repeated six times, to intimate the truth of God, his earnest will, that he does not will the death of the sinner, but rather that he should turn unto him and live (Eze 18:11; Eze 18:32).Bib. Tub.: Intercession for a brother believer, even for the godless, a Christian duty.Mark this, ye godless, that ye and the world stand only for the sake of the righteous.We must come before God with the greatest reverence, and in the deepest humility of heart bow ourselves before his sacred majesty.The righteous are highly esteemed in the sight of God.Gerlach: Gen 19:19. Abraham, I have known him, i.e., chosen in my love. As Amo 3:2; Joh 17:3. Gen 19:23. The righteous who dwell together with the godless in any place, restrain the judgments of God.Zinzendorf: I cannot tell in terms strong enough the blessed privilege of speaking with our Lord.Calwer Handbuch: But in this prayer lie concealed deep mysteries, which render conspicuous to us the worth and importance, in the sight of God, of the righteous in the world, and on the other hand helps to explain the wonderful patience and long suffering of God towards the evil, and even towards heaven crying sinners.Schrder: Calvin: If, therefore, oftentimes temptations contend in our hearts, and things meet us, in the providence of God, which seem to involve a contradiction, let the conviction of his righteousness still be unshaken in us. We must pour into his bosom the cares which give us pain and anxiety, that he may solve for us the difficulties which we cannot solve.Passavant: When I otherwise can do nothing, when I am without any influence, and free access, without any means or any power, then still I may do something through the intercessory prayer.
3. Section. The entrance and sojourn of the angels in Sodom, and the final manifestation of its depravity, in contrast with the better conduct of Lot (Gen 19:1-11). There are parts of this section which do not seem fitted for public reading and homiletical treatment. But the examination of the whole history may be joined, by practical and homiletical wisdom, to the section, Gen 19:1-3.How sin is radically a beginning of the most extreme corruption: 1. it is against nature, and tends to the most unnatural abominations; 2. a delusion, which tends to fury and madness; 3. an act of disobedience, which issues in rebellion against God; 4. an impudence and falsehood, tending even to blasphemy.Hellish night-scenes in the earliest antiquity.The blinding of the godless that they could not find what they sought.Starke: (It is incredible that Lot, as the Rabbins think, sat in the gate to judge (Deu 16:18) and had been a judge in Sodom.)A Christian must behave towards every one, especially towards the pious, with humility and reverence (Rom 12:10).The holy angels dwell cheerfully with the pious.
Gen 19:5. (Lev 18:22; Lev 18:24; Lev 20:13.) Has not experience shown, that if here and there songs and prayers have been offered in a home at evening by devout persons, there have been those who have run together before the windows and made them the matter of sport and ridicule, while on the other hand, in other homes every kind of night revel has been endured and approved.
Gen 19:8. The offer of Lot did not spring from evil, but from the greatest confusion and alarm; still he did wrong (Rom 3:8 ff.). We see from this: 1. that Lot is not to be praised as some have thought (Ambrose, Chrysostom); 2. that he was not guilty of a sin which removes him beyond the grace of God.
Gen 19:9. An unreasonable reproach. Had there been now ten such strangers in Sodom, they would not yet have been destroyed.The gracious requital. Lot ventured all to preserve his guests; now he experiences how he is saved by them.7 It belongs to no man to prevent a greater sin by a lesser.Whoever will judge and punish the rough world, must be a disturber and excite an uproar.Godless people are only hardened the more, through kind and gracious warnings.Woe to him whom God strikes with spiritual blindness.8Gerlach: The very nature of the trial which God adopts consists in this, that he honors to the very last the liberty lent by him to the creature, and does not punish to destruction until the most extreme abuse of freedom has been made evident.Calwer Handbuch: Sins and shameful vices appear in their fullest disgracefulness in the night.Lot appears, also, to have before rebuked their sinful movements, wherefore they reproach him, the stranger, with a lust of powerThe nearer the judgments of God, the greater the security of sinners. [The scriptural signs that the judgment is near are: 1. that God abandons men or communities to out-breaking and presumptuous sins; 2. that warnings and chastisements fail to produce their effect, and especially when the person grows harder under them; 3. that God removes the good from any communityso before the flood, so before the destruction of Jerusalem; and, 4. the deep, undisturbed security of those over whom it is suspended.A. G.]
4. Section. Lots salvation. Sodoms destruction (Gen 19:12-29). Lots rescue from Sodom: 1. his obedience. The first message of deliverance (Gen 19:12-14). 2. Then, even, scarcely saved, on account of his delay and fears (Gen 19:15-22).The test of Lot in the judgment of Sodom: 1. Saved, indeed, but, 2. scarcely saved, and that with difficulty. Urged, importuned by the angels. Paralyzed by his terror in the way. His wife lost. [Almost saved, and yet lost.A. G.] His daughters.In the history of Lot, also, the unity of the family is again illustrated: 1. In its great importance; 2. in its final extent.
Gen 19:15. The danger in delaying the flight out of Sodom, i.e., of conversion, or also of separation from the society of the wicked.Starke: (Gen 19:12. It may be what belongs to thee, and could therefore relate to his possessions, especially his herds. Still, some doubt, and think that he bore away as a gain or spoil only his own life and the lives of his family, while he must have left the herds behind in his haste.)
Gen 19:14. Act 17:18.Sodom a type of the spiritual Babylon (Rev 11:8).Whoever will not be borne away and crushed with the godless, he must early and cheerfully separate himself from them, while he has time and leisure9 (Rev 18:4).
Gen 19:16. God shows his goodness not only to the pious, but to those who belong to them.Upon Gen 19:21. How God excuses the weakness of the believer, if he walks with God in uprightness.10As Zoar was spared at the intercession of Lot, so afterwards the house of Laban was blessed for Jacobs sake, and Potiphar for the sake of Joseph, the widows meal-chest and cruse of oil for the sake of Elijah.That Zoar was made better by the recollection of the terrible overthrow of the cities may be inferred from the fact that it was still standing at the time of Isaiah (Isa 15:5).(A comparison between Sodom and Rome in eight particulars: beautiful region; security; iniquities; crying to the heavens; the true faith persecuted; announcement of its judgment (Rev.); the rescuing of the pious; punishment by fire; the rising of the sun; the enlightening of the Jews, etc. H. C. Rambach.)(The Dead Sea: Troilo and others say: I could compare it only with the jaws of hell.)The fearful judgment upon Lots wife: 1. She died immediately; 2. in her sins; 3. an unusual death; 4. remained unburied, an example of the vengeance of God.Luk 7:32-33; Luk 9:62.
Gen 19:28. It is calm, pleasant weather with the children of God, when it storms with the godless (Exo 10:22-23; Psa 32:10).Gerlach: A living type of those whom the messenger of the Lord warns before the future punishment (Luk 17:28-29).The word: haste and escape for thy life; this is the deep undertone which must be heard through all preaching of the gospel.Calw. Hand.: The mercy of the Lord saves Lot and his family, as a brand plucked from the burning. Until Lot is saved the Lord himself restrains his hand.Schwenke: Gen 19:15. The deep impression which the declaration of the near judgment made upon him was greatly weakened by the mocking words of his sons-in-law; he delays, waits, puts off. Flesh and blood, and the clinging to the beautiful city, struggle with obedience to the revelation from God.Schrder: The entrance of Lot into the vale of Siddim corresponds to his exodus (Baumgarten).11How the first universal judgment of the flood, like the partial judgment upon Sodom and Gomorrah, serves in the Scriptures as an example and type of all the divine judgments, and especially of the last judgment (Luk 17:28 ff.; 2Pe 2:6, etc.).Heuser: Destruction of Sodom: 1. A judgment from heaven; 2. a sign for the earth.Taube: The eternal righteousness of God in the judgment upon Sodom and Lots wife. The free mercy of God in saving Lot and his family.
5. Section. Lots disappearance and his descendants (Gen 19:30-38). The 30th verse is alone fitted for public use. But from this a faint light may be thrown upon the whole night-scene. Lots disappearance as a dweller in caves.Lots history illustrates the truth, that whoever will build a house, must count the cost: 1. His inspired exodus from Haran with Abraham, and journey through Canaan to Egypt, with ever-increasing wealth; 2. his settlement in the valley of Sodom; 3. his asylum in Zoar; 4. his disappearance from the scene in the caves of the mountains.How should the pious fear temptations when the mind is unbent after extreme spiritual tension.Man falls easily into the sins of the flesh when the ideals of his intellectual life are dissolved and lose their power.12Ruth a Moabitess.Starke: Lots daughters. The reason which moved them was rather a groundless prejudice than wantonness of the flesh. (Anxiety lest the human race should perish. It may be, also, that they were only Lots step-daughters, if he had married in Sodom a widow who was the mother of two daughters).Cramer: Loneliness in retired places allures not only to good, but also, and much more, to great sins (Ecc 4:10).Whoever will avoid sin must avoid the occasions which lead to it.[Strong drink the fruitful source of untold degradation and sins.A. G.]Gregory I.: There was a moral sense in Lot, but it was confused and disturbed. Intoxication deceived Lot, who was not deceived in Sodom; the flames of lust burn him, whom the flames of sulphur did not burn.Luther: Some think that Lot died soon after, from distress and sorrow, before his daughters were delivered, because otherwise he would not have consented that names should be given them which should constantly remind him of his incest.He who was not deceived in Sodom, drunkenness deceived; who in Sodom, the very school of unchastity, had lived chastely, in the cave was guilty of incest; suffered shipwreck in the harbor.Ruth a Moabitess. We may infer from Isa 11:14; Jer 48:47; Dan 11:41, that there-will be, besides, some conversions from the Moabites to Christ.The children of Ammon were characterized by similar sins with those of their brother Moab, and therefore have a similar future.Drunkenness is the way to all bestial lusts and acts.(Holy descendants from polluted beds. Jdg 11:1; Heb 11:32.)Schrder: The thought that they should remain alone in case of their fathers early death was one to them very hard to bear. Then, indeed, they would be entirely helpless and without protection in the wide world. If no husband was granted to them, they would at least have children, sons, who could give protection and help.(Berl. Bibel.: The following riddle has been constructed from the history: My father, thy father, our childrens grandfather; my husband, thy husband, the husband of our mother, and yet one and the same man.)Baumgarten: This is the crime of Lots daughters, that to secure descendants, and those of pure blood, they thought incest a small offence.Herberger: For one evil hour, one must bear the sword at his side a whole year.The same: Still even such children (illegitimate and springing from incest) should not despair. God can do great things even through the illegitimate Jephtha (Jdg 11:1 ff.). True repentance makes all well. [But true repentance is never separated from true faith. Faith in Christ and repentance make all well.A. G.]
Footnotes:
[1][Only to these men do nothing. The form of the pronoun used, , is archaic, and is used also in Gen 19:25; Gen 26:3-4; Lev 18:27; Deu 4:42; Deu 7:22; Deu 19:11. Keil, p. 163. Therefore came they under my roof; viz., for the purpose of security.A. G.]
[2][Baumgarten urges that should be rendered come hither, instead of stand back, on the ground that this is the usual meaning of the verb, and that it gives an equally good sense, p. 211A. G.]
[3][At the morning. The dawn, since the sun rose as Lot entered Zoar. Jacobus: Notes, vol. ii. p. 23.A. G.]
[4][The word here used for look implies a deliberate contemplation, steady regard, consideration, and desire; see Isa 63:5. The Sept. has , looked wistfully. Wordsworth, p. 89. She became, lit., she was a pillar of salt. The dashing spray of the salt, sulphureous rain, seems to have suffocated her, and then encrusted her whole body. Murphy.A. G.]
[5][The looking back shows, on the one hand, her doubt and unbelief of the divine warning, and on the other, that her heart was still clinging to the lusts of Sodom, and that she was an unwilling follower of the rescuing angels. Kurtz, p. 195.A. G.]
[6] . The term generally denotes juniority, and it may be so literally taken here, since the origin of Jerusalem may have been historically older than that of Sodom.T. L.]
[7][Gods people are safe when angels stand sentries at the doors. Bush.A. G.]
[8][It is the use of God, to blind and besot those whom he means to destroy. Bp. Hall; Bush.A. G.]
[9][The man who will not consult for his own safety, and who, even being warned to beware, yet exposes himself by his sloth to ruin, deserves to perish. Calvin.A. G.]
[10][It is no new thing for the Lord to grant sometimes, as an indulgence, what he does not approve. Calvin. See Jacobus.A. G.]
[11][The beauty and fruitfulness of nature attracted him, and he chose it without thinking whether it would work injury to his soul. The same power now prevents him from earnestly heeding the salvation of his soul. Baumgarten, p. 213.A. G.]
[12][Those who have been wondrously preserved from temporal destruction, may shamefully fall into sin. Jacobus.A. G.]
CONTENTS
The Sacred Historian, prosecutes in this Chapter, the account of what was hinted at in the former; namely, the destruction of Sodom, Lot is delivered from the overthrow: he is constrained by the Angels to flee for his life; his wife becomes a monument of the divine displeasure for looking back: Lot retreats into Zoar: he removes to the mountain: he there falls into the horrid sins of drunkenness and incest.
And he said, Behold now, my lords, turn in, 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 ways. And they said, Nay; but we will abide in the street all night.
The same observations meet us here, as in the opening of the foregoing Chapter; which see. (See POOR on “Gen 18:1 “)
The Destruction of Sodom
Gen 19:24-25
There must have been some very strong justification for an act so terrible. This right of destruction may, I think, be fairly inquired into by human reason, and ought to be well studied as a fact that has been repeatedly realised in human history. Understand, if you please, that there is a Power above us which can utterly devour and consume our life. It is important to feel the whole force of this truth, especially as showing that life is not independent and irresponsible; and as showing that we hold it at the will of God, on certain distinct and intelligible conditions, the violation of which simply necessitates our utter destruction. I wish to point out this the more clearly because it might seem as it in giving life God has put it absolutely out of his own power to reclaim or withdraw it: having once given you life you are as immortal as he himself is, and you can defy him to interfere with his own work! The doctrine seems to me to involve a palpable absurdity, and hardly to escape the charge of blasphemy. Throughout the whole Bible, God has reserved to himself the right to take back whatever he has given, because all his gifts have been offered upon conditions about which there can be no mistake. He takes back the life of the body; he takes away the power of reason; he re-claims our physical strength; by many a severity he asserts that the earth is his own and the fulness thereof; yet we are to suppose that he cannot put an end to our whole existence; it has grieved him, mocked him, defied him, abandoned his sanctuary, violated his laws, slain his Son, quenched his Spirit, given the lie to his promises and heaped up the measure of its iniquity in his very face, but he cannot put an end to it! Not such is the doctrine! find in the Word of God. There the Lord is King; his power is infinite; he only has the right to live; he only does live, and if we live it is because we abide in him, “as a branch abideth in the vine.” I believe that the sovereignty of God is as absolute at the end as at the beginning; that “he can create, and he can destroy”; and that we live by his will alone. Furthermore, I can see the infinite reasonableness and justice of this sovereignty; it subdues all things under the Lord’s feet, and gives him an undivided throne.
In this case we have an instance of utter and everlasting destruction. We see here what is meant by “everlasting punishment,” for we are told in the New Testament that “Sodom suffered the vengeance of eternal fire,” that is of fire, which made an utter end of its existence and perfectly accomplished the purpose of God. The “fire” was “eternal,” yet Sodom is not literally burning still; the smoke of its torment, being the smoke of an eternal fire, ascended up for ever and ever, yet no smoke now rises from the plain, “eternal fire” does not involve the element of what we call “time”: it means thorough, absolute, complete, final: that which is done or given once for all.
As I look over those burning cities, and see the “smoke of the country go up as the smoke of a furnace”; as I see the sharp, keen tongues of flame piercing the gloomy cloud here and there, and catch a faint breath of the poisoned air, I ask myself, Is this right? Is God himself justified in sending this horrible desolation upon the earth? If this were only an intellectual speculation I would not care to spend a moment upon its settlement. It is, however, an inquiry which proceeds from the conscience, and therefore its settlement is needful to give rest and satisfaction to the moral life that is in every one of us. To find out whether the judgment is right we must find out the moral conditions which called it forth. And first, it is important to observe that this judgment was preceded by an inquiry of the most unquestionable completeness and authority. Hear this: “And the Lord said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous; I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know.” You see, therefore, that we are only following the Lord’s own example, in asking for information as to moral conditions. It is, then, deeply satisfactory to know that the judgment was preceded by inquiry.
In the next place, the revelation made respecting the moral condition of Sodom is appalling and revolting, beyond the power of words to describe. Let us put the case before ourselves in this way: Given a city that is full of corruption which may not be so much as named; every home a den of unclean beasts; every imagination debauched and drunk with iniquity; every tongue an empoisoned instrument; purity, love, honour, peace, forgotten or detested words; judgment deposed, righteousness banished, the sanctuary abandoned, the altar destroyed; every child taught the tricks and speech of imps; prizes offered for the discovery of some deeper depth of iniquity or new way of serving the devil; given such a city, to know what is best to be done with it? Remonstrate with it? Absurd! Threaten it? Feeble! What then? Rain fire and brimstone upon it? Yes! Conscience says Yes; Justice says Yes; concern for other cities says Yes; nothing but fire will disinfect so foul an air, nothing but burning brimstone should succeed the cup of devils. Just as we grasp the moral condition with which God had to deal do we see that fire alone could meet wickedness so wicked or insanity so mad.
