GENESIS COMMENTARY

GENESIS 19:1-11   (Lot attacked by the Men of Sodom)

19:1   The men who had appeared with the LORD (18:1), and been welcomed by Abraham (18:3-8), had now arrived by the gates of Sodom.  They are identified as malaakim (messengers, representatives, angels).  

A malaak could be a human message bearer (as in Genesis 32:3, 6; Numbers 20:14; 22;5; 1 Samuel 6:21; 1 Kings 19:2).  The malaak could also be sent to spy out the land (Joshua 6:25), or to kill someone (1 Samuel 19:11; 2 Kings 6:32),  bring a woman to the palace (2 Samuel 11:4), or go on a diplomatic mission (Judges 11:12-14; 2 Samuel 5:11; 1 Kings 20:2). 

God also has malaakim.  Prophets were viewed as messengers speaking for God  (2 Chronicles 36:15; Haggai 1:13).   But there were also angels (messengers) sent on errands directly from God (Genesis 32:1;  Zechariah 1:9; 5:5).  Abraham assured his servant that the LORD would send his malaak with him to find a bride for Issac.  And the children of Israel were promised a malaak to help them into the promised land (Exodus 23:20).  A malaak could be sent to exercise wrath  (2 Samuel 24:16-17). 

The fact that Lot was sitting by the gate of the city identifies him as having a recognized status in the community (Ruth 4:1, Job 29:7-8).  He  had foolishly linked himself to the iniquity of Sodom  (13:12-13; 18:20), but Abraham had specially interceded for him (18:23-32).   So the two malaakim (angelic messengers)  had come to persuade Lot and his family to leave Sodom (19:15-16) when they were about to destroy the city (19:14).

19:2-5   The messengers hesitated to stay with Lot, but he insisted on giving them the required hospitality.   But before the messengers could settle for the night every man of the city had gathered at the door.  They demanded that Lot bring them out to be abused.  The gang rape of strangers was designed to discourage foreigners by inflicting terrible pain and humiliation (see a similar enormity in Judges 19:22). 

19:6-7   Lot went out to them, and bravely had the door locked behind him.   He pleaded with them not to engage in this enormity.

19:8  We cannot conceive of a man offering his own daughters to be gang raped to save the guests he had welcomed, but this was the astonishing extent of Middle Eastern hospitality.

19:9-10   But the men did not accept this offer, and they complained that Lot was an alien, who now wanted to act as judge to protect the two strangers.  Lot would have been lynched,  and the door broken down if the heavenly messengers had not intervened to save him.

19:11   The angelic visitors had the authority and power to blind the men at the door, and the men of Sodom  groped around unable to find the way in to seize Lot and his visitors.   Elisha asked God to inflict temporary blindness on his enemies (2 Kings 6:18-19).   And in our day there are accounts of similar interventions to save missionaries under attack.

 

GENESIS 19:12-23   (Lot and his Wife and two Daughters escape from Sodom)

19:12-13    The two men told Lot to bring any relatives out from the city.  The cry of the surrounding people for justice from brutal oppression  (18:20-21) was so great that  LORD had decided to destroy the city of Sodom.

19:14   That evening Lot went into the city to ask the two men who were betrothed to his daughters to get out as soon a possible (19:2, a betrothal was a binding marriage arrangement, so the two men were counted as sons-in-law).  He told them the LORD was about to destroy the city, but they viewed this  as a great joke.

19:15   The angelic visitors evidently lodged that night with Lot.   In the morning they warned him to move right away from the conflagration that would soon destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. 

19:16-17   When they delayed,  the two angels took the hands of Lot and his wife and their two daughters, and ordered them to move right away and never look back till they were up in the mountains high above the cities of the Plain.

19:18-20   Lot was perhaps afraid of danger from unknown enemies in the hills, so he asked for permission to settle in the small town of Zoar (13:10; 14:2) which was 5 miles, 8 km, to the south of the area of Sodom and Gomorrah now covered by the southern part of the Dead Sea.  It was probably near the mouth of the Wadi Zered which was the southern border of what was later called Moab (Numbers 21:12, Deuteronomy 2:13-14).  Zoar survived the destruction of the other cities of the plain, and Moses was able to see it from the top of Mount Nebo four hundred years later (Deuteronomy 34:1-3, see Isaiah 15:5; Jeremiah 48:34). 

19:21   Here the verb changes from the plural of the two angels to the singular of the LORD himself (see 18:1-2, 13, 17, 22:19:1).  It is as if the LORD overruled the strict orders of the two angels (19:17).  And he delayed the destruction of the city till Lot and his wife and daughters arrived near the city of Zoar. 

In the New Testament we have the comment that “by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes God condemned them to extinction and made them an example of what is coming to the ungodly;  and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man greatly distressed by the licentiousness of the lawless,  then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trial” (2 Peter 2:6-9).

 

GENESIS 19:24-29   (The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah)