And as the dawn arose, the angels urged Lot, saying, Up, take thy wife and thy two daughters who are present, lest thou perish in the iniquity of the city.
At daybreak the angels press Lot to leave, on the last morning Sodom will ever see. Three things stand out here: the mercy in the call, the need to hurry a rescued man, and the cost of his delay.
The call at dawn is not a new task for Lot. It is a rescue for a man whose chance to serve God in Sodom is gone.
Mercy always triumphs over judgment, and this scene is no exception. "Up! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be swept away in the punishment of the city" was Mercy's voice to Lot. She says to Lot, so to speak: "You cannot impress other people now. You have had your chance, and you have missed it. You might have been God's witness in Sodom. You have failed in this, and lost your opportunity. Now, before judgment falls on it, escape yourself." And what does he do? He lingers. He procrastinates. He begins, we might say, the sad history of procrastinators — a race you read much about in Scripture and see all around you.
The angels do not say "your two daughters". They say the two "who are here". Asked whether Lot had only those two, one writer answered:
It seems that besides the two unmarried daughters in his house, Lot had other daughters outside with his sons-in-law. He tried in vain to save them from the doomed city. Excellent men have often made this mistake, but that carries no weight against the plain force of the word.
Strangest of all, the angels had to push a rescued man toward the door. The reason lay in everything the city held for him.
It was hard for Lot to leave the city. In it were all his possessions, all his associations, everything he had worked for, everything he had found his life in. Some of his relatives may have been there too. Poor Lot and his wife and daughters were almost dragged out of Sodom. Many strong bonds tied their hearts to the evil city. And what did they have outside it?
Another writer traces the delay deeper, to what unbelief does to the heart.
The Lord sends Lot out of the middle of the overthrow. Angels warn him, and faith makes him listen. But his heart is still there. There are connections that bind him to Sodom, and he would like to take them with him. But you cannot take anything out of Sodom for God; you must leave it all behind. The Lord must put the pain where you find the pleasure. He still lingered. There is hesitation and lingering in the place of judgment, though God has already announced His judgment. He should have left at once. But the place, the path, and the spirit of unbelief drain the heart. If the Lord shows His faithfulness in saving Lot, He shows it also in breaking the links that bind him to the place.
Lot's delay decided how he left, and how he left decided what he kept.
When morning came the angels had to urge him to leave the city. Yet still he lingered. Did he want to take at least some of his possessions with him? Then the angels took him, his wife and his two daughters by the hand and all but dragged them out of the house. They had two hands each, so that was all they could take.
Writers turn the scene toward us. The same pattern runs on today: a warning given, and hearts still tied to a doomed place.
If Lot could have looked ahead to this moment, and foreseen the doom of the cities of the plain when he chose the well-watered plain of Jordan, he might have chosen differently. But even that choice would not have come from a purer heart. God has forewarned us of the coming judgment of the world. Despite this, many Christians are entangled in its connections, chasing its pleasures and its prizes. Like Lot, they will have to be dragged out of the world when the Lord Jesus Christ comes.
- Morning. The angels come at dawn with one word for Lot: get up and get out before judgment falls.
- Mercy. The command is mercy speaking. Lot had already lost his chance to be God's witness in Sodom, and mercy still came for him.
- Here. The angels name only the daughters "who are here". Other daughters were outside with his sons-in-law, and Lot tried in vain to save them.
- Lingering. Everything Lot had worked for sat inside the city. Unbelief drained his heart, so he hesitated when he should have run.
- Hands. Lot left with only what two hands could hold. The rescue was complete; the loss was total. Writers hold the same picture up to believers tied to this world today.
And as he lingered, the men laid hold on his hand, and on the hand of his wife, and on the hand of his two daughters, Jehovah being merciful to him; and they led him out, and set him without the city.
Morning had come. Sodom stood under sentence, and the only righteous man in the city still would not move. What holds a believer to a place already under sentence, and what does God do about it?
The delay is the strange thing. The angels had warned him and urged him to go. Still Lot dragged his feet. One commentator traces that delay