This view is important not only historically as regards Sodom, but prospectively as regards a still greater judgment. It would hardly be worth while to hold inquest upon a deed that took place innumerable years ago if that deed stood alone; but it docs not stand alone; it is part of a great system of providence under which we ourselves live; and it is an illustration of the working of the law by which we ourselves have to be judged. Hence our interest in it. This is no local tragedy. The fire and brimstone are still in the power of God: not a spark has been lost: it is true today and for ever that “our God is a consuming fire”! A careful inquiry into the principles which determined the local and partial judgments of God will give us a clear view of the judgment which is to come upon the whole world. The principles are clearly these: We hold life as God’s gift; we hold that gift upon certain conditions; we can choose good or we can choose evil; God loves us, cares for us, has given his Son to save us, and is watching us every moment; he wishes all men to be saved; he promises pardon to the penitent, and foretells the death of the impenitent sinner; by these principles he will judge us, and by these will the wicked go away into everlasting punishment, and the righteous into life eternal. The human conscience must answer, This is right ! Such a judgment gives us a sense of rest. With such a judgment to come, the presumption is that the Providence which leads up to it is as equitable and as sublime as itself. I call you, too, to witness that as God is to judge us, he also himself appeals to our judgment! He asks us to consider his ways, and challenges us to tell what iniquity we have found in him. Hence in many parts of the Bible, notably in the Psalms, we have judgments pronounced by man upon the Lord, as if the Lord had placed himself at our bar and asked us to acquit or condemn his providence. He proceeds upon reasons. His principles are ascertainable, and such as can be judged; hear what he says to Jerusalem “Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me: therefore I took them away as I saw good.” And in remembrance of all his ways, severe and gentle, the pouring out of the Flood and the visitation of Fire, the Psalmist says, “The Lord is gracious, and full of compassion; slow to anger, and of great mercy”; “The Lord is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works”; “The Lord is righteous in all his ways, and holy in all bis works.” In heaven and earth the testimony is the same. “Just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints.” “The Lord preserveth all them that call upon him, but all the wicked will he destroy.” Wonderful is this, that God should allow us to judge his way! He does not silence the Psalmist, nor does he reprove the acclaiming angels; he will be judged by all who are honest in soul. And beautiful, too, is this, that notwithstanding the severity and awfulness of his judgments, the Lord is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works! It does not seem so at the time of the infliction of his judgments. With Sodom and Babylon, Egypt and Tyre, Nineveh and Jerusalem, before us, it does not seem so. But we must look at God’s purpose and at great breadths of history, even from the beginning to the end of his ways, and as we see ravages repaired, verdure growing upon the slopes of the volcano, and the blade rising from the dead seed, we too shall say in many a song of thankfulness and joy, “The Lord is gracious, and full of compassion; slow to anger, and of great mercy.” In the sum total of things we shall see that mercy has rejoiced against judgment, that righteousness and peace have kissed each other, and that all experience says with mighty voice, distinct and far-sounding, God is Love.
Returning to the narrative, Lot was saved from the burning, and in truth I cannot but wonder what he was saved for. Compared with the Sodomites he was indeed a man of “righteous soul.” I will not question the goodness of his intentions or detract from the almost Divinity of his relative character; but he was a selfish man, little and mean in his notions, and fickle and timid in general bearing. Poor was the bargain he made when he chose the well-watered plain of Jordan! He did not see his mistake at the time. But as he took to his heels that hot morning when the lightning was astir, and as he was nearly choked with the sulphur that rolled in clouds around the skirts of Zoar, he began to think how foolish he had been and how true it is that “it is not all gold that glitters.”
XXIV
ABRAHAM’S CONVERSION (PART TWO) AND SOME SELECTED THOUGHTS
Genesis 15-19:28
SACRIFICES OF THE COVENANT AND BIRDS OF PREY THE WAITING AND THE DARKNESS Abram waited until the sun was nearly down. There he was. He had passed between the pieces. Night came, and a horror of great darkness came upon him. He still waited. God had not signified his presence. Suddenly in a trance he sees a smoking furnace and a shining lamp pass between the sacrifices. The shining lamp is the Shekinah, the indication of divine presence. With the passing through of the visible representation of God there comes a voice of prophecy: “And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and lo, a horror of great darkness fell upon him. And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be sojourners in the land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years; and also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I Judge; and afterwards they shall come out with great substance. But thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old age. And in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet full.” That is a remarkable prophecy, that the descendants of Abram should go into bondage among Egyptian people, but would come out in the fourth generation to the land promised to Abram. Two reasons are assigned why Abram or his descendants should not immediately have the land. It would be a long time before his descendants would be sufficiently numerous and disciplined. Then the land was occupied by the Amorites, whose iniquity was not yet full. God does not remove a people until their iniquity is full. The promise, then, was made to Abram afar off. He himself died in a good old age.
I want to notice a serious chronological difficulty. Gen 15:13 , says, “And they shall afflict them four hundred years.” Exo 12:4 , “The time that the children of Israel dwelt in Egypt was four hundred and thirty years.” Notice that difference of thirty years. Act 7:6 , “And God spake in this wise, that his seed should sojourn in a strange land, and that they should bring them into bondage and treat them ill for four hundred years.” That agrees with Gen 15:13 .Gal 3:17 , “A covenant confirmed beforehand by God, the law, which came four hundred and thirty years after.” Paul states that it was back 430 years from the giving of the law to the call of Abram. If that is so, how do you get 400 or 430 years in bondage in Egypt, as it was 220 years from the call of Abram before they went into Egypt? In my discussion on the covenants I took Paul’s New Testament statement as the correct one, adopted by Archbishop Usher and given in your Bibles, leaving only 210 years in Egypt.
THE TRANCE AND THE PROPHECY Jehovah said to Abram, “Unto thy seed have I given this land from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the Euphrates.” I find Old Testament proof that at one time Abram’s descendants did actuary-possess all the country from the eastern mouth of the Nile to the Euphrates. The sixteenth chapter opens with a human attempt to fulfill the prophecy of God. In the fifteenth chapter Abram said, “O Lord Jehovah, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and he that shall be possessor of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” And Jehovah said, “This man shall not be thine heir; but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels.” Sarah, knowing that she was barren, and that she and her husband were old, falls upon an Oriental method by which Abram should have a son. She gives her handmaiden, Hagar the Egyptian, to Abram as a wife in order that Hagar’s child by Abram should be as Sarah’s child. She got herself, Abram and the handmaiden, the descendants of Abram through her own son and through Hagar’s son all into a world of trouble. Once I kept worrying a teacher who had promised that in an hour he would go to a certain orchard for some fruit. I waited and waited and asked him if it wasn’t most time. So he took an old-fashioned hourglass, filled with sand and narrow in the middle so that the sand could run through in just one hour, and said to me, “When that sand drops through we will go.” I sat there and looked at that hourglass. Finally I reached over and shook it. That was human effort. It did not make the sand come a bit faster. So Sarah’s shaking the hourglass did not help matters. When the handmaiden found she was to be the mother of Abram’s child, she despised Sarah; Sarah began to quarrel and oppress the handmaiden so that she ran away. We now come to a new expression (Gen 16:7 ), “And the angel of the Lord found her by a fountain of water in the wilderness.” After this point that expression occurs often, and all the circumstances go to show that it was a pre-manifestation of the Son of God. You will see later that he is here spoken of as God. The angel prophesied to Hagar. “Return to thy mistress and I will greatly bless thy seed, that it shall not be numbered for multitude. Thou shall bear a child and thou shalt call his name Ishmael because God hath heard thy affliction, and he shall be as a wild ass among men; his hand shall be against every man, and every man’s hand shall be against him, and he shall dwell over against all his brethren.” When I was eleven years old a man in Sunday school asked where the passage was about the boy who was to become like a wild ass. Every boy went home to find the passage, and I determined to find it before I slept. Beginning at Genesis, I read through until I found it, and what a thrill of joy went through my heart. A gentleman in Arkansas who used to know me when a boy asked me this, “What achievement of your life has filled you with the greatest Joy?” I told him that it was catching my first ‘possum. I was about seven years old and had a bob-tailed brindle dog named Lupe. He got to smelling around an old log, and finally pulled out a ‘possum. I grabbed him by the tail and went home shouting. Now the object of these general questions is to put you on a line of thinking for yourselves. I asked my elder brother about Ishmael. In an atlas he showed me. Arabia, and described the marvelous exploits of the people, and particularly since they adopted the religion of Mohammed how their hands have been against every man. They live in tents and have camels and horses. Lew Wallace tells about the Arab sheik whose fine horse Ben Hur drove in the chariot race. Sir Walter Scott’s Talisman treats of these Bedouins of the desert. Strange that God’s prophecy should designate the characteristics of the descendants of this man for thousands of years.
Gen 16:13 says, “Thou art a God that seeth, Wherefore the well is called Beer-Lahai-roi,” meaning “living after, you have seen.” You remember the saying that no mortal can see God and live. She was persuaded that God had met bex. She obeyed his voice, and went back and became subject to Sarah.
I have selected certain thoughts for the reader’s attention. The first relates to the establishment of the covenant of circumcision. I would go extensively into a discussion of that but for the fact that at the twelfth chapter we discussed all the covenants with Abram.
The second thought is the enlargement in God’s announcement to Abram. He now not only specifies that Abram’s son shall be his heir and not his bondservant, but that he shall be a son of his wife, Sarah. It is characteristic of the Old Testament prophecies to become more particular in each subsequent announcement. Gen 2 says, “The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent’s head.” As the light increases, this seed of the woman shall be a descendant of Seth, Noah, Shem, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, David, more particular all the time. In Hebrews, Romans, and Galatians this subject is particularly discussed. In Hebrews we learn that God made an announcement to Abram that involved a natural impossibility, but Abram staggered not through unbelief. In one of these books there is a reference to the steps of Abram’s faith. When the general convention was in session at Dallas some years ago, I was called upon to preach a sermon at the pastors’ conference, and took for my text, “The Steps of Abraham’s Faith.” Commencing with the statement that a faith that cannot walk is a very puny child, I traced the steps of Abraham’s faith. When he was seventy years old, God called him out of Ur of the Chaldees. He believed God, and stepped far enough to reach Haran. He halted there till his father died, and took another step to the Holy Land. As each new revelation of God would come his faith stepped higher and culminated in the offering of Isaac, confident that God would raise him from the dead and perpetuate his seed through him.
In this larger announcement God changes the name of Abram to Abraham, and of Sarai to Sarah. Indians do not name their children until some exploit is performed which gives them a name. We sometimes overburden our children with names. A child who may have great facility in telling lies about cherry trees, or anything else, we name George Washington. One without missionary spirit is often named Judson, or a child without pulpit eloquence or faith we name Spurgeon. My father did the same with his children. He named one for Richard Baxter, author of Saints’ Rest. He named me for Solomon’s commander-in-chief who succeeded Joab. We are very illustrious in our names. But Abram’s name was changed by an event in his life which evidenced great faith. In other words, it is better to earn a name than to have a great name thrust upon us. Jacob’s name originally meant supplanter, which he was. In that great struggle where he wrestled with God, his name was changed to Israel, a marvelous name, fairly earned. We ought to be more concerned about the name that we merit than about the name with which fond and over expectant parents burden us.
In the enlargement of this promise that his son would inherit, Abraham gives utterance to an expression from which have often preached, and I give it to you to preach from: “O, that Ishmael might live before you.” Ishmael, his son by Hagar, was about thirteen years old. Abraham was very much attached to him, and fondly hoped that in him the family fortunes rested. Now comes God’s announcement that a child yet unborn should set Ishmael aside. How many times in substance has a father prayed that prayer. Dr. Andrew Broadis, the elder, had an illustrious son that he did not think much of. He had another son, his Absalom, and prayed continually that this son might live before God. But that son died a drunkard, while the other became a preacher as great as his father. In the Prentiss family of Maine, the likely son died. There was a crippled boy in the family called the child of his mother’s hand, because he was kept alive for five years t)y his mother’s rubbing. The father said, “Oh, that it had been the crippled boy that died.” The crippled boy became S. S. Prentiss. What the other boy would have been we do not know.
The next thought refers to Abraham’s hospitality. Standing under an oak tree he sees three illustrious visitors coming in the garb of men, and entertains them with great hospitality. One of them proved to be the angel of the Lord, a pre-manifestation of the Son of God, and the others, the angels that destroyed Sodom. Upon that passage the writer of Hebrews says, “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” I quoted that passage to a woman once who had a big house and never entertained anybody. I told her how much the lives of families were influenced by illustrious persons that stopped just one night. How Spurgeon’s career was shaped by an illustrious man who stayed at his father’s house one night, and next morning put his hand on the boy’s head and prayed that God might make him a great preacher and send him to preach the gospel to lost London. The boy never got from under the power of it, nor did the family. This lady said if she ever entertained any angels it was certainly unawares, for she had never found it out. I have known my father to entertain seventy-five messengers at an association. When we did not have enough beds, we scattered the cotton out and put quilts down in the cotton house. When Waco was a village the First Church entertained free of charge 3,500 visitors. They were there from every state in the Union attending the Southern Baptist Convention. We did not have enough homes, so after filling every hotel and boarding house, we went out two or three miles in the country. When I paid the hotel bill next morning it was just $1,500. It did not hurt us. Nothing ever did Texas more benefit. The railroads took it up and gave every one of them a free trip through Texas and Mexico. It advertised Texas all over the world. I entertained forty men in my house. Dr. Sears entertained forty women. His neighbors said he nearly broke his leg so he might stay at home and talk. Anyhow, it was a blessing on his home and mine.
While Abraham entertained these angels a renouncement is made that a son should be born and to his wife, Sarah. Sarah was inside the tent. But women can hear better than men. What I say downstairs my wife can always hear upstairs. Sarah heard them and laughed aloud at the idea that an old woman like herself should become the mother of a son so illustrious. When her child was born and she saw how foolish it had been to laugh at the word of God, she named the child Isaac, meaning, “laughter” and what a sweet name!
After the entertainment the destroying angels start off to Sodom on their mission. The angel of the Lord, walking with Abraham, asked the question, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do to Sodom, seeing that I know that he will command his children after him to keep my law?” Look at the thoughts: Abraham by his faith had become the companion of God so that God said, “I will have no secrets from Abraham as to my dealings with the affairs of earth.” By similar faith and life we get into confidential relations with God, and he promises that we shall know things that others do not know. Notice next the great act which made Abraham trustworthy: “For I know that he will command his children after him.” The great sin of Eli was that he did not restrain his children. The great merit of Abraham was that he did rightly raise his child Isaac. The great virtue of Jews to this day is the reverence they have for parents and the obedience that children render to their parents. The Gentile boy is like that wild ass of the desert we discussed. He learns to call his father “the old man,” and thinks it mighty smart “to row his own boat,” to “gang his own gait.” A Jewish boy would not dream of such a thing. They are a thousand miles ahead of us in this respect. The curse of the present day is the ill regulated youth. Instead of remaining children, which would be better, boys nine and ten years old become manikins. A preacher found one on the streets one day and asked, “My son, do you drink?” The boy, thinking it a disgrace if he did not, said, “No, sir, I hasn’t got to that yet but I chews and cusses.” That is the spirit of the boyhood of today. The Presbyterians are ahead of the Baptists in training their children. They teach the Catechism better. We let the devil take possession of our children and fortify himself before we begin to do anything for their salvation, as a rule.
As soon as God announced the destruction of Sodom, Abraham commenced praying. In all the Word of God and in all literature there is nowhere else to be found such a prayer. He starts out, “Shall not the judge of all the earth do right, and if he does right will he slay the righteous with the wicked?” He asked if God would spare the city for the sake of fifty righteous men. God said, “Yes.” He took a forward step and asked God if he would save the city for the sake of forty righteous men. God said, “Yes.” “Hear me once again, Will you not save the city if there be thirty?” God said he would spare the city. “Will you spare the city for twenty’s sake?” God said, “Yes.” Abraham made his last step, “Will you save the city if there be ten righteous men?” With that precedent why did not Abraham go to five? That leads to a thought presented by our Saviour in the Sermon on the Mount, viz.: “Ye are the salt of the earth” as well as “the light of the world.” The world cannot be destroyed while the righteous are in it. The reason why the fire has not leaped out of the storm cloud and riven the earth with its fiery bolt is the good people of God that are in the world. That only keeps cities, states, and nations from instantaneous annihilation by the irrevocable judgments of God. The wicked do not know that all that keeps them from sudden death and out of hell is the righteous constituting the salt of the earth. When God raises the dead bodies of his saints that sleep in the earth, and snatches up to the clouds the living Christians that are changed, immediately, as by the following of an inexorable law, fire worldwide seizes the earth, and ocean and continent are wrapped in flames. The conserving power is gone.
I want you to barely look at what is too foul for public speech. Read it alone, covered with shame, this last sin of Sodom which gives a name to a sin, “Sodomy.” Our courts recognize that sin, which is incorporated in the common law of England and the United States. They sought to perpetuate this sin that night and Lot restrains them. These angels of God whom they mistook for men and upon whom they purposed to commit this sin, smote the lecherous crowd with blindness. And after every one of them was stricken blind, they groped for the door still to commit that sin. If you want a picture of the persistence of an evil passion, when the heart is hard and the neck stiffened, when the soul is incorrigible and obdurate, take the picture of these people, blinded by the Judgment of God and yet groping for the door.
The record states that the angels told Lot if he had anybody in that city to get them out mighty quick, and Lot went to his sons-in-law and urged them to go out. My question is, Were they actually his sons-in-law? He had two daughters at home. Did he have other daughters married to Sodomites? Or were the sons-in-law merely betrothed, fiancs? An old backwoodsman first called my attention to it, and I refer the matter to you. In the morning the angel gathers the family out of the city as fast as he can. He says to Lot, “Make haste. We can do nothing till you are out of the city.” You must get the good people out before a city can be destroyed. Notice the lamentable fate of Lot’s wife, an Old Testament woman immortalized by our Lord in the great prophecy in Luk 17:32 : “Remember Lot’s wife.” She looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt. The angel said to Lot, “Stay not in the plains.” Lot said, “That is too far. Let me stop at Zoan, this little city near by.” Some of the funniest things I ever heard in my life were connected with that text, “Is it not a little one?” Like the Methodist preacher’s sermon on “How shall Jacob arise since he is small?”
