p s¹ 1-5. Evening. The Angels. Reception by Lot.
t¹ 6-9. Lot's remonstrance with Sodomites.
s² 10-13. Night. The Angels. Protection of Lot.
Announcement of the destruction of Sodom.
t² 14. Lot's remonstrance with his family.
s³ 15-17. Dawn. Yahaveh merciful to Lot.
t³ 18-20. Lot's remonstrance with Yahaveh.
s4 21-26. Sunrise. Yahaveh's acquiescence with Lot.
Destruction of Sodom.1897 B.C.
Genesis 19)
1 And there came two angels (two of the three of 18:16) to Sodom (= flaming, burning) at evening (note emphasis on time in the Structure, evening, night, dawn, sunrise); and Lot sat in the gate of Sodom (= the seat of judgment, showing that Lot was a real citizen); and Lot seeing them rose 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 you shall rise up early, and go on your way's." And they said, "No, but we will abide in the street (Fig., description of circumstances) all night." (Lot knew what would happen to them in the Streets of Sodom at night.)
3 And he pressed upon them greatly; and they turned in to him, and entered into his house; and he made a feast, and did bake unleavened bread, and they did eat. (see 18:8)
4 But before they laid 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: (This is what it was like in the days of Lot.)
5 And they called to Lot, and said to him, "Where are the men which came in to you this night? bring them out to us, that we may know them. (So there is no room for doubt, the Sodomites wanted to have homosexual relations with the two visitors. Are you beginning to see the picture? Could some of the diseases of this generation point to the days of Lot?)
6 And Lot went out at the door to them, and shut the door after him,
7 And said, "I pray to you brethren, do not so wickedly.
8 Behold now, I have 2 daughters which have not known (i.e. intimately) man; let me, I pray you, bring them out to you, and do you all to them as is good in your eyes (I always had a problem with this last verse. If I were in Lot's place, the war would have been already on. Perhaps, Lot knew the Sodomites wouldn't bother his daughters. They wanted men.): only to these men (Archaic pron. showing antiquity of Pentateuch) do nothing; for therefore they came under the shadow of my roof." (roof put for house, and house put for protection)
9 And they said, "Stand back." And they said again, "This one fellow came in to sojourn, and he will necessarily be a judge (see v. 1): now will we deal more wickedly with you, than with them." And they pressed sore the man, even Lot, and came near to break open the door. (The Sodomites are calling Lot a foreigner and questioning his right to set himself up as judge.)
10 But the men (i.e. the angels) put forth their hand, and pulled Lot into the house to them, and shut the door.
11 And they smote the men that were at the door of the house with blindness (Produced by dazzlings of light. 9 instances of people so smitten. #9=judgment. Here [19:11]; 27:1; 48:10; Judg. 25:7, 1 Sam.4:15, 1 Kings 14:4, 2 Kings 6:18; 25:7, Acts 13:11), both small and great, so that they wearied themselves to find the door. (They were so deeply embedded in their lust that they were still scratching and clawing to get in after they had been blinded.)
12 And the men (i.e. the angels) said to Lot, "Have you here any besides? son's in law, and your sons and your daughters, and whatever you have in the city, bring them out of this place:
13 For we are about to destroy this place, because the cry of them is waxen great before the face of the Lord; and the Lord has sent us to destroy it."
14 And Lot went out, and spoke to his sons in law, which married his daughters, and said, "Get up, get you out of this place; for the Lord will destroy this city." But he seemed as one that talked nonsense to his sons in law. (He had looked, and pitched his tent toward Sodom, had dwelt and made his home there, and married his daughters, and sat in the gate as a judge. No wonder he seemed as one that mocked. He chose Sodom, and "lingered" in the place of his choice, see 13:7)
15 And when the morning arose, the the angels hastened Lot, saying, "Arise, take your wife, and your 2 daughters which are here, lest you be consumed in the iniquity of the city."
16 And while he lingered (see v.14), the angels laid hold upon his hand, and upon the hand of his wife, and upon the hand of his 2 daughters, the Lord being merciful to him: and they brought him forth, and set him outside the city.
17 And it came to pass, when they had brought them forth abroad, that they said, "Escape for your soul; do not look behind you (No "ands", but climax), neither stay you in all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest you be consumed."
18 And Lot said to them, "Oh, not so, Lord:
19 Behold now, Your servant has found grace in your sight, and You have magnified Your mercy, which You showed to me in saving my soul; and I cannot escape to the mountain, lest some evil take me, and I die.
20 Behold now, this city is near to flee to, and it is a little one: Oh let me escape there, {is it not a little one?} (= the naming of a thing by describing it, epitaph) and my soul shall live."
21 And He said to him, "See, I have accepted you concerning this thing also, that I will not overthrow this city, for the which you have spoken.
22 Haste you, escape there; for I cannot do anything till you come to there." Therefore the name of the city was was called Zoar (= little)
23 The sun was risen upon the earth when Lot entered Zoar.
24 Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven;
25 And He overthrew those cities (These cities are not in the Dead Sea but their ruins have been discovered by Kharbet-Goumram about 4 miles square), and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and all that which grew upon the ground.
26 But his wife looked back curiously behind him (Cp. Luke 17:32, Isa.63:5 and v. 28 below), and she became a pillar of salt. (as the earth became 1:2)
27 And Abraham got up early in the morning to the place where he stood before the Lord. (see 18:22)
28 And he bent forward and looked with awe and grief toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the
plain, and beheld, and, lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace. (It does not say he saw the cities, but only the smoke.)
29 And it came to pass, When God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham (Lot's deliverance due to Abraham's prayer), and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when He overthrew the city in which Lot dwelt. (So it will be in the end times. No rapture. He can protect you right in the middle of the battle.)
30 And Lot went up out of Zoar, and dwelt in the mountains, and his daughters, with him; for he feared to dwell in Zoar: and he dwelt in a cave, he and his two daughters.
31 And the firstborn said to the younger, "Our father is old, and there is not a man in the earth to come into us after the manner of all the earth:
32 Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father."
33 And they made their father drink wine that night; and the firstborn went in, and lay with her father; and he perceived not when she lay down, but he did know when she arose. (This clause is marked with the "fifteen extraordinary points" calling attention to the ancient reading.)
34 And it came to pass on the next day, that the firstborn said to the younger, "Behold, I lay yester-night with my father: let us make him drink wine this night also; and you go in, and lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father."
35 And 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, but he did know when she arose. (see v.33)
36 Thus were both daughters of Lot with child by their father.
37 And the firstborn bare a son, and called his name Moab (= from a father): the same is the father of the Moabites to this day.
38 And the younger, she also bare a son, and called his name Ben-ammi (= son of the god Am. Begotten in shame, both had a shameful history. Deut 23:3,4. Cp. Judg.10:10; 11:4,15. Num.21:29. Deut.2:19; 3:16. 2 Chron.20:1. Zeph.2:8); the same is the father of the children of Ammon (= the sons of renown, mountaineers)