The destruction that came was a good deal like the report given in Marryat’s novel, Poor Jack. When the father whipped his wife with a pigtail off his head until she fainted, the doctor inquired, “What is the matter with your mother? Is it external or internal?” The boy replied, “Doctor, I think it is both.” The destruction that came upon Sodom was both internal and external. Fire came down from heaven, and the earth opened and swallowed it. It had the characteristics of a volcanic eruption, an electric storm and an earthquake. The destruction was instant and total and down there under the water lie the relics of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the sea is called the Dead Sea. No flesh or animal life is in it. Josephus says that when you bite the fruit from the apple tree on its borders a puff of dust fills your mouth. If you jump into it you do not sink. The Dead Sea, lower than the Mediterranean, has no outlet. The Dead Sea that receives into its bosom all the tides of the sacred Jordan from the snows of Lebanon which come through Galilee, waters upon which Christ walked, in which he was baptized; waters that Elijah smote with his mantle; waters in which Naaman was healed of his leprosy; waters the most famous in sacred history; that whole river is like a string on which a necklace of pearls is strung, yet all that water goes into the Dead Sea, which receives it and turns nothing out but dust and ashes. Harris, the author of the book entitled Mammon, compares that sea to the Antinomian heart, always receiving and never giving. It has become the image of eternal destruction. Can you question whether God knows how to preserve the righteous and his ability to punish the wicked and the sinner?
QUESTIONS 1. How was the covenant between God and Abraham ratified and how is the primary meaning of the word “covenant” here exemplified?
2. What two interpretations of “Abram drove them away” and what is the spiritual meaning of it?
3. What trial of Abraham follows this, how then did God signify his presence and what word of prophecy accompanied it?
4, What two reasons assigned for the descendants of Abraham not immediately possessing the land promised to him?
5. What chronological difficulty is pointed out and how do you solve it?
6. How did Sarah try to help the Lord fulfill his prophecy to Abraham and what was the result?
7. How do you explain the appearance of the angel of the Lord to Hagar, what prophecy did he make to her and what was remarkable about this prophecy?
8. What two elements of the enlargement of God’s announcement to Abraham?
9. How did Abraham receive the first and what were the steps of Abraham’s faith?
10. Why did God change the name of Abram and what is the application?
11. In this enlargement to what expression does Abraham give utterance, its meaning and application? Illustrate.
12. What can you say of Abraham’s hospitality, who were the guests and what is the blessing that often comes from such entertainment?
13. What is the origin and meaning of the word “Isaac”?
14. After the destroying angels departed for Sodom, what question did the angel of the Lord raise, into what secret did he let Abraham and what great act of Abraham made him trustworthy?
15. Contrast Jews and Gentiles on parental duty and what denomination of people stands next to the Jews in training children?
16. Describe Abraham’s intercession for Sodom and what was the teaching of our Lord in point?
17. What is the name which indicates the awful sin of the Sodomites?
18. Did Lot have actual sons-in-law? If not, explain the reference to his sons-in-law.
19. What was the fate of Lot’s wife and what was our Lord’s use of this incident?
20. By what means were Sodom and Gomorrah destroyed?
21. What New Testament use was made of the judgment on these cities? (2Pe 2:6-9 ; Jud 1:7 .)
22. Ancient writers locate Sodom and Gomorrah at the southern, extremity of the Dead Sea, modern writers at the northern extremity. What do you say?
23. What does the destruction of these cities symbolize and in view of the permanent effect, what question does this forever settle?
Gen 19:1 And there came two angels to Sodom at even; and Lot sat in the gate of Sodom: and Lot seeing [them] rose up to meet them; and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground;
Ver. 1. Lot sat in the gate. ] Not as a judge (as the Hebrews will have it), nor as a merchant; much less as a noveller; but as a good householder, looking for his herds, and as a good housekeeper, looking for guests.
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Gen 19:1-11
1Now the two angels came to Sodom in the evening as Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he rose to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground. 2And he said, “Now behold, my lords, please turn aside into your servant’s house, and spend the night, and wash your feet; then you may rise early and go on your way.” They said however, “No, but we shall spend the night in the square.” 3Yet he urged them strongly, so they turned aside to him and entered his house; and he prepared a feast for them, and baked unleavened bread, and they ate. 4Before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, surrounded the house, both young and old, all the people from every quarter; 5and they called to Lot and said to him, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us that we may have relations with them.” 6But Lot went out to them at the doorway, and shut the door behind him, 7and said, “Please, my brothers, do not act wickedly. 8Now behold, I have two daughters who have not had relations with man; please let me bring them out to you, and do to them whatever you like; only do nothing to these men, inasmuch as they have come under the shelter of my roof.” 9But they said, “Stand aside.” Furthermore, they said, “This one came in as an alien, and already he is acting like a judge; now we will treat you worse than them.” So they pressed hard against Lot and came near to break the door. 10But the men reached out their hands and brought Lot into the house with them, and shut the door. 11They struck the men who were at the doorway of the house with blindness, both small and great, so that they wearied themselves trying to find the doorway.
Gen 19:1 “the two angels came to Sodom in the evening” They had left Abraham and YHWH on the mount overlooking the Dead Sea in the evening and arrived some 40 miles distance in just a few minutes-they are angels!!! They are human in form, speech, and dress, as is evident from Gen 18:2; Gen 18:22; Gen 19:10; Gen 19:12; Gen 19:16. They always appear as males except possibly Zec 5:9.
“as Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom” We can see something of the progression of Lot’s wickedness by the fact that
1. in Gen 13:11 he is said to have moved to the plains of Sodom and Gomorrah
2. the nomadic shepherd has moved into the city. He has apparently become one of the elders of the city which is implied in the phrase “in the gate of”
3. in Gen 19:3 he is obviously aware of the homosexual activities of the inhabitants, which he had probably observed several times
4. in Gen 19:7 he goes so far as to call them “brothers”
5. later on he is reluctant to leave the city and his material possessions.
God help us-Lot seems to have tried to change them (Gen 19:9) but, as so often happens, their evil influence affected him, his wife, and his daughters!
As Abraham had done, Lot also arose to greet them and bowed down. Whether these are common cultural gestures (which is probable) or a recognition of their origin is uncertain.
Gen 19:2 “please turn aside into your servant’s house, and spend the night, and wash your feet” Lot seems to be the only one to address these visitors and without realizing they were angels he wanted to protect them from the inhabitants of this city. This can be seen in his strong urging in Gen 19:3. The response of the two angels is a Semitic idiom for a cultural way to say “yes,” but not without some urging.
Three IMPERATIVES (expressing Lot’s desire) describe Lot’s gesture of Oriental hospitality.
1. turn aside – BDB 693, KB 747, Qal IMPERATIVE
2. spend the night (lit. lodge) – BDB 533, KB 529, Qal IMPERATIVE
3. wash – BDB 934, KB 1220, Qal IMPERATIVE
Added to this he prepared a feast for them (cf. Gen 19:3). Obviously these angels and the physical representatives of YHWH (possibly the Angel of the Lord) could and did eat food, as did the resurrected Jesus (cf. John 21).
“we shall spend the night in the square” This must have been the normal procedure for visitors. But Lot knew the consequences. Possibly he had seen it happen before!
Gen 19:3 “he urged them strongly” This VERB (BDB 823, KB 954, Qal IMPERFECT) is used twice in this verse.
1. In Gen 19:9 its literal meaning of push or press is used of the men of Sodom.
2. Here its metaphorical use of “to urge” is used (cf. Jdg 19:7; 2Ki 2:17; 2Ki 5:23). The ADVERB “strongly” (BDB 547) intensifies the request.
“baked unleavened bread” The rabbis say this shows that this was the Passover, therefore, Isaac was born on the Passover (the next year). However, this seems to be reading too much into the phrase, “unleavened bread.” Earlier in the day Abraham had cooked bread that was not unleavened. Apparently Lot’s servants or family prepared the meal quickly (cf. Jdg 6:19).
Gen 19:4 “the men of the city, the men of Sodom, surrounded the house, both young and old, all the people from every quarter” This implies that every single man in the town, both young and old, had become homosexuals, or at least, bisexuals. As God told Abraham to train up his children, Gen 18:19, we see the negative aspect of that as the people of Sodom have trained their children in evil. Here is a good example of the sins of the fathers being passed on to their sons (cf. Deu 5:9-10).
The last phrase translated “from every quarter” (cf. NASB and NKJV) is literally “to the last man” (BDB 892). The term is used for things in between (e.g., Gen 47:21). The evil of Sodom that the angel (i.e., YHWH) had mentioned in Gen 18:20-21 was true. There were not even ten righteous men (cf. Gen 18:32).
SPECIAL TOPIC: HOMOSEXUALITY
Gen 19:5 “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us that we may have relations with them” Their demands are
1. bring them out – BDB 422, KB 425, Hiphil IMPERATIVE
2. have relations with – BDB 393, KB 390, Qal COHORTATIVE
Josephus, in his book Antiquities of the Jews 1:11:3, says that the angels were beautiful creatures and excited the lust of the men of Sodom. The Bible often speaks of the sin of homosexuality, which was apparently common in Canaan (cf. Lev 18:22; Lev 20:13). It was also common in the Roman Empire of Paul’s day (cf. Rom 1:26-27; 1Co 6:9; 1Ti 1:10).
The Hebrew phrase, “have relations with them,” is literally “to know” (BDB 393, KB 390), which speaks of “intimate personal relationship.” This homosexual gang-rape would probably have killed the visitors. It is obvious from Gen 19:9 that this would have also happened to Lot’s daughters and even to Lot himself. Some commentators see Lot offering his daughters to the mob as the experience which caused them to lose respect for their father.
Gen 19:7 “do not act wickedly” This VERB (BDB 949, KB 1269, Hiphil IMPERFECT, here used in a JUSSIVE sense) in this Hiphil stem can mean
1. do not hurt – e.g., Gen 43:6; Exo 5:22-23; Jos 24:20; Isa 11:9
2. do not do evil – e.g., 1Sa 12:25; Jer 4:22; Jer 13:23
It seems Lot is accusing the men of an immoral intent (cf. Gen 19:9). He is acting as an ethical mirror to the intended sexual violence which encompassed two evils.
1. violation of hospitality
2. sexual perversion
Gen 19:8 “Now behold, I have two daughters” Lot expresses himself to the mob with three suggestions.
1. Let me bring them (his two daughters) out to you – BDB 422, KB 425, Hiphil COHORTATIVE
2. Do to them whatever you like – BDB 793, KB 889, Qal IMPERATIVE
3. Do nothing to these men – BDB 793, KB 889, Qal IMPERFECT used in a JUSSIVE sense
These strangers had come under the “shelter of my roof” (literally, “shadow,” BDB 853). This same term is used for “under the shadow of God’s wing,” which is a metaphor for protection and care (cf. Num 14:9; Psa 17:8; Psa 36:7; Psa 57:1; Psa 63:7, see Special Topic: Shadow As a Metaphor for Protection and Care ). Lot was obliged to protect his guests at any cost!
This has been explained in various ways, but it remains an enigma concerning the motives of Lot.
1. it was his ultimate desire to protect his guests (Oriental hospitality)
2. he knew this mob did not desire women
3. he was hoping his potential sons-in-law, who could have been in the crowd, would stop the mob at this point. This account is very similar to Jdg 19:24.
Gen 19:9 “stand back” This VERB (BDB 620, KB 670, Qal IMPERATIVE) is usually translated “come near” (e.g., Lev 21:21; 2Ki 4:27); uniquely here it denotes “get out of our way” as they pushed forward.
“and already he is acting like a judge” This is an emphatic construction (i.e., the IMPERFECT VERB and INFINITIVE ABSOLUTE of the same Hebrew root). The actions of these men deserve judgment (cf. Gen 19:13). This is the information alluded to in Gen 18:20-24. This may be the source of 2Pe 2:7-8, which calls Lot righteous.
“now we will treat you worse than them” They proposed to molest (this is the same VERB as Gen 19:7) Lot and his family as well as the strangers.
Gen 19:11 “They struck the men who were at the doorway of the house with blindness” This Hebrew term (BDB 645, KB 697, Hiphil PERFECT) means more than just simple, temporary blindness (the VERB occurs only twice in the OT, cf. 2Ki 6:18). Iben Ezra says that it means “blindness of eye and mind,” which seems to fit the latter part of this verse, which says they continued to grope around looking for the doorway as if confused (e.g., Exo 3:20). The blindness here (BDB 703) is different from Lev 22:22; Deu 28:28 (BDB 734). This one denotes “blinded by a bright light.”
two. Hebrew the two. With article, viz. two of the three, Gen 18:16.
Sodom = flaming, burning.
even. Note emph. on notes of time in the Structure.
gate. The seat of judgment, showing that Lot was a real citizen, Gen 19:9; Gen 23:10, Gen 23:18; Gen 34:20, Gen 34:24. Rth 4:1.
Chapter nineteen of the book of Genesis deals with the destruction of the city of Sodom. The Lord came to Abraham and informed him of the fact that because of the wickedness of Sodom, it was necessary for the judgment of God to come. Abraham pleaded with the Lord for Sodom, interceded actually saying, “But what if there are fifty righteous; would You destroy the righteous with the wicked?” And the basis of Abraham’s intercession was the Lord of the earth should be fair, or be just. Even in judgment, God must be fair or just. God cannot be injust in any action at any time ever.
Now this is an area that Satan is constantly seeking to make a case against God. How can a God of love–or would a God of love condemn a man to eternal hell who has never heard of Jesus Christ? What about that person who lives over in Africa, who lived and died never knowing of Jesus Christ? Is he going to have to suffer forever in hell because he lives in Africa, and never had a chance to hear? It is interesting the Bible doesn’t give us the answer directly, but the Bible does give us an indirect answer and that is that God is totally fair.
When God judges, it will be absolutely just. And Abraham’s argument with God was, “Shall not the Lord of the earth be fair, or be just?” When God spoke of the judgment that was going to come, now Abraham saw an inequity if God would judge the righteous with the wicked. That wouldn’t be fair. That’s the premise and the basis of Abraham’s argument with the Lord, that it wouldn’t be fair to judge the righteous with the wicked.
Now Jesus said to His disciples, “In this world you’re going to have tribulation: but [He said] be of good cheer; I’ve overcome the world” ( Joh 16:33 ). The church has had tribulation. The church today is under great persecution. In Romania, they’re tightening again their Communistic hold and they are again beginning to really persecute the church in Romania. Many of the pastors have been imprisoned in the past few weeks.
Christians have been persecuted in China, in Russia, and in those Communist dominated countries, as well as the Moslem dominated countries. Communism is not the only foe of Christianity; Moslem Islamism is perhaps the greatest foe of Christianity. In the Islam countries, it is a capital crime to seek to convert an Islamic person to Christianity. You’d be put to death for that, causing him to change his religious beliefs. And so the church has always experienced persecution from the world.
The Bible says don’t count it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing has happened unto you. In fact, if the world loves you then you better examine your position. “But if the world hates you,” don’t be alarmed, “Jesus said, It hated me. The servant is not greater than his lord” ( Joh 15:18 , Joh 15:20 ). So the persecution that the church experiences though has as its source or origin the world and the worldly system.
The Great Tribulation that is coming or the judgment of God, whenever that comes, then the church is not a victim because God will be fair in His judgment. “And if there be fifty righteous”, the Lord said, “Sure I’ll spare it for fifty righteous”. Abraham finally talked Him down to ten. And God said He would spare it for ten righteous.
And the angels of the Lord came unto the city of Sodom. We’ll get into that as we get into the nineteenth chapter. But they could not find even ten righteous. Lot, that righteous man, the only truly righteous person they could find in the city was Lot himself and not even his family was thoroughly righteous. But being merciful, God let his family out with him.
Now twice in the New Testament, once by Jesus and once by Peter, is this used as an example of the last days. Jesus said, “As it was in the days of Lot, so shall it be at the coming of the Son of man” ( Luk 17:28 , Luk 17:30 ), and how that the judgment did not come until the day that Lot was taken out of the city and then God rained upon the city fire and brimstone. Jesus uses that but points out the fact that Lot was delivered before the judgment came.
And Peter also points out to the deliverance of Lot showing how that “God knows how to deliver the righteous, but to reserve the ungodly for the Day of Judgment” ( 2Pe 2:9 ). Delivering that righteous man Lot who was vexed by the manner of life of those around him. So taking the same argument of Abraham, “Shall not the Lord of the earth be just?” Would it be just that God would bring His great wrath and judgment upon the church, along with the unbelieving world? No.
And even as God delivered Lot, God shall deliver His church before the great period of judgment and the wrath of God comes upon the earth. It’s just a matter of God’s principle in judgment.
So in the nineteenth chapter,
And there came two angels to Sodom at even; and Lot sat in the gate of Sodom: and Lot was bidding them to come into his home; as he bowed himself in the oriental custom towards the ground ( Gen 19:1 );
Now hospitality was something that was extremely important in that eastern culture. And here Lot sitting in the gate of the city, it is interesting that in that culture also the women did most of the work. The women would go out and plow the fields. The women would go out and plant the fields. The women would go out and harvest the fields while the men attended to the more important things of sitting in the gate of the city and talking about the weather, whether or not it’s going to rain tomorrow, you know.
Also, sitting in the gate of the city was a place of prominence. All of the judgments were done in the gates of the city. If there were conflicts between people, problems, they would come to the elders, the elder men, who would sit in the gate of the city and the elder men would give judgments concerning the conflicts that had arisen. And thus, it was a place of honor and distinction to sit in the gate of the city. And so Lot sitting in the gate of the city saw these two men as they were coming at evening. Bowing down to them in the oriental custom.
He invited them to turn into the servant’s house, and tarry all night, to wash your feet, rise up early, and you can go on your way. And they said, No, we will abide in the street tonight ( Gen 19:2 ).
But Lot knowing the conditions of the city and knowing that danger of such a thing,
Pressed upon them [or constrained them] greatly; and so 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 were able to lie down, the men of the city, even the men of Sodom, surrounded the house, both old and young, and all of the people from every quarter: And they called unto Lot, and they said unto him, Where are the men which came in to thee tonight? bring them out to us, that we may know them ( Gen 19:3-5 ).
And this is to know them in an intimate sexual way.
And Lot went out at the door unto them, and shut the door after him, And he said, I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly. Behold now, I have two daughters which 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; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof ( Gen 19:6-8 ).
Now this, of course, first of all shows what low esteem the woman was held in, in that particular culture. Lot was willing to sacrifice his own two daughters unto this mob, their virginity and all. He was willing to turn his own two daughters over to the mob that they might do what they would to his two daughters, and yet seeking to protect the two men who are strangers to him. But yet if you would take a visitor in your home, then you took the responsibility for them to really take care of them completely. But women were held in extremely low esteem in that day, in that culture and in many of the primitive cultures.
Women, be thankful for Jesus Christ and for Christianity because Jesus is the One who brought really the elevation of womanhood and the honor to the women. And that equalizing of the honor and blessing and all, and it’s really through Christianity that women have been able to rise and to take their proper place, not as a subservient or not any way subservient to men but on an equal basis with men. But you won’t find that in any culture outside of where the Christian gospel has gone. And where the Christian culture has gone, there always has the state of the woman been elevated. Where there is not a strong Christian gospel, the state of the woman is always that of a subservient state. And if you study your history, you’ll find that this is so.
In Greece, in the Greek culture, which was supposed to be such a cultured nation, the women had a very low place, especially the wife. She was considered just one step above the slave. So it is the gospel of Jesus Christ, which has declared there is no difference, male nor female, bond or free, but has given us all an equal status in Christ. “For Christ is all, and in all” ( Col 3:11 ), and in and through Him the equal status has been established.
But here Lot, and again I believe that secondly, it shows that even Lot himself in his own morals, in his own values, had been corrupted by his living in Sodom. I do not see how you can live in the midst of such corruption and it not have some influence upon you.
Living as we do in this day and age in which we live, we are under constant bombardment and constant pressure to accept evil, to tolerate evil, and to accept perversion as natural. And if you dare say something against the homosexuals, you have a parade going on out in front. They’ll file suits and everything else. And it’s got to the place where people become sort of cowered into a position of just not stating your beliefs.
If you would dare say in a university class what Jesus is the only way to salvation, they make fun of you. They put you down. They call you narrow, bigoted and everything else. If you make any affirmation of faith and a belief in living a moral, pure, righteous life, then you’re accused of being, you know, a Victorian and living in the past, and all of this, because of the tremendous pressures. And so it’s hard to live in the midst of a society that is so corrupt without it rubbing off a little on us. At least we don’t speak out on the issues in which we should be speaking out because we feel sort of threatened.
Now Lot’s own morals had been corrupted to the extent that he was willing to give his daughters over to be abused by these men. The gesture was not a fine gesture of Lot. It was a gesture that showed his own moral depravity as the result of living in Sodom. Lot made the choice of moving into the plains. He pitched his tent toward Sodom. That was the beginning of it. But now he has his house in Sodom.
There is a danger in pitching your tent towards the world. It is interesting, “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful” ( Psa 1:1 ). There’s a progression there. First of all, you’re listening to the counsel of the ungodly. Next of all, you’re standing around with them and the next thing you find yourself sitting in their company. Lot moved toward Sodom. Next he was living in Sodom. But it had its effect upon his own life and upon his own moral values, the offering of his daughters to this crowd of men.
But they weren’t interested in his daughters. They were desiring these men that had come to Lot. And so Lot said, “Don’t do this wickedness, to these men. They came unto the shadow of my roof. They’re under my protection”.
And they said, Stand back. And then they began to say, This fellow came in to live with us as a stranger, and now he’s going to try to judge over us: they said we’ll deal worse with you, than with them. And they pressed sore upon Lot, and they came near to break the door. But the men [that is, the angels] put forth their hand, and pulled Lot into the house, and they shut the door. And they smote the men that were outside the door with blindness, all of them: so that they wearied themselves to find the door. And the men said unto Lot [that is, the angels], Have you have any here besides? Do you have sons, or daughters, whatsoever you have in the city, bring them out of this place: For we will destroy this place, because the cry of them is waxed great before the face of the LORD; and the LORD hath sent us to destroy it. And Lot went out, and spake unto his sons in law, which had married his daughters, and said, Up, get out of this place; for the LORD will destroy this city. But he seemed as one that mocked unto his sons in law ( Gen 19:9-14 ).
Now though Lot did not escape the pollutions of Sodom entirely, and the Bible gives testimony of him in Peter, “that righteous man” referring to Lot, and it speaks about how he was vexed by the way people were living around him, though he was strong enough because of his early background and experiences with his uncle Abraham to survive in this corrupt society, yet his living in the midst of the corrupt society cost him his family and the morals of his children.
Now there are some times I hear people say, “Well, I have my own philosophy that I live by. I don’t need Christianity; it’s just a crutch”. I remember sitting one night with a man who was a plumber and he was just one of these hard, hard guys and “I don’t need any crutches”, you know, and Many times a man will say, “But I am able to do it. I’m able to stand. I’m strong” and all this. But really, unless you set a strong example, a spiritual example in your home, your children cannot withstand the pressures of the society in the day and the age in which we live, and you’re really sacrificing your children to this corrupt world. You may have a philosophy. You may have that by which you can stand. But your children are facing ungodly pressures and they need more than just a philosophy. They need the power of the Holy Spirit within their lives. And thus, you, for their sakes need to get right with God and set a strong spiritual example because they’ll never survive.
Lot was able to, but his children weren’t. And so as he went to his daughters and said, “Get out of here. This place is going to get destroyed. God’s going to destroy this city”, they just mocked him, and he was as one who mocked them. And thus, he lost his family to the corrupted morals of Sodom.
And when the morning arose, the angels hastened Lot, saying, Arise, take your wife, and your two daughters, which are here; lest you be consumed in the iniquity of the city ( Gen 19:15 ).
And so they were hurrying them. Said, “Get out of here now”.
And while he lingered ( Gen 19:16 ),
There was a reluctance to leave the place. Even with Lot, he was reluctant to leave. Just sort of lingering around.
the angels took hold of their hands, and upon the hand of his wife, and the two daughters; and the LORD being merciful unto him: they brought him forth, and set him outside the city. And it came to pass, when they have brought them forth, that he said, Escape for your life; don’t look behind you, neither stay at all in the plain; escape to the mountains, lest you be consumed ( Gen 19:16-17 ).
The word “don’t look behind” can be translated “don’t lag behind” or “do not turn back,” “don’t stay in the plain.”
And Lot said unto them, Oh, not so, my Lord ( Gen 19:18 ):
Perfect example of those who pray, “Not Thy will, mine be done”. How inconsistent we are even in our language. “Not so, my Lord”. Wait a minute. Lord is a title. And even he says thy servant. He calls himself a servant, Lord. And now he’s arguing with the Master. You don’t argue with your master. If He’s your Lord, you do what He says. If you’re doing what he said, He is your Lord. If you’re not doing what He said, He’s not your Lord. And I don’t care how much you say, “O Lordy, Lordy” or “my Lord” or whatever. If you’re not doing what He said to do, He’s not really your Lord. Jesus said, “Why do you call me, Lord, Lord, and yet you don’t do the things I command you” ( Luk 6:46 )?
And so here is Lot in this perfect inconsistency. As they say “flee to the mountains, don’t stay in the plains”. He says, “Oh, not so, my Lord”.
Behold now, thy servant hath found grace in thy sight, and thou hast magnified thy mercy, which thou hast shewed unto me saving my life; and I cannot escape to the mountain, lest some evil take me, and I die ( Gen 19:19 ):
Now he realized the Lord had delivered him out of the city before it’s to be destroyed, but he can’t trust the Lord to preserve him there in the mountains, and so
Let me go to this little city over Zoar ( Gen 19:20 ).
It’s the smallest of the five cities there in the plain; it’s just a little city. In fact, the word “Zoar” means little. “Let me go and stay in Zoar”. And so the angels granted his request that he might flee to the little city that was nearby, the city of Zoar.
And the angel said, I have accepted you concerning this thing, I will not overthrow this city, of which you have spoken. So hurry, escape there; for I cannot do any thing till you have come within that city ( Gen 19:21-22 ).
There was the impending judgment but yet it was to be withheld until Lot was safely out of danger. Even as there is an impending judgment of God hanging over the earth today, but it cannot come until the church has been safely placed out of danger. Hurry.
And therefore the name of the place was called Zoar ( Gen 19:22 ).
Which means small.
And the sun was risen upon the earth when Lot entered into Zoar. And then the LORD rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD 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 ( Gen 19:23-25 ).
Now this destruction could have been by volcanic action. Very possible because there is evidence of volcanic eruptions in that area, a lot of evidence of that. There, of course, are tremendous salt deposits in that area. I mentioned this morning there is a-on the southern end of the west of the Dead Sea there on the western side, there is a mountain of salt that is five hundred feet; no, beg your pardon, it’s seven hundred feet high and five miles long. A mountain of salt; it isn’t sodium chloride, your table salt. It’s more of the potassium nitrate, sodium nitrate, vast deposits of salt. Mountains of salt in that area that cannot be explained by slow sedimentation. But have to be explained by deposits through eruptions of some kind; a great overthrowing.
Now potassium nitrate is a particular salt if mixed with potassium permanganate. All you need is just a little glycerin poured upon it and you’ve got fire and brimstone. You got a Fourth of July display. You’ve got fire shooting and spouting and all it needs is just a little glycerin upon it to really set the whole thing off. The heavy water will respond upon the potassium permanganate and the potassium nitrates will keep the thing really going and sputtering and sparking. And it’s like a flare, it sputters and all. But all of the potassium nitrate in the area, potassium permanganate in the area, and of course, the area did have great asphalt deposits.
Josephus calls the area rather than the Dead Sea, he called it the Asphalt Sea because of the tremendous asphalt deposits. So all it needed was just a spark from heaven to set things off. And so the whole valley turned into a furnace, a cauldron, and the judgment of God came upon these cities and they were destroyed.
But his wife looked back from behind him ( Gen 19:26 ),
Now notice, she was behind him. She was still lagging back. The word “look back” can be translated “lag back” or “turn back.” And the “turn back” is the preferable translation. Lot’s wife actually began to turn back towards Sodom and in turning back, she was caught in this great conflagration and the bubbling, boiling spewing salts covered her.
and she became a pillar of salt ( Gen 19:26 ).
Now there are many pillars of salt in that particular area that in different times have received the name Lot’s wife. And there are some even today that the guide will point out as Lot’s wife. Pillars of salt there in the southern end of the Dead Sea region.
Now the southernmost part of the Dead Sea, the southern ten miles is only about ten to twenty feet deep. In fact, it’s less than that. Now it’s extremely shallow, and many Bible scholars believe that the city of Sodom actually lies under the southern end of the Dead Sea. The northern end of the Dead Sea is thirty miles long and ten miles wide and has a depth of up to fourteen hundred feet.
But as the result of the silt that has settled through the Jordan entering into the Dead Sea for so many years, the silt has filled up the bottom and has thus raised the level of the sea until the sea extended southward over this plain area of ten miles square covering it. And that is more recent in time. So that they believe that the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah probably lie under the southern end of the Dead Sea.
We know of the silting process that is taking place where the Colorado enters into the area of Lake Mead. In fact, we are now quite concerned about this silting up of Lake Mead, how that the volume of water that it contains is less because of all of the silt that is building up, and the silt is actually forming a dam of its own in the upper end of Lake Mead. Already it is creating quite a problem in the Aswan Dam which, is a relatively new dam, and thus, the silting process. Of course the Jordan is a very muddy river and the silting process of the Jordan, filling up the Dead Sea and causing it to overflow in the southern end covering the plains and thus covering perhaps the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.
However, in the last ten years they have discovered five cities on the eastern bank of the Dead Sea in the southern end. And they now believe that maybe these were the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and Zoar there on the eastern side. But we, of course, are not certain on that. It doesn’t really make that much difference to the scriptural record, except that there is evidence of volcanic action. There is evidence of this great destruction of God as He rained fire and brimstone and salt upon this area.
And Abraham gat up early in the morning from the place where he stood before the LORD in his intercession: he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and he beheld, and, lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace ( Gen 19:27-28 ).
Now Abraham was living in Hebron, which is just about due west from the Dead Sea. And so in looking down it isn’t that many miles, maybe ten, fifteen miles from Hebron. As the crow flies to the Dead Sea, he saw the smoke coming up from the area of the plain like a great furnace.
And it came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham by sending Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in which Lot dwelt ( Gen 19:29 ).
So the indication here is that it was because of Abraham that God spared Lot more than for Lot’s sake himself.
Now again, turning to the New Testament Jesus takes this incident and declares of His second coming, “As it was in the days of Lot, so shall it be at the coming of the Son of man” ( Luk 17:28 , Luk 17:30 ), when God overthrew the cities of the plain. And then Jesus said “Remember Lot’s wife. For he who will seek to save his life shall lose it” ( Luk 17:32 , Luk 17:33 ). Now she was seeking to hold on to the old life of the world. She was turning back to the old life of the world, seeking to save it she lost her life.
And so the warning of Jesus, “Remember Lot’s wife.” turning back to the world, seeking to save the old life of the world will only destroy you. “But he who will lose his life”, Jesus said, “the same will save it. Lose his life for my sake”. And so the reference of Jesus. Peter again refers to this and it is also referred to in the book of Jude, how that God destroyed the city of Sodom and Gomorrah, them suffering the vengeance of everlasting fire.
So Lot went up out of Zoar ( Gen 19:30 ),
He asked permission to stay in Zoar but when he saw this judgment of God destroying the other cities, he became frightened and he left Zoar.
and he went ( Gen 19:30 )
Where the Lord told him to go in the first place.
up into the mountains ( Gen 19:30 ).
He fled on up then into the mountains.
and his two daughters with him; for he feared to dwell in Zoar: and he dwelt in a cave, with his two daughters ( Gen 19:30 ).
Now we see the moral corruption of the two daughters that were saved.
The firstborn said to the younger, Our father is old, and there is no more men left upon the eaRuth ( Gen 19:31 )
They thought that the whole earth was destroyed and thus man is going to be civilization, man is going to be wiped out. So,
Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve the seed of our father. And so they made their father drunk that night: and the firstborn went in, and lay with her father; he did not know when she lay down, nor when she arose. And it came to pass on the next day, that the firstborn said to the younger, I was with my father last night: let’s make him drink wine again tonight; that you might lie with him, that we may preserve life, the life of our father, the seed of our father. And so they made their father drink wine that night also: and the younger arose, and lay with him; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose. And thus were both of the daughters pregnant from their father Lot. The firstborn bare a son, and called his name Moab: and he became the head of the nation of Moab or of the people known as the Moabites. And the other daughter bare a son, and called him Benammi: and the same is the father of the children of Ammon ( Gen 19:32-38 ).
And so two nations, the Ammonites and the Moabites came from Lot and this relationship with his two daughters, of which he was unaware. But again, it shows the moral corruption had its effect upon Lot’s family and we see its effects all the way through, the effect of a polluted society. It’s awfully hard to live in it and not be touched somewhere or another.
Now we leave Lot, that’s the end of him. We see that he has-he does father a couple of nations, Moab and Ammon. It is interesting that Moab inhabited this same area, the high country that he has east of the Dead Sea that was the area of the Moabites. The Ammonites moved northward and were in the same range of mountains, only north of the Moabites. They became important nations and Ruth was a Moabite who-or she was a girl from Moab who came into the lineage of Jesus Christ later on. So they are the descendants of Lot through his two daughters.
“
Here the story of the visit of Jehovah and the angels is continued. Here we see the two angels coming to Lot. By this time Lot had attained to a position of eminence in Sodom. The phrase, “sitting in the gate,” indicates that. The three Visitors sat and ate with Abraham. The two would hardly enter the dwelling of Lot. Whereas he was anxious to deliver them from the known wickedness of the citizens, it is evident how he had failed in the life of faith. The man who had attempted to compromise with principle is here seen hated of the world, having lost his personal peace, his testimony paralyzed, and utterly unable to influence his city toward righteousness.
The revelation of his failure is most clearly seen in his inability to influence his own family. Moreover, the deterioration of his own character is vividly portrayed. Here, in sight of judgment, he lingered and was saved only as angel hands laid hold on him and practically forced him forth.
The destruction of the cities of the Plain was due to corruption, following godless prosperity. Their cup of iniquity was full. Their unutterable pollution flamed forth in their attitude toward the supernatural Visitors. Over against this terrible failure of Lot, Abraham is seen as the man of faith. He had interceded for Sodom and now stood at the place where he met Jehovah, looking toward the cities of the Plain. Were his prayers unanswered? Nay, verily, for “God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow.”
Angels with Lot in Sodom
Gen 19:1-11
This chapter withdraws the veil from the ministry of angels. The Lord of Angels stayed with Abraham on the heights. He also, in future ages, was to descend into human Sodoms to seek and save the lost, but at present He delegated this work to angels until the fullness of the time was come. The visit of the angels was due to Abrahams prayer. How often do angels speed to our dear ones for whom we have prayed! To that ship laboring in the storm, to that deep, dark forest, to that new settlement, into the slums of that wicked city! Two references in the Gospels to this scene show how carefully it was being watched by the pure and holy eyes of the Son of man. In Mat 11:23-24, it seems as though He knew well those streets, and would gladly have passed through them, healing and saving. In Luk 17:28 He adds some further particulars of the careless unconcern of those who would not heed the warnings implied in the story of Gen 14:1-24.
Gen 19:26
This is the whole of the record. The offence consisted only in a look; and that a look directed towards a city which may have been her birthplace, and which contained many that were dear to her by relationship and by friendship. The vengeance taken was most signal and appalling. Here is a case in which there seems a want of proportion between the sin and its recompense. But the fact that our Lord uses the admonition “Remember Lot’s wife” shows that a moral end was to be subserved by the Divine interference. Lot’s wife was meant to be an example to the men of every generation.
I. God’s moral government required the interference. The punishment took its measure, not so much from the greatness of the sin, as from the nature of the lessons to be given.
II. Consider the sin committed by Lot’s wife. She looked back; it may be she attempted to turn back. She, a rescued one, had no right to pause and grieve for such sinners as were left behind in Sodom. She was guilty of a positive act of disobedience, for the parting injunction of the angel had been “Look not behind thee.”
III. Her fate teaches a great lesson as to the duty of decision in religion. Deliverance is conditional. If we flee as those who hear behind them the tramp of the destroyer, if we rush as those who see the daylight hastening away, we shall be saved; but if our heart is with the stuff, or the friends that remain behind in Sodom, then “Remember Lot’s wife.” “No man having put his hand to the plough and looking back is fit for the kingdom of heaven.”
H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No. 2445.
References: Gen 19:26.-R. M. McCheyne, Additional Remains, p. 249; R. W. Evans, Parochial Sermons, p. 30; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. v., p. 99.
Gen. 19
Notice:-
I. Sodom’s sinfulness. Her sins were committed amidst an unbounded flush of prosperity; they were committed amidst scenes of much natural loveliness, Nature being outraged before the eye of her most beautiful forms; and they were committed not only in opposition to Nature’s silent, but to God’s spoken, warnings.
II. Notice Sodom’s warnings. One was given by the entrance of Lot within its gates; another was given by the advent of Chedorlaomer and the invaders from the east. Abraham and Melchizedek cast their sublime and awful shadows from the King’s Dale southward upon Gomorrah’s walls; but the sinners within felt not the hallowing sense of their presence, trembled not at the steps of their majesty.
III. Notice Sodom’s intercessor. Abraham’s prayer shows: (1) the confidence that existed between himself and God; (2) it shows God’s personal knowledge of evil; (3) it shows God’s great reluctance to punish; (4) it gives proof of the tremendous guilt of Sodom.
IV. This terrible catastrophe lies in a bye-path of the Divine procedure; it did not relate immediately to the general course of the patriarchal dispensation, and yet what an awful “aside” did the fall of these cities utter! It must have struck Abraham with a new sense of the evil of sin and of the holiness and justice of God. In the Dead Sea, Israel felt, and we should feel too, that God’s anger was, so to speak, sunk and slumbering on the outskirts of the land, and might at any moment awake and march out in all its fury on the impenitent.
G. Gilfillan, Alpha and Omega, vol. ii., p. 1.
References: Gen 19-F. W. Robertson, Notes on Genesis, p. 43p; R. S. Candlish, Book of Genesis, vol. i., p. 313; Expositor, 2nd series, vol. i., p. 443; Expositor, 3rd series, vol. ii., p. 203, vol. iii., p. 69; J. Foster, Lectures, vol. i., p. 103. Gen 19:12.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. x., No. 601. Gen 19:12, Gen 19:13.-W. Harris, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiv., p. 399. Gen 19:12, Gen 19:26.-Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iii., p. 107. Gen 19:12-30.-Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. iv., p. 91, and vol. xxii., p. 156. Gen 19:14.-Weekly Pulpit, vol. i. (1877), p. 264; G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 120. Gen 19:15.-Spurgeon, My Sermon Notes (1884), p. 9. Gen 19:16.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xiv., No. 789; Bishop Ryle, Holiness, its Nature, etc., p. 212. Gen 19:16, Gen 19:17.-S. Leathes, Truth and Life, p. 40. Gen 19:17.-A. W. Hare, Sermons to a Country Congregation, vol. i., p. 201; S. A. Brooke, The Unity of God and Man, p. 143; F. O. Morris, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xvii., p. 251; G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 119. Gen 19:17-19.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. x., No. 550. Gen 19:20.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. v., No. 248; Homiletic Magazine, vol. xii., p. 81. Gen 19:24, Gen 19:25.-Parker, vol. i., p. 222. Gen 19:26.-Homiletic Magazine, vol. xiv., p. 171. Gen 19:27, Gen 19:28.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. x., No. 602. Gen 19:27-29.-R. S. Candlish, Book of Genesis, vol. i., p. 330. Gen 19:29.-E. Cooper, Fifty-two Sermons, p. 93.
CHAPTER 19 The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah
1. The angels visit (Gen 19:1-5)
2. Lot and the Sodomites (Gen 19:6-11)
3. The destruction of Sodom announced (Gen 19:12-13)
4. Lot and his sons-in-law (Gen 19:14)
5. Lot brought forth (Gen 19:15-17)
6. Lots request (Gen 19:18-20)
7. The escape (Gen 19:21-25)
8. Lots wife (Gen 19:26)
9. Abraham looks on (Gen 19:27-29)
10. Lots shame (Gen 19:30-38)
This is a chapter of judgment. How great the contrast with the preceding one! There Abraham sat under the tent door and the Lord appeared unto him; here two angels come to Sodom at even and Lot sits in the gate of Sodom. Joyfully Abraham had run to meet the heavenly visitors and willingly the Lord and His companions had entered in to be comforted by Abraham. Lot invites the angels likewise but they say Nay; but we will abide in the street all night. Only after Lot pressed upon them greatly did they enter his house. The feast was not like Abrahams feast of fine meal and a calf, but only unleavened bread. Poor, selfish Lot! He had gone down to Sodom; from the tent pitched toward Sodom he had landed in Sodom and there he had no longer a tent, but he had a house. He had settled down and given up his character as pilgrim. His daughters had become perfectly at home in Sodom and married unbelieving Sodomites. More than that Lot had taken a position in Sodom. He sat in the gate of Sodom and the mob said This fellow came in to sojourn and he will be judge (Gen 19:9). He held an influential position there and most likely attempted the reformation of Sodom. That he was greatly troubled is learned from the New Testament. he was vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked (2Pe 2:7). Lot is the picture of thousands of Christian believers, who are carnally minded and worldly. There are many who have settled down in the world, from which they have been separated and delivered by the death of Christ and like Lot they will be saved so as by fire.
From the fourth verse to the eleventh in this chapter (Gen 19:4-11) we find a short description of the awful wickedness of Sodom. Its gross immoralities, the fearful fruits of the lust of the flesh have since then become proverbial. In this connection we may well remember the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot … even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of Man cometh (Luk 17:28-30). This Christian age will not end in universal righteousness; it will end in apostasy from God and His Word, in iniquity and lawlessness, and these will be followed by a fiery judgment. Indications of such an ending of this age of boasted progress are numerous and becoming more pronounced. Among these immoralities, the looseness of the marriage ties, and adulteries are prominently in the lead. The great cities of Christendom are modern Sodoms and the immorality in them is perhaps worse than in the ancient, lewd cities of the valley of Jordan. This will be getting worse and worse and the end will be judgment. And now the angels give the message of the impending judgment. Sodom was to be destroyed by fire. Lot believed the message, but when he had spoken the word to his two sons-in-law, Up get you out of this place; for the Lord will destroy this city, they took it as a joke and believed not. They might have been saved if they had believed. They perished in Sodom. Even so it is now at the end of this age. Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of His coming? (2Pe 3:3-4). If one preaches and teaches the soon coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, to be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord (2Th 1:7-8), he is laughed at and scorned, called a pessimist. Perhaps the two sons-in-law called Lot a pessimist.
Notice Gen 19:24. Then Jehovah rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from Jehovah out of heaven. Here was a Jehovah on earth and He called to Jehovah in heaven.
Lots history ends in shame. Moab and Ammon begotten in wickedness have a history of shame. No record is given of the death of Lot.
angel (See Scofield “Heb 1:4”)
Lot sat Cf. Dan 2:49.
Lot the compromiser with Daniel the inflexible. Lot was a great man Deu 21:19; Deu 21:20 in a place devoted to judgment. Cf. Act 17:31.
And there came two angels. Or, rather, “the two angels came,” referring to those mentioned in the preceding chapter, and there called “men.” It seems – from Gen 18:22, that these two angels were sent to Sodom, while the third, who was the Lord or Jehovah, remained with Abraham. Gen 18:1-3, Gen 18:22
rose: Gen 18:1-5, Job 31:32, Heb 13:2
bowed: Gen 18:2
Reciprocal: Gen 11:27 – Lot Gen 13:12 – pitched Gen 23:7 – General Gen 23:12 – General Gen 42:6 – bowed Gen 48:12 – he bowed himself Exo 18:7 – did obeisance Pro 24:1 – neither Mat 10:11 – inquire Mat 25:35 – I was a Luk 19:5 – for Rom 12:13 – given
Abraham and Lot Contrasted
Gen 19:1-25
INTRODUCTORY WORDS
As we enter into Genesis nineteen we are struck with many contrasts between it and Genesis eighteen. The eighteenth speaks of Abraham and the nineteenth speaks of Lot. Abraham represents the spiritual Christian, and Lot the carnal Christian. There is a difference as vast as noonday and eventide between these two characters. Both were worshipers of Jehovah, but the one was living in the light of Jehovah’s smiles and favor and the other was courting the favor of men and of Sodom.
1. The spiritual builds with gold, silver, and precious stones; the carnal builds with wood, hay, and stubble. The Spirit tells us not alone of two foundations, the rock and the sand, but He also tells us of two ways of building on the Rock, Christ Jesus. The unbeliever builds upon the sand. The believer builds upon the Rock, Christ Jesus, and yet he may build that which will no more than afford a big bonfire in the day when his works are to be tried.
2. The spiritual lives for the things not seen; the carnal lives for the things which are seen. Here is a vast distinction in motives and ideals. One centers in this world which passes away, the other centers in the city which is Heavenly and which shall never pass. The one loves the things which are seen, the temporal things of time; the other loves the things which are not seen, the things of eternity. The one lays up treasures upon earth, the other lays up treasures in Heaven.
Abraham and Lot certainly expressed this contrast. Abraham lived as a tent dweller, looking for a City whose Builder and Maker is God; Lot lived as a city dweller, devoting his time and energy to carnal activities and centering his hopes on earthly things.
3. The spiritual lives as a developed man, full grown in grace; the carnal as a babe, desiring milk and not meat. The distinction in this picture of the carnal and the spiritual is set forth in the Book of Corinthians in strong terms.
Here it is: “I * * could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk * *. Ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?”
Beloved, as we study Abraham and Lot in contrast, let us seek in all sincerity to discover whether we are the one or the other, and let us definitely determine to follow that which is spiritual from this very hour.
I. A CONTRAST IN THE TIME OF DAY (Gen 18:1 with 19:1)
1. The Lord appeared unto Abraham in the heat of the day. Reading this casually, there may come no discernment of the significance of the time of the day when the Lord came to Abraham. However, as we ponder the words, “Heat of the day” many visions of truth come to our minds.
(1) The heat of the day is the time of light. We know that we are children of the day, and children of the light. We are not of the night nor of the darkness. God hath called us out of darkness into His glorious light. We are taught to walk as children of the light.
(2) The heat of the day is significant of warmth. The believer should always walk with a heart warm with love. Warmth speaks of affection and of comradeship. It suggests that there is nothing between. Cold speaks of the lack of love and throbbing life. Cold is chill, informal, lifeless Christianity. The blood is warm-we speak of blood heat. This means life vitalized, effectual, and full of strength.
2. The Lord appeared unto Lot at even. What do these words suggest to us?
(1) There is a lack of vision as the shades of eventide come on. We cannot see clearly. Spiritual vision is growing dim. The mind is darkened so that we cannot grasp the things of God. We cannot see afar off. We are looking at the things which lie in our immediate pathway.
(2) The sun is sinking at even. Hope seems to be taking wing. Darkness is approaching apace. Night shades are about to enclose us. So the carnal Christian passes into a cloud. He can see nothing with clear spiritual insight. He is beclouded in his spiritual vision. Sometimes he even doubts that he is saved. He has no clear conception of truth. He looks as through a glass dimly. He knows nothing of assurance and perfect peace.
Poor Lot-it was certainly even time with him. Lot was about to pass out of Sodom shorn of all worldly possessions and bereft of all his hopes. He was about to see part of his family consumed in the flames of Sodom and his wife turned into a pillar of salt. God save us from such an eventide.
II. A CONTRAST IN LOCATION (Gen 18:1 with Gen 19:1)
1. Abraham sat in his tent door. Once again we pause, wondering if the fact that Abraham sat in a tent has a message for our heart? It has. The tent suggests that the believer is a transient and not a resident in these mundane scenes. Tent dwelling is the lot of every true believer. Spiritual Christians reckon themselves to be no more than strangers and pilgrims journeying through a desert land.
So far as Abraham was concerned, he was a tent dweller by choice. He lived looking for a City whose Builder and Maker is God. He actually accounted himself a stranger. Should we do less? Is not our citizenship in Heaven?
2. Lot sat in the gate of Sodom: Is this not a striking contrast? Abraham in the tent door, Lot in the gate of Sodom. Abraham a sojourner, Lot a resident. Abraham unentangled with the affairs of Satan’s dominion, Lot engulfed in headship where Satan reigned.
We know that Lot seated in the gate of Sodom expressed the real inner conceptions of Lot’s life ideals. He had looked toward Sodom in the months past; he had looked with a longing of which his seat in Sodom was his expectant realization.
III. A CONTRAST IN PERSONALITIES (Gen 18:2 with Gen 19:1)
1. There were three Men who came unto Abraham. The Three were composed of the Lord, and two Angels. Abraham had ever been the friend of God. He had often talked with the Lord, and the Lord had often talked with him. There was a hallowed and sacred comradeship existing between Abraham and the Lord. Thus, when the Three appeared, Abraham ran forth to meet Them. He said unto Them, as he bowed himself to the ground, “Wash your feet, * * rest, * * comfort ye your hearts.” They said, “So do.”
2. There were two men who came to Lot. The One who tarried behind was none other than the Lord. When the two men arrived Lot rose up to meet them; Abraham had run to meet them. Lot said: “Turn in, * * wash your feet, * * rise up early,” etc. The two angels said, “Nay; but we will abide in the street all night.”
Say what you will but there is a marked contrast all the way along. Lot did show good manners and courtesy, but he lacked Abraham’s enthusiasm. The Heavenly Visitors at once accepted Abraham’s invitation; but they refused Lot’s.
(1) The Lord did not go to Lot-He only sent an ambassage. Is it not always true? Carnality may not break sonship, it does break fellowship. People who live in the meshes of Sodom never have communion with the Lord.
There was an utter lack of spiritual contact between Lot and his Lord, Lot vexed his righteous soul with the filthy conversation of the wicked, yet he did not saturate his righteous soul with the presence of Jehovah.
(2) The two angels seemed loath to accept Lot’s hospitality. When they did enter in it was only as forerunners of judgment. Mark also that as soon as Lot housed God’s messengers and made them a feast that the men of Sodom immediately broke with Lot and came in a rage against him.
We cannot walk with God and the world both; we cannot have two masters. If we love the one we will hate the other; if we follow with the one we will leave the other.
IV. A CONTRAST IN FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS (Gen 18:19 with Gen 19:12; Gen 19:14)
1. Abraham had a household who followed with him. God said of Abraham, “I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord.” How many households are there like this? Many? Yes. However, the many are all too few. In homes supposedly Christian in their headship the children are allowed to run riot after the world. The family after has long since passed into obscurity. Parental fidelity is broken down both toward God and toward the family.
2. Lot seemed as one who mocked to his sons-in-law. Lot’s two virgin daughters did go with him when he fled from Sodom. His wife started, but turned back. His sons-in-law and married daughters stayed behind to be caught in the destruction.
There must have been a reason for the “mocking” of the two sons-in-law. Evidently Lot, or Lot’s wife, or both of them, had never made any deep impression upon the two youths of Sodom. We feel sure that their testimony had not been given for God; or, if given, it did not weigh up to their lives.
We need to back our talk with our walk, our words with our way. Consistent Christian living is even more vital than consistent Christian thinking. God wrote: “Take heed to thyself and to the doctrine.”
V. A CONTRAST IN FUTURE HERITAGES (Gen 18:18 with 19:13)
1. Abraham looked upon the future with large hope. To him the Lord had given promise that his seed would possess the gates. From him were to come many nations. He and his seed were to inherit a wonderful land, the pick of all of the lands of the earth.
The spiritual Christian looks forward with joy to his eternal heritage. He has laid up treasures where moth and rust do not corrupt, nor thieves break through and steal. Everything ahead is rosy and filled with colors of glory.
2. Lot looked forward with dark forebodings. It is sickening to see Lot pleading with the angels for the privilege of escaping to one of the little cities that lay not too far from Sodom. It is sickening to see him going out empty-handed as he fled from Sodom’s destruction. Let Christians fear lest they build their treasures upon this earth. If they live for Sodom, they must expect to feel the fires of Sodom’s undoing.
“Saved, so as by fire” is one of the startling words of the Bible. These words cannot be applied to the unsaved, simply because they are lost altogether. They do apply to believers who have eternal life, but have nothing laid up in Heaven.
Alas, alas, how many there will be in the judgment who will find their works all burned. That which is sown to the flesh, will, of the flesh, reap corruption. If we fulfill the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and walk as men walk minding earthly things we can certainly not expect to find a harvest of spiritualities in Heaven.
God has forewarned us to add to our faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, etc., for so shall an abundant entrance be. administered unto you into the everlasting Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. If we want a full reward we must follow our Lord’s conditions of reward. Lot was saved, but saved so as by fire.
VI. A CONTRAST IN PRAYING FOR SODOM AND FLEEING FROM SODOM (Gen 18:24 with 19:17, 20, 22)
1. Abraham prayed for Sodom. In fact, Abraham prayed for Lot. This was the burden of Abraham’s prayer, “Wilt Thou destroy the righteous with the wicked?”
The time has come that saints everywhere should begin to plead earnestly for their loved ones who are mixed up in the world. How can we hold our peace when we know that coming judgments are reaching out toward our dear ones?
2. Lot fled from Sodom.
(1) Lot hesitating. At first Lot was loath to leave because of his family and his goods. He felt that he could not go away with his daughters and their husbands left in the city of destruction.
(2) Lot urged by the angels. While Lot lingered the two angels laid hold upon him and his wife and two of his daughters and said, “Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, * * escape to the mountains, lest thou be consumed.” Lot pled, “Not so, my Lord.” But the angels still urged, “Haste thee, escape thither.”
(3) Lot finally, obedient to the angels, went his way and entered into Zoar. Then, it was, that the Lord rained down fire upon Sodom.
(4) Lot was sent out in answer to prayer. We read, “God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out.” Here is a marvelous example of the power of prayer, for the angels said, “I cannot do any thing till thou be come thither.”
3. Lot’s wife turned back. It was a terrible thing for her to do. Against the direct command of the angels she looked behind her. You excuse her, perhaps, on the ground of her love for her children who stayed behind. Perhaps you urge that she looked back because all that was dear to her socially, and financially, and every way was in Sodom. We grant it. However, God did not excuse her folly, for she was immediately slain and turned to a pillar of salt.
VII. SODOM’S DESTRUCTION (Gen 19:24-25)
1. God made an end of Sodom’s wickedness. God rained down fire and brimstone. Young people need not imagine that the God they know and serve would not rain down such dire destruction, for this very age in which we are now living is fast hastening toward a similar judgment. God waits long, but when wickedness reaches its utmost limit to which grace can allow it to go, God, in mercy, must destroy the wicked.
The reason that the average age limit of man’s lifetime was cut down after the flood, was so that wickedness could not grow to the lengths of pre-Noachic times.
2. God will soon arise to judge this very world of our day for its sins. Soon, how soon, will the angel of the Lord cry, “Thrust in thy sickle, and reap * * the harvest of the earth is ripe.”
The first universal judgment was at the time of the flood, when the world system that then was, was destroyed by water. The second universal judgment will be during the Great Tribulation, when a third, at least of the world of men will fall under the wrath of God. The third and final judgment will be when the Great White Throne is placed, from whose face the heaven and the earth will flee away. Then will come the period of which Peter wrote in the Spirit, “The elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.”
AN ILLUSTRATION
BIRD TIED BY A STRING
Lot was tied to the earth by his carnalities.
“‘A bird that is tied by a string seems to have more liberty than a bird in a cage; it flatters up and down, and yet it is held fast.’ When a man thinks that he has escaped from the bondage of sin in general, and yet evidently remains under the power of some favored lust, he is woefully mistaken in his judgment as to his spiritual freedom. He may boast that he is out of the cage, but assuredly the string is on his leg. He who has his fetters knocked off, all but one chain, is a prisoner still. ‘Let not any iniquity have dominion over me’ is a good and wise prayer; for one pampered sin will slay the soul as surely as one dose of poison will kill the body. There is no need for a traveler to be bitten by a score of deadly vipers, the tooth of one cobra is quite sufficient to ensure his destruction. One sin, like one match, can kindle the fires of hell within the soul.
The practical application of this truth should be made by the professor who is a slave to drink, or to covetousness, or to passion. How can you be free if any one of these chains still holds you fast? We have met with professors who are haughty, and despise others; how can these be the Lord’s free men while pride surrounds them? In will and intent we must break every bond of sin, and we must perfect holiness in the fear of the Lord, or we cannot hope that the Son has made us free. O Thou who art the tree Spirit, break every bond of sin, I beseech Thee.”-Spurgeon.
SODOM AND GOMORRAH
THE SODOM MOB (Gen 19:1-11)
What leads to the belief that Lot did not recognize the nature of his visitors (Gen 19:2-3)? (Compare Heb 13:2.) The following verses show that the Sodomites sought acquaintance with these supposed men for those vile purposes which have ever been associated with the name of their city. It was for this that Lot, at the risk of his life, came to their defense, for the duty of protecting a guest has always been accounted among orientals as the most sacred obligation. Lots offer concerning his daughters is inexplicable, and yet it shows what Sodom had done for him. How does (Gen 19:9 show Lots unpopularity with his neighbors? What suggests that he had testified against them? (Read here 2Pe 2:6-9.) Who rescued Lot, and how (Gen 19:10)? What physical judgment was visited upon his antagonists (Gen 19:11)?
LOTS ESCAPE (Gen 19:12-26)
How does (Gen 19:12 illustrate our responsibility for the salvation of our relatives? And (Gen 19:14 the indifference with which they often hear our testimony? How does (Gen 19:16 illustrate the preventing grace of God to lost sinners? What elements of Lots character are illustrated (Gen 19:18-20)? How does (Gen 19:30 show his folly a second time in selecting an abiding place? How do Gen 19:21-22 show Gods regard for the people of His choice, notwithstanding their unworthiness? The prophets of the Bible speak of tribulation coming upon the earth at the close of this age such as was never seen before, but they speak also of the deliverance of the saints out of it and a removal of them by translation (1Th 4:13-18) before the judgments fall (Rev 3:10 to Rev 7:14), and this dealing with Lot illustrates it in certain ways. By what means were Sodom and Gomorrah destroyed? Overthrew, (Gen 19:25, indicating upheavals and submersions of the ground, perhaps the result of natural causes, but under divine control. The explosion of gas might account for it when the soil, soaked with bitumen, would easily convey the fire until all the cities were destroyed. It used to be thought that the Dead Sea covered the site of these cities, but this opinion is now contradicted.
What judgment befell Lots wife, and why? Her motives for looking back are not hard to conceive and we need not dwell upon them now, but observe how Jesus applies this circumstance to the end of the age (Luk 17:31-33), and note that He thus not only warns us concerning that period but guarantees the authenticity of this whole story.
ORIGIN OF THE MOABITES AND THE AMMONITES (Gen 19:30-38)
It must not be supposed that the conduct of Lots daughters recorded here is endorsed by God. Its record is an incidental evidence of the truth of the Bible, for an imposter palming off a so-called revelation would have omitted such a circumstance reflecting upon them whom God in His mercy had separated unto Himself. The purpose of the record is doubtless to give us the origin of the Moabites and the Ammonites, who figure so largely at a later time as the implacable enemies of Israel, whose vile character is here foreshadowed. They ultimately met the fate at Gods hands which their history deserved.
Righteous Lot
When the angels of the Lord came to Sodom, they found Lot sitting in the gate. City gates in those days were active places. Much commerce was carried on there. Justice was often meted out by the elders of the city. We do not know Lot’s purpose in being there, but we do know he was hospitable. He insisted the visitors come to his house for the night ( Gen 19:1-3 ). It is also the Christian’s duty to exhibit hospitality ( Mat 25:35 ; 1Ti 3:2 ; Heb 13:2 ). Lot was tormented by the unrighteous acts he saw committed. Peter says of Lot, “for that righteous man, dwelling among them, tormented his righteous soul from day to day by seeing and hearing their lawless deeds” ( 2Pe 2:8 ). This story shows he even tried to turn them aside from sin.
Gen 19:1. There came two angels Probably two of the three that had just before been with Abraham, the two created angels, who were now sent to execute Gods purpose concerning Sodom. Lot sat in the gate of Sodom Waiting for an opportunity of entertaining strangers, in which he imitated Abraham, and set an example of hospitality in the midst of the reigning and abominable vices of the place. For though he was influenced to go thither by improper motives, and continued there with unjustifiable obstinacy, when every dictate of religion and morality cried aloud, Come out from among them; yet, on the whole, as St. Peter observes, (2Pe 2:8,) he was a righteous man, and his righteous soul was vexed from day to day with the filthy conversation of that most abandoned place, in seeing and hearing of their unlawful deeds.
Gen 19:1. Lot sat in the gate of Sodom, as a magistrate, no doubt, for the wicked accuse him of making himself a judge or elder. The main gate of a city was the usual place of hearing causes, and administering justice. There is no intimation that he sat there merely for hospitality.
Gen 19:4. Old and young. The whole inhabitants of Sodom were utterly corrupted, and they wished all the world to know the perfection of their wickedness.
Gen 19:5. Know them. This most abominable crime, since called Sodomy, is mentioned in other places, and often with the highest horrors of God and man. Lev 18:22. Rom 1:23-24. Jdg 19:22.
Gen 19:11. Blindness, or dimness of sight. 2Ki 6:18. The sin began with their eyes, which had been full of adultery; and with them the punishment began.
Gen 19:14. He seemed as one that mocked. Lots error in taking refuge with the wicked in Sodom and forming matrimonial connections there, instead of dwelling in tents, cost him all his substance, and an infinitude of grief and trouble. The prohibition from marrying with unbelievers has often been supported and guarded by signal acts of providence. The males of Davids house were eventually all cut off, by marrying Jezebels daughter, except Joash, an infant.
Gen 19:24. Jehovah rainedfire and brimstone from Jehovah. Whole councils of christian fathers have cited this text as demonstrative of the Godhead of Christ, and the distinction of persons in the Holy Trinity. So the early fathers by general consent: all admit Jehovah, the Angel, to be the Christ. Why then should any man accounted orthodox start a difficulty?
Gen 19:26. Pillar of salt. The analysis of the human body coincides with the qualities of lime, and there were slime or salt pits in the vale of Siddim. Chap. 14. This pillar was a monument of the wickedness of a foolish people. Wis 10:7.
Gen 19:28. The smoke of a furnace. The district forming the dead sea, so called, because it was long before fish were discovered in it, extends about 76 miles by 18 or 20. It contained much bitumen, coally matter, and sulphur, covered with a fertile soil. Hence pride, idleness, and fulness of bread were the sins of Sodom. When their measure was full, God came down to enquire and to judge, teaching monarchs not to execute vengeance in a summary way, but wait for some investigation of character. He collected against them a dark cloud, composed probably of nitre, from which our fiery meteors or shooting stars are chiefly composed, and rained snares of fire and brimstone on the wicked. Yea, snares, for when they ran crying into the streets, the fire was there, and when they ran into the fields, the fire was there also. Thus the heavens revealed their iniquity, and the earth rose up against them. The fire burned as deep into the earth as the strata or masses of combustible matter extended, and continued burning on the shores of the lake for ages afterward. Deu 29:23. The lake of Sodom has a saltness superior to that of the sea, which may account for the paucity of fish; and for a sulphureous saline matter, often observed to collect and float on the waves, and which occasionally ignites and explodes. Thus Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboim, with nine other towns perished in the fire.
Gen 19:31. There is not a man. The case of Lots daughters is perfectly unique. They had recently seen their sisters destroyed in Sodom, by marrying the men of that city. That was a sin they durst not repeat. They had no brother, nor relative, nor hope out of their own family. Moses simply mentions their situation.
Gen 19:38. Ben ammi; that is, son of my people, or of my own race. By this name Lots daughter seems to justify the deed on the ground of necessity, there being no other man, Gen 19:31.
REFLECTIONS.
How awfully great is the depravity of man, if it be capable of acquiring so great a growth of wickedness, and in defiance of conscience, of law and of judgments; and how wise and equitable the law of nations, which punishes the crime of Sodomy with death and abhorrence. By making a victim of one delinquent, a whole nation may be saved from destruction.
Sin has yet a more atrocious character: it never ceases to tempt and allure the less guilty, till they are initiated into all the mysteries of vice; it then throws off restraint and shame. The men of Sodom seemed desirous that strangers should publish to all the world the greatness of their shame. Ah, how like to the grand enemy will a course of crimes soon render a man, whose youth afforded the fairest hopes, and was adorned with many virtues.
We learn further, after men have gone a certain way in the awful route, that tears, arguments, and entreaties have no avail; they become the more violent for opposition, the judgment being hurried by passion to the abyss of destruction. Though Lot in the excess of grief, offered his daughters, not doubting for decencys sake but the offer would be rejected; yet he could not prevail. If then at a certain crisis of sin men are thus given up to a reprobate mind, let us train up our children in the utmost modesty, and in all possible virtue. Let us support and improve the recent institution of Sunday schools, hoping thereby that the next age will be more generally reformed and converted to God: and let us encourage missions to the heathen, who are in a very awful state of wickedness.
Let all good men be warned not to give their daughters in marriage to the unregenerate. Lot married a woman of Sodom, and he either engaged his daughters to the men of Sodom, or, as is more probable, he had other daughters married in that city; and these connections pierced his soul with grief, lost his property, and brought his family to the verge of destruction.
In the charge delivered to Lot, sinners have the way of salvation pointed out. Escape for thy life. It is safest to conquer the snares of the world by flight. The great and precious promises are given to us, that we might be made partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption which is in the world through lust. Samson, mighty Samson, fell by feasting with the Philistines. Oh that the lingering soul might be taken by the hand, and led into the good way. Look not behind thee at any glare of pleasures, nor at any companion who despises Gods warning, and will not follow thee to heaven. Nor stay, christian, in all the plain; while we are beguiled by the world, the judgments of God may overtake us. Escape to the mountain; the holy hill of Zion, the mountain of refuge and hope is right before us; let us hasten thither.
But did Lots wife look back; and was she instantly changed into a pillar of salt, either by falling into a saline, or changed into that substance by the immediate hand of God? And have the first transgressors of any covenant been often punished on the spot, to show what every sinner shall soon receive, as appears from Ham, who was accursed; from the blasphemer and the sabbath-breaker, who were stoned; and from Ananias and Sapphira, who dissembled? Then let all christians be cautious of presumptuously violating their covenant with God, and let us dread the idea of backsliding, Christ having said, Remember Lots wife.
Genesis 19
There are two methods which the Lord graciously adopts, in order to draw the heart away from this present world. The first is, by setting before it the attractiveness and stability of “things above.” The second is, by faithfully declaring the evanescent and shakeable nature of “things on the earth.” The close of Hebrews 12 furnishes a beautiful example of each of these methods. After stating the truth, that we are come unto mount Zion, with all its attendant joys and privileges, the apostle goes on to say, “see that ye refuse not him that speaketh: for if they escaped not, who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven; whose voice then shook the earth, but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once I shake, not only the earth, but also heaven. Now this word Once signifieth the removal of the shakeable things, as of things that are made, that the unshakeable things may remain.” Now it is much better to be drawn by the joys of heaven, than driven by the sorrows of earth.. The believer should not wait to be shaken out of present things. He should not wait for the world to give him up, before he gives up the world. He should give it up in the power of communion with heavenly things. There is no difficulty in giving up the world when we have, by faith, laid hold of Christ; the difficulty would then be to hold it. If a scavenger were left an estate of ten thousand a year, he would not long continue to sweep the streets. Thus, if we are realising our portion amid the unshakeable realities of heaven, we shall find little difficulty in resigning the delusive joys of earth. Let us now look at the solemn section of inspired history here set before us.
In it we find Lot “sitting in the gate of Sodom,” the place of authority. He has evidently made progress. He has “got on in the world.” Looked at from a worldly point of view, his course has been a successful one. He, at first, “pitched his tent toward Sodom.” Then, no doubt, he found his way into it; and now we find him sitting in the gate – a prominent, influential post. How different is all this from the scene with which the preceding chapter opens! But, ah! my reader, the reason is obvious. “By faith Abram sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles.” We have no such statement, in reference to Lot.* It could not be said, “By faith Lot sat in the gate of Sodom.” Alas! no; he gets no place among the noble army of confessors – the great cloud of witnesses to the power of faith. The world was his snare, present things his bane. He did not “endure as seeing him who is invisible.” He looked at “the things which are seen, and temporal:” whereas Abram looked at “the things which are unseen and eternal.” There was a most material difference between those two men, who, though they started together on their course, reached a very different goal, so far as their “public testimony was concerned. No doubt Lot was saved, yet it was “So as by fire,” for, truly, “his work was burned up.” On the other hand, Abraham had “an abundant entrance ministered unto him into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.”
{*It would furnish a very searching question for the heart, in reference to every undertaking, were we to ask, “Am I doing this by faith?” “Whatever is not of faith is sin;” and, “Without faith it is impossible to please God.}
Further, we do not find that Lot is permitted to enjoy any of the high distinctions and privileges with which Abraham was favoured. Instead of refreshing the Lord, Lot gets his righteous soul vexed; instead of enjoying communion with the Lord, he is at a lamentable distance from the Lord; and, lastly, instead of interceding for others, he finds enough to do to intercede for himself. The Lord remained to commune with Abraham, and merely sent His angels to Sodom; and these angels could, with difficulty, be induced to enter into Lot’s house, or partake of his hospitality: “they said, Nay, but we will abide in the street all night.” What a rebuke! How different from the willing acceptance of Abraham’s invitation, as expressed in the words, “So do as thou hast said.”
There is a great deal involved in the act of partaking of any one’s hospitality. It expresses, when intelligently looked at, full fellowship with him. “I will come in unto him, and sup with him, and he with me.” “If ye have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house and abide.” If they had not so judged her, they would not have accepted her invitation.
Hence, the angels’ word to Lot contains a most unqualified condemnation of his position in Sodom. They would rather abide in the street all night, than enter under the roof of one in a wrong position. Indeed, their only object in coming to Sodom seems to have been to deliver Lot, and that, too, because of Abraham; as we read: “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.” This is strongly marked. It was simply for Abraham’s sake that Lot was suffered to escape: the Lord has no sympathy with a worldly mind; and such a mind it was that had led Lot to settle down amid the defilement of that guilty city. Faith never put him there; a spiritual mind never put him there; “his righteous soul” never put him there. It was simple love for this present evil world that led him, first, to “choose,” then to “pitch his tent toward,” and, finally, to “sit in the gate of Sodom.” And, oh! what a portion he chose. Truly it was a broken cistern which could hold no water; a broken reed which pierced his hand. It is a bitter thing to seek, in any wise, to manage for ourselves; we are sure to make the most grievous mistakes. It is infinitely better to allow God to order all our ways for us, to commit them all, in the spirit of a little child, to Him, who is so willing and so able to manage for us; to put the pen, as it were, into His blessed hand, and allow Him to sketch out our entire course, according to His own unerring wisdom and infinite love.
No doubt, Lot thought he was doing well for himself and his family, when he moved to Sodom; but the sequel shows how entirely he erred; and it also sounds in our ears a voice of deepest solemnity – a voice telling us to beware how we yield to the incipient workings of a worldly spirit. “Be content with such things as ye have.” Why? Is it because you are so well off in the world? Because you have all that your poor rambling hearts would seek after? Because there is not so much as a single chink in your circumstances, through which vain desire might make its escape? Is this to be the ground of our contentment By no means. What then? “For he hath said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.” Blessed portion! Had Lot been content therewith, he never would have sought the well watered plains of Sodom.
And, then, if we need any further ground of inducement to the exercise of a contented spirit, truly we have it in this chapter, What did Lot gain in the way of happiness and contentment Little indeed. The people of Sodom surround his house, and threaten to break into it; he seeks to appease them by a most humiliating proposition, but all in vain. If a man will mingle with the world, for the purpose of self-aggrandisement, he must make up his mind to endure the sad consequences. We cannot profit by the world, and, at the same time, bear effectual testimony against its wickedness. “This one fellow came in to sojourn, and he will needs be a judge.” This will never do. The true way to judge is to stand apart, in the moral power of grace, not in the supercilious spirit of Pharisaism. To attempt to reprove the world’s ways, while me profit by association with it, is vanity; the world will attach very little weight to such reproof and such testimony. Thus it was, too, with Lot’s testimony to his sons-in law;” he seemed as one that mocked.” It is vain to speak of approaching judgement, while finding our place, our portion, and our enjoyment, in the very scene which is to be judged.
Abraham was in a far better position to speak of judgement, inasmuch as he was entirely outside of the sphere thereof. The tent of the stranger at Mamre was in no danger, though Sodom were in flames. Oh! that our hearts longed more after the precious fruits of a realised strangership, so that instead of having, like poor Lot, to be dragged, by main force, out of the world, and casting a lingering look behind, we might, with holy alacrity, bound forward, like a racer, towards the goal.
Lot, evidently, longed after the scene which he was forced, by angelic power, to abandon; for not only had the angels to lay hold of him, and hasten him away from the impending judgement, but even when exhorted to escape for his life, (which was all he could save from the wreck,) and flee to the mountain, he replies, “Oh! not so, my Lord: behold, now, thy servant hath found grace in thy sight, and thou hast magnified thy mercy which thou hast showed unto me in saving my life; and I cannot escape to the mountain, lest some evil take me and I die: behold, now, this city is near to flee unto, and it is a little one: oh I let me escape thither, (is it not a little one) and my soul shall live.” What a picture! He seems like a drowning man, ready to catch even at a floating feather. Though commanded by the angel to flee to the mountain, he refuses, and still fondly clings to the idea of “a little city,” – some little shred of the world. He feared death in the place to which God was mercifully directing him – yea, he feared all manner of evil, and could only hope for safety in some little city, some spot of his own devising. Oh! let me escape thither, and my soul shall live.” How sad. There is no casting himself wholly upon God. Alas! he had too long walked at a distance from Him; too long breathed the dense atmosphere of a “city,” to be able to appreciate the pure air of the divine presence, or lean on the arm of the Almighty. His soul seemed completely unhinged; his worldly nest had been abruptly broken up, and he was not quite able to nestle himself, by faith, in the bosom of God. He had not been cultivating communion with the invisible world; and, now, the visible was passing away from beneath his feet with tremendous rapidity. The “fire and brimstone from heaven” were about to fall upon that in which all his hopes and all his affections were centred. The thief had broken in upon him, and he seems entirely divested of spiritual nerve and self-possession. He is at his wits’ end; but the worldly element, being strong in his heart, prevails, and he seeks his only refuge in “a little city.” Yet he is not at ease even there, for he leaves it, and gets up to the mountain. He does, through fear, what he would not do at the command of God’s messenger.
And, then, see his end! His own children make him drunk, and in his drunkenness he becomes the instrument of bringing into existence the Ammonites and the Moabites – the determined enemies of the people of God. What a volume of solemn instruction is here Oh! my reader, see here what the world is! see what a fatal thing it is to allow the heart to go out after it! What a commentary is Lot’s history upon that brief but comprehensive admonition, “love not the world” This world’s Sodoms and its Zoars are all alike. There is no security, no peace, no rest, no solid satisfaction for the heart therein. The judgement of God hangs over the whole scene; and He only holds back the sword, in long-suffering mercy, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
Let us, then, seek to pursue a path of holy separation from the world. Let us, while standing outside its entire range, be found cherishing the hope of the Master’s return. May its well-watered plains have no charms for our hearts. May its honours, its distinctions, and its riches, be all surveyed by us in the light of the coming glory of Christ. May we be enabled, like the holy patriarch Abraham, to get up into the presence of the Lord, and, from that elevated ground, look forth upon the scene of wide-spread ruin and desolation – to see it all, by faith’s anticipative glance, a smoking ruin. Such it will be. “The earth, also, and the things that are therein, shall be burned up.” ALL that about which the children of this world are so intensely anxious-after which they are so eagerly grasping-for which they are so fiercely contending – all – all will be burned up. And who can tell how soon? Where is Sodom Where is Gomorrha? Where are the cities of the plain – those cities which were once all life, and stir, and bustle! Where are they now? All gone! swept away by the judgement of God. Consumed by His fire and brimstone. Well, His judgements now hang over this guilty world. The day is at hand; and, while judgements impend, the sweet story of grace is being told out to many an ear. Happy they, who hear and believe that story. Happy they, who fled to the strong mountain of God’s salvation! who take refuge behind the cross of the Son of God, and therein and pardon and peace!
God grant that the reader of these lines may know what it is, with a conscience purged from sin, and his heart’s affections purged from the defiling influence of the world, to wait for the Son from heaven.
Gen 12:1 to Gen 25:18. The Story of Abraham.In this section the three main sources, J. E, P are present. Gunkel has given strong reasons for holding that J is here made up of two main sources, one connecting Abraham with Hebron, the other with Beersheba and the Negeb. The former associates Abraham with Lot. (For details, see ICC.) On the interpretation to be placed on the figures of Abraham and the patriarchs, see the Introduction. The interest, which has hitherto been diffused over the fortunes of mankind in general, is now concentrated on Abraham and his posterity, the principle of election narrowing it down to Isaac, Ishmael being left aside, and then to Jacob, Esau being excluded.
SODOM’S WICKEDNESS EXPOSED
Not in the heat of the day, but in the evening, the two angels arrived at Sodom. Lot was sitting in the gate, the place of a judge. He was a believer making an effort to control the evil natures of ungodly men. Many Christians since that time have attempted to make the world better by their entering politics, but the Christian is “not of this world;” rather he has a message of grace that has power to deliver people “out of this present evil world” (Gal 1:4), and give them an eternal inheritance in heavenly places. For the world is destined to the judgment of God (Act 17:31): If we are faithful witnesses we shall warn sinners of this and tell them of the only possible escape through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Rather than doing this, Lot settled in Sodom with apparently some hope of improving it. He was a righteous man, but he “tormented his righteous soul from day to day by seeing and hearing their lawless deeds” (2Pe 2:8). He was simply in the wrong place, and rendered himself incapable of warning the people of God’s judgment against evil.
Lot met the angels very respectfully, though not with the refreshing enthusiasm of Abraham. Abraham had run to meet them and bowed himself to the earth: Lot rose and bowed with his face toward the earth, a more stiff, formal greeting. Being a believer, he invited the men into his house to spend the night, suggesting that they rise early and continue their journey. Perhaps he felt it would not be too safe for the men to stay long. His invitation was not a warm one, and the men responded that they would remain outside for the night. However, Lot urged them strongly. No doubt he realized the danger they would be in if they were outside.
They accepted his invitation and he prepared a feast for them, including unleavened bread which he baked (v.3). Abraham’s meal had been simple, wholesome food, though he spoke of it as only “a morsel of bread.” Lot evidently prepared city fare, possible rather elaborate, to make an impression. As to the unleavened bread, since leaven symbolizes evil, the scriptural teaching of unleavened bread is separation from evil. Was Lot telling his visitors that he believed in separation from evil? If so, his life style did not back it up.
But their visit was rudely interrupted by many men of Sodom, both young and old, boldly demanding that the two men who came to Lot’s home should come out and be subjected to the horror of homosexual relations (vs.4-5).
Lot’s concern for his guests was commendable. He even went outside, closing the door after him, to plead for the two men who had come under the shelter of his roof (vs.6-8). but his offer to sacrifice his daughters was far from commendable. How could he offer his virgin daughters to men of such vile character? Indeed, he had no right to offer them to anybody, for children are not actually the property of their parents, and besides, they were already engaged to be married (v.14). As to the two men, he says the reason they had come to Lot’s home was for protection. How different were Abraham’s words in ch.18:5, who realized that his visitors had come to have their hearts comforted by Abraham’s fellowship. We may be sure that the two angels would not have allowed Lot to give his daughters to the men of the city.
However, the men would not even accept Lot’s daughters, but spoke defiantly, telling him that he had come as an alien to their city, and now was acting as a judge. Of course there was some truth in this, as Lot would have to recognize. Similarly, a Christian has no proper rights of citizenship in this present evil world, let alone having the right of acting as a judge in the world’s affairs. His citizenship is in heaven (Php 3:20). May we be preserved from unholy mixtures such as that with which Lot became involved.
When the men threatened to use Lot worse than they had wanted to use the men, then the two men quickly pulled Lot back into the house and closed the door. But besides, they used the power of God to inflict blindness upon the attackers, so that this thwarted their intentions. It is a picture of the way in which God will inflict judicial blindness upon the ungodly who have willingly blinded themselves to the truth of His word and laid themselves open to His dreadful judgment. Such blinding is a warning of greater judgment to come.
LOT’S ESCAPE FROM SODOM
With great urgency the men then speak to Lot. No slightest doubt remains as to the enormity of Sodom’s wickedness: they have brazenly demonstrated it in public way. The only answer to this whole matter is the well deserved judgment of God. Lot is told to see that all his relatives are rescued from the city, son in law, sons and daughters, “bring them out of this place.” (v.12). For they would destroy the city because its iniquity had exceeded all bounds and the Lord had sent them to destroy it. What news of terrible import for Lot!
Being warned of the imminent judgment of Sodom and strongly urged by the angels, Lot went out to speak to his sons in law who were to marry his daughters (v.14). Why did he not warn his sons? Did he consider it no use to say anything to them? Sad to say, his own life had not been consistent with any warning of judgment he might give, and it is not surprising if his sons received no good, solid instruction from him, backed up by faithful example. But what effect did his words have on his sons in law? They thought he was only joking. They would surely not have thought this if Lot had before shown any serious conviction that the Lord strongly disapproved of the evil of Sodom. Had he made a habit of joking in this way? Let us be deeply serious in our testimony to the fact that God’s judgment will fall very soon upon an ungodly world, and that only in Christ Jesus is there any escape.
Even Lot himself was insensitive to the imminent danger he was in. When morning came the angels had to urge him to leave the city. Yet, still he lingered. Did he want to at least take some of his possessions with him? Then the angels literally took him, his wife and his two daughters by the hand and virtually dragged them out of the house. They had two hands each, so that was all they could take (v.16).
Bringing them outside of Sodom, the angels told Lot to escape for his life, not even to look behind him nor stay in the plain, but escape to the mountains from the danger of being consumed (v.17). The mountains speak of a level higher than that of the world, typically the presence of God, the only real safety.
But Lot, though a believer, shows no real faith in the clearly announced word of God. He protests to the angels that, though he appreciates their kindness in actually saving his life, yet he is fearful that there might be some terrible disaster awaiting him in the mountains. He ought to have been so fearful of the judgment of Sodom as to escape from it as far as he could. But he singles out a town not too far away. and asks permission to go there, since it was near and also only small (v.19).
The angels gave him this permission, saying that that town would be spared when Sodom was destroyed. But he is told to hurry, and moreover that nothing could be done before he arrived there at Zoar. Such is the protecting care of God over one believer! This tells us that Lot was evidently the only righteous inhabitant of Sodom.
THE OVERTHROW OF SODOM AND GOMORRAH
By the time Lot entered Zoar the sun had risen (v.23). The people of Sodom and Gomorrah, seeing the bright sunshine, would be happily prepared for another day of sinful pleasure. But what a shock! Judgment from God suddenly falls in the form of brimstone and fire such as a volcanic eruption might produce (v.24), though we are not told the means of this terrible catastrophe. Some would be killed immediately, no doubt others would have time to realize that God was punishing them for their gross wickedness. But it was too late to escape. The judgment and desolation was total. Every inhabitant of the cities and all the vegetation was destroyed. But this is a picture of a greater judgment still: “As it was in the days of Lot: they ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built; but on the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. Even so will it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed” (Luk 17:28-30). 1Th 5:3 comments on this, “When they say, Peace and safety, “then sudden destruction comes upon them — and they shall not escape.”
Lot had entered Zoar, but not his wife: she, from behind him, “looked back; and she became a pillar of salt” (v.26). She apparently lagged behind. Her heart was evidently still in Sodom. It seems that Lot had obtained her in Sodom, for we do not read of her before he went there. Such an unequal yoke in marriage might explain why Lot remained there as long as he did when he was continually trouble by “the filthy conversation of the wicked.” They had been told not to look back, but the fear of God had not really laid hold of her soul. “Remember Lot’s wife” (Luk 17:32). Salt is a preserving agent, but this is only a preserved testimony to the folly of unbelief.
Abraham rose early that morning to go to the place where had interceded with the Lord, evidently a point from which he could view the area of Sodom and Gomorrah. How deeply he would be affected in seeing the smoke from the land going up like the smoke of a furnace (v.28). He might well wonder if Lot had been killed in that terrible catastrophe. Yet verse 24 tells us that God remembered Abraham in this case, and delivered Lot, who was evidently the only righteous person in either Sodom or Gomorrah (v.29). We have no information, however, as to whether Abraham ever knew of Lot’s escape. He had lost everything except his two daughters, and though in poverty, he may have been too ashamed to try to contact his uncle Abraham.
LOT’S PATHETIC DEGRADATION
Lot had pled to go to Zoar, but after Sodom’s destruction he became afraid to remain in Zoar, and took the angels’ previous advice to flee to the mountains. Abraham walked generally by faith, but Lot had not learned such a lesson: he was moved at this time by fear. He found a cave in which he lived with his daughters. How deeply impoverished he had become! Lot’s history is a warning indeed to every child of God, that friendship with the world will lead, not necessarily to material poverty, but always to spiritual poverty.
The scheming of Lot’s daughters to have children by their father is a sad comment on what they had learned in Sodom (vs.31-32). Also, Lot had so sunk down in unconcern about the honor of the Lord that he would allow himself to become so drunk as to not realize what he was doing. Nor was this only once, but a second time on the following night (vs.34-35). We may wonder even at the survival of the children, but the first became the father of the Moabite nation, the second the father of the Ammonites, both of them proving to be troublesome enemies of Israel.
Nothing more is recorded of Lot after this time, not even his death One writer suggests that this was not necessary because he had practically died long before!
19:1 And there came two {a} angels to Sodom at even; and Lot sat in the gate of Sodom: and Lot seeing [them] rose up to meet them; and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground;
(a) In which we see God’s provident care in preserving his: even though he does not reveal himself to all alike: for Lot had but two angels, and Abraham three.
The men of Sodom wanted to have homosexual relations with Lot’s visitors (Gen 19:5). The Mosaic Law later regarded all homosexual behavior as a capital offense (Lev 18:22; Lev 20:13; cf. Rom 1:26-27). [Note: For a refutation of denials of this view, see P. Michael Ukleja, "Homosexuality and the Old Testament," Bibliotheca Sacra 140:559 (July-September 1983):259-66. On the modern resurgence of homosexuality and its connection with ancient religious paganism, see Peter Jones, "Androgyny: The Pagan Sexual Ideal," Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 43:3 (September 2000):443-69.] Their lack of hospitality contrasts with Abraham’s hospitality (Gen 18:1-8) and reflects their respective moral states.
Hospitality was more sacred than sexual morality to Lot (Gen 19:8; cf. Jdg 19:23-25). Compromise distorts values. Lot considered his duty to his guests greater than his duty to his children.
"When a man took in a stranger, he was bound to protect him, even at the expense of the host’s life." [Note: Davis, p. 201. See Desmond Alexander, "Lot’s Hospitality: A Clue to His Righteousness," Journal of Biblical Literature 104:2 (June 1985):289-91.]
DESTRUCTION OF THE CITIES OF THE PLAIN
Gen 19:1-38
WHILE Abraham was pleading with the Lord the angels were pursuing their way to Sodom. And in doing so they apparently observed the laws of those human forms which they had assumed. They did not spread swift wings and alight early in the afternoon at the gates of the city; but taking the usual route, they descended from the hills which separated Abrahams encampment from the plain of the Jordan, and as the sun was setting reached their destination. In the deep recess which is found at either side of the gateway of an Eastern city, Lot had taken his accustomed seat. Wearied and vexed with the din of the revellers in the street, and oppressed with the sultry doom-laden atmosphere, he was looking out towards the cool and peaceful hills, purple with the sinking sun behind them, and letting his thoughts first follow and then outrun his eye; he was now picturing and longing for the unseen tents of Abraham, and almost hearing the cattle lowing round at evening and all the old sounds his youth had made familiar.
He is recalled to the actual present by the footfall of the two men, and little knowing the significance of his act, invites them to spend the night under his roof. It has been observed that the historian seems to intend to bring out the quietness and the ordinary appearance of the entire circumstances. All goes on as usual. There is nothing in the setting sun to say that for the last time it has shone oh these rich meadows, or that in twelve hours its rising will be dimmed by the smoke of the burning cities. The ministers of so appalling a justice as was here displayed enter the city as ordinary travellers. When a crisis comes, men do not suddenly acquire an intelligence and insight they have not habitually cultivated. They cannot suddenly put forth an energy nor exhibit an apt helpfulness which only character can give. When the test comes, we stand or tall not according to what we would wish to be and now see the necessity of being, but according to what former self-discipline or self-indulgence has made us.
How then shall this angelic commission of enquiry proceed? Shall it call together the elders of Sodom-or shall it take Lot outside the city and cross-examine him, setting down names and dates and seeking to come to a fair judgment. Not at all-there is a much surer way of detecting character than by any process of examination by question and answer. To each of us God says:
“Since by its fruit a tree is judged,
Show me thy fruit, the latest act of thine!
For in the last is summed the first, and all, –
What thy life last put heart and soul into,
There shall I taste thy product.”
It is thus these angels proceed. They do not startle the inhabitants of Sodom into any abnormal virtue nor present opportunity for any unwonted iniquity. They give them opportunity to act in their usual way. Nothing could well be more ordinary than the entrance to the city of two strangers at sunset. There is nothing in this to excite, to throw men off their guard, to overbalance the daily habit, or give exaggerated expression to some special feature of character. It is thus we are all judged-by the insignificant circumstances in which we act without reflection, without conscious remembrance of an impending judgment, with heart and soul and full enjoyment.
First Lot is judged. Lots character is a singularly mixed one. With all his selfishness, he was hospitable and public-spirited. Lover of good living, as undoubtedly he was, his courage and strength of character are yet unmistakable. His sitting at the gate in the evening to offer hospitality may fairly be taken as an indication of his desire to screen the wickedness of his townsmen, and also to shield the stranger from their brutality. From the style in which the mob addressed him, it is obvious that he had made himself offensive by interfering to prevent wrong-doing. He was nicknamed “the Censor,” and his eye was felt to carry condemnation. It is true there is no evidence that his opposition had been of the slightest avail. How could it avail with men who knew perfectly well that with all his denunciation of their wicked ways, he preferred their money-making company to the desolation of the hills, where he would be vexed with no filthy conversation, but would also find no markets? Still it is to Lots credit that in such a city, with none to observe, none to applaud, and none to second him, he should have been able to preserve his own purity of life and steadily to resist wrong-doing. It would be cynical to say that he cultivated austerity and renounced popular vices as a salve to a conscience wounded by his own greed.
That he had the courage which lies at the root of strength of character became apparent as the last dark night of Sodom wore on. To go out among a profligate, lawless mob, wild with passion and infuriated by opposition-to go out and shut the door behind him-was an act of true courage. His confidence in the influence he had gained in the town cannot have blinded him to the temper of the raging crowd at his door. To defend his unknown guests he put himself in a position in which men have frequently lost life.
In the first few hours of his last night in Sodom, there is much that is admirable and pathetic in Lots conduct. But when we have said that he was bold and that he hated other mens sins, we have exhausted the more attractive side of his character. The inhuman collectedness of mind with which, in the midst of a tremendous public calamity, he could scheme for his own private well-being is the key to his whole character. He had no feeling. He was cold-blooded, calculating, keenly alive to his own interest, with all his wits about him to reap some gain to himself out of every disaster; the kind of man out of whom wreckers are made, who can with gusto strip gold rings off the fingers of doomed corpses; out of whom are made the villains who can rifle the pockets of their dead comrades on a battlefield, or the politicians who can still ride on the top of the wave that hurls their country on the rocks. When Abraham gave him his choice of a grazing ground, no rush of feeling, no sense of gratitude, prevented him from making the most of the opportunity. When his house was assailed, he had coolness, when he went out to the mob, to shut the door behind him that those within might not hear his bargain. When the angel, one might almost say, was flurried by the impending and terrible destruction, and was hurrying him away, he was calm enough to take in at a glance the whole situation and on the spot make provision for himself. There was no need to tell him not to look back as his wife did: no deep emotion would overmaster him, no unconquerable longing to see the last of his dear friends in Sodom would make him lose one second of his time. Even the loss of his wife was not a matter of such importance as to make him forget himself and stand to mourn. In every recorded act of his life appears this same unpleasant characteristic.
Between Lot and Judas there is an instructive similarity. Both had sufficient discernment and decision of character to commit themselves to the life of faith, abandoning their original residence and ways of life. Both came to a shameful end, because the motive even of the sacrifices they made was self-interest. Neither would have had so dark a career had he more justly estimated his own character and capabilities, and not attempted a life for which he was unfit. They both put themselves into a false position; than which nothing tends more rapidly to deteriorate character. Lot was in a doubly false position, because in Sodom, as well as in Abrahams shifting camp, he was out of place. He voluntarily bound himself to men he could not love. One side of his nature was paralysed; and that the side which in him especially required development. It is the influence of home life, of kindly surroundings, of friendships, of congenial employment, of everything which evokes the free expression of what is best in us; it is this which is a chief factor in the development of every man. But instead of the genial and fertilising influence of worthy friendships, and ennobling love, Lot had to pretend good-will where he felt none, and deceit and coldness grew upon him in place of charity. Besides, a man in a false position in life, out of which he can by any sacrifice deliver himself, is never at peace with God until he does deliver himself. And any attempt to live a righteous life with an evil conscience is foredoomed to failure.
And if it still be felt that Lot was punished with extreme severity, and that if every man who chose a good grazing ground or a position in life which was likely to advance his fortune were thereby doomed to end his days in a cave and Under the darkest moral brand, society would be quite disintegrated, it must be remembered that, in order to advance his interests in life, Lot sacrificed much that a man is bound by all means to cherish; and further, it must be said that our destinies are thus determined. The whole iniquity and final consequences of our disposition are not laid before us in the mass: but to give the rein to any evil disposition is to yield control of our own life and commit ourselves to guidance which cannot result in good, and is of a nature to result in utter shame and wretchedness.
Turning from the rescued to the destroyed, we recognise how sufficient a test of their moral condition the presence of the angels was. The inhabitants of Sodom quickly afford evidence that they are ripe for judgment. They do nothing worse than their habitual conduct led them to do It is not for this one crime they are punished: its enormity is only the legible instance which of itself convicts them. They are not aware of the frightful nature of the crime they seek to commit. They fancy it is but a renewal of their constant practice. They rush headlong on destruction and do not know it. How can it be otherwise? If a man will not take warning, if he will persist in sin, then the day comes when he is betrayed into iniquity the frightful nature of which he did not perceive, but which is the natural result of the life he has led. He goes on and will not give up his sin till at last the final damning act is committed which seals his doom. Character tends to express itself in one perfectly representative act. The habitual passion, whatever it is, is always alive and seeking expression. Sometimes one consideration represses it, sometimes another; but these considerations are not constant, while the passion is, and must therefore one day find its opportunity-its opportunity not for that moderate, guarded, disguised expression which passes without notice, but for the full utterance of its very essence. So it was here: the whole city, small and great, young and old, from every quarter came together unanimous and eager in prosecuting the vilest wickedness. No further investigation or proof was needed: it has indeed passed into a proverb: “they declare their sin as Sodom.”
To punish by a special commission of enquiry is quite unusual in Gods government. Nations are punished for immorality or for vicious administration of law or for neglect of sanitary principles by the operation of natural laws. That is to say, there is a distinctly traceable connection between the crime and its punishment; the one being the natural cause of the other. That nations should be weakened, depopulated, and ultimately sink into insignificance, is the natural result of a development of the military spirit of a country and the love of glory. That a population should be decimated by cholera or small-pox is the inevitable result of neglecting intelligible laws of health. It seems to me absurd to put this destruction of Sodom in the same category. The descent of meteoric stones from the sky is not the natural result of immorality. The vices of these cities have disastrous national results which are quite legibly written in some races existing in the present day. We have here to do not with what is natural but with what is miraculous. Of course it is open to any one to say, “It was merely accidental-it was a mere coincidence that a storm of lightning so violent as to set fire to the bituminous soil should rage in the valley, while on the hills a mile or two off all was serene; it was a mere coincidence that meteoric stones or some instrument of conflagration should set on fire just these cities, not only one of them but four of them, and no more.” And certainly were there nothing more to go upon than the fact of their destruction, this coincidence, however extraordinary, must still be admitted as wholly natural, and having no relation to the character of the people destroyed. It might be set down as pure accident, and be classed with storms at sea, or volcanic eruptions, which are due to physical causes and have no relation to the moral character of those involved, but indiscriminately destroy all who happen to be present.
But we have to account not only for the fact of the destruction but for its prediction both to Abraham and to Lot. Surely it is only reasonable to allow that such prediction was supernatural; and the prediction being so, it is also reasonable to accept the account of the event given by the predictors of it, and understand it not as an ordinary physical catastrophe, but as an event contrived with a view to the moral character of those concerned, and intended as an infliction of punishment for moral offences. And before we object to a style of dealing with nations so different from anything we now detect, we must be sure that a quite different style of dealing was not at that time required. If there is an intelligent training of the world, it must follow the same law which requires that a parent deal in one way with his boy of ten and in another with his adult son.
Of Lots wife the end is recorded in a curt and summary fashion. “His wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.” The angel, knowing how closely on the heels of the fugitives the storm would press, had urgently enjoined haste, saying, “Look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain.” Rapid in its pursuit as a prairie fire, it was only the swift who could escape it. To pause was to be lost. The command, “Look not behind thee” was not given because the scene was too awful to behold, for what men can endure men may behold, and Abraham looked upon it from the hill above. It was given simply from the necessity of the case and from no less practical and more arbitrary reason. Accordingly, when the command was neglected, the consequence was felt. Why the infatuated woman looked back one can only conjecture. The woful sounds behind her, the roar of the flame and of Jordan driven back, the crash of falling houses and the last forlorn cry of the doomed cities, all the confused and terrific din that filled her ear, may well have paralysed her and almost compelled her to turn. But the use our Lord makes of her example shows us that He ascribed her turning to a different motive. He uses her as a warning to those who seek to save out of the destruction more than they have time to save, and so lose all.” He which shall be on the housetop, and his stuff in the house, let him not come down to take it away; and he that is in the field, let him likewise not return back. Remember Lots wife.” It would seem, then, as if our Lord ascribed her tragic fate to her reluctance to abandon her household stuff. She was a wife after Lots own heart, who in the midst of danger and disaster had an eye to her possessions. The smell of fire, the hot blast in her hair, the choking smoke of blazing bitumen, suggested to her only the thought of her own house decorations, her hangings, and ornaments, and stores. She felt keenly the hardship of leaving so much wealth to be the mere food of fire. The thought of such intolerable waste made her more breathless with indignation than her rapid flight. Involuntarily as she looks at the bleak, stony mountains before her, she thinks of the rich plain behind; she turns for one last look, to see if it is impossible to return, impossible to save anything from the wreck. The one look transfixes her, rivets her with dismay and horror. Nothing she looked for can be seen; all is changed in wildest confusion. Unable to move, she is overtaken and involved in the sulphurous smoke, the bitter salts rise out of the earth and stifle her and encrust around her and build her tomb where she stands.
Lots wife by her death proclaims that if we crave to make the best of both worlds, we shall probably lose both. Her disposition is not rare and exceptional as the pillar of salt which was its monument. She is not the only woman whose heart is so fixedly set upon her household possessions that she cannot listen to the angel-voices that would guide her. Are there none but Lots wife who show that to them there is nothing so important, nothing else indeed to live for at all, but the management of a house and the accumulation of possessions? If all who are of the same mind as Lots wife shared her fate the world would present as strange a spectacle as the Dead Sea presents at this day. For radically it was her divided mind which was her ruin. She had good impulses, she saw what she ought to do, but she did not do it with a mind made up. Other things divided her thoughts and diverted her efforts. What else is it ruins half the people who suppose themselves well on the way of life? The world is in their heart; they cannot pursue with undivided mind the promptings of a better wisdom. Their heart is with their treasure, and their treasure is really not in spiritual excellence, not in purity of character, not in the keen bracing air of the silent mountains where God is known, but in the comforts and gains of the luxurious plain behind.
We are to remember Lots wife that we may bear in mind how possible it is that persons who promise well and make great efforts and bid fair to reach a place of safety may be overtaken by destruction. We can perhaps tell of exhausting effort, we may have outstripped many in practical repentance, but all this may only be petrified by present carelessness into a monument recording how nearly a man may be saved and yet be destroyed. “Have ye suffered all these things in vain, if it be yet in vain? Ye have run well, what now hinders you?” The question always is, not, what have you done, but what are you now doing? Up to the site of the pillar, Lots wife had done as well as Lot, had kept pace with the angels; but her failure at that point destroyed her.
The same urgency may not be felt by all; but it should be felt by all to whose conscience it has been distinctly intimated that they have become involved in a state of matters which is ruinous. If you are conscious that in your life there are practices which may very well issue in moral disaster, an angel has taken you by the hand and bid you flee. For you to delay is madness. Yet this is what people will do. Sagacious men of the world, even when they see the probability of disaster, cannot bear to come out with loss. They will always wait a little longer to see if they cannot rescue something more, and so start on a fresh course with less inconvenience. They will not understand that it is better to live bare and stripped with a good conscience and high moral achievement, than in abundance with self-contempt. What they have always seems more to them than what they are.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
2. Lot meets and presses them into his house. Singular in his piety, he is selected from the general ruin. He is earnest to solicit their company, and happy to entertain them liberally. He had seen no such visitants at Sodom for a long time. Note; Good men deserve a hearty welcome. We cannot be too pressing on such to favour us with their company.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
8. Abrahams intercession, in its strength and in its self-limitation, is an eternal example of the true position of the believer to the corruption of the world. Upon the self-limitation of intercession see 1Jn 5:16. Intercession even falls away from faith and becomes mere fanaticism or frenzy, when it oversteps the limits of truth. Abrahams excuses in his intercession, his prudent progress in his petitions, his final silence, prove that even the boldest intercourse is morally conditioned. On the other hand, the whole power of intercession and the full certainty that prayer will be answered, appear here most clearly. [See the 29th verse, which makes it clear that Arahams intercession was not fruitless.A. G.]
12. The manifestation which was given to Lot, corresponds with that which was given to Abraham, in a way similar to that in which the vision of the centurion, Cornelius, at Csarea, corresponds to the vision of Peter, at Joppa (Acts 10). The precondition for this connection of the revelations was, doubtless, in both cases, the mysterious bond of a common premonition or presentiment of great events.
16. Lots salvation is an image of salvation with the utmost difficulty. But the delay of his faint heartedness is raised to its highest power of double heartedness in the history of his wife. She is the example of a worldly mind, which turns back from the way of salvation, and through its seeking after the world falls into the fire of judgment.5 In this sense the Lord has set Lots wife as a warning example (Luk 17:32). We may perceive that even Lot was sensibly depressed as to the earnestness of his faith, through the ridicule of his sons-in-law, who regarded him as a jester.
18. The early rising of Abraham, his hastening to the place where he stood before Jehovah, and his silent look to the smoking vale of Siddim, is a sublime and impressive picture. There stands the mourning priest, lonely and silent in the morning light, as Jeremiah sat upon the ruins of Jerusalem. Now he saw that there were not ten righteous in Sodom, but knew from the rescue of Noah from the flood, and felt confident indeed that his intercession had not been in vain.
19. In the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, as in the primitive miracles in Egypt, and in the biblical miracles generally, the correspondence between the miraculous divine providence and the intellectual and natural conditions upon the earth must not be mistaken.
20. Lot and his daughters. It is a psychological fact that, in human nature, especially in beginners in the age of faith or those whose sensuous nature is strong, after a great tension of the life of faith, of spiritual elevation, great and dangerous reactions occur, during which temptation may easily prove corrupting to the man.
21. Moab and Ammon. See the Bible Dictionaries. De Wette, Tuch, Knobel, explain the narrative as a fiction of Israelitish national animosity, &c. (See above.) When, however, later debauchery (Num 2:25) and impiety (e.g. 2Ki 3:26 ff) appear as fundamental traits in the character and cultus of both people, we can at least hold with equal justice, that these inherited sins came with them from their origin, as that the tradition of their origin has moulded their character.
24. The prudence which, in the life of Abraham, appears as a sinful prudence, and yet susceptible of being sanctified, appears in the lives of his kindred as a family trait of the children of Therah, in Lot and his daughters, as well as in Laban. But it takes on in them the expression of refined cunning, and thus becomes manifoldly and positively ungodly. Thus Lot himself chose the region of Sodom; thus he flatteringly addressed the Sodomites as brethren; thus he offers them his daughters as a substitute, probably from an ironical expression of a prudent foresight that they, controlled by their demonic and unnatural lusts, would reject his proposal: but his daughters use criminal cunning to obtain offspring. This incest, however, appears in a milder light when set in contrast with the sin of Sodom.
25. Passavant. These cities are represented throughout the old covenant as types of the most severe judgments of God (Jer 41:11; Jer 50:40, etc.) And there is again another word in the old covenant, a wonderful, mysterious promise, spoken concerning these places, which, at the very least, alleviates the eternity of the pain, and for the sake of Jesus Christ, the only redeemer of all mankind, abbreviates the endurance of the heavy judgments of the poor heathen (see Eze 39:25; Jer 29:14; Jer 48:47; Ezekiel 16). [The passages quoted by no means sustain the inference which is here drawn from them; and the inference lies in the face of the general and constant testimony of the Scriptures. The words of our Lord, Mat 11:24, place the destiny of these places and of the heathen in its true light.A. G.] That farther prophetic vision of the seer appears to cast new light upon the farther fate of Sodom, when he says: This water flows out towards the east and down into the plain, and goes into the sea (salt sea), and when it comes into the sea its waters shall become healthful (Gen 47:8 ff.; 1Pe 3:19 f.; Gen 4:6). [The following learned and impressive note on the destruction of Sodom, kindly furnished me by its author, will be read with the deepest interest.A. G.]
1. Section. The appearance of Jehovah in the oak grove of Mamre, and the promise of the birth of Isaac (Gen 18:1-15). The great manifestation of God, in the life of Abraham, is the most striking sign in the old covenant of the incarnation of God.The feast in the oak grove of Mamre; a sign of the incarnation of God.Abraham in the oak grove of Mamre; great in his power of intuition, and great in his activityHerein, also, a type of Christ.As in all great characters, the contrasts of nature are here reconciled and removed.Abrahams hospitality as to its peculiar traits.The real method and spirit of hospitality consists alone in this, that in or with the stranger we receive the Lord himself.How well love and humility qualify Abraham to be the giver of the feast, the one who makes ready the meal and then stands and serves.Sarah as the housewife.Sarahs doubting laughter, and believing astonishment.
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
“Christianity is just a crutch and I don’t need it”. Going on and on, you know, how he was a self-made man. He had his own philosophy and he could get by and all of this. Of course he was drinking the whole while he was talking to me. But I watched the three sons of that man, that particular man, as they all got into drugs. And I saw his sons totally destroyed by drugs. So where he might have been able to maintain in a society with his booze, his sons weren’t able to maintain. And they all really just destroyed themselves with drugs.
Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary
Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary
Fuente: The Sermon Bible
Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Fuente: Neighbour’s Wells of Living Water
Fuente: James Gray’s Concise Bible Commentary
Fuente: Gary Hampton Commentary on Selected Books
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Fuente: Mackintosh’s Notes on the Pentateuch
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
Fuente: Grant’s Commentary on the Bible
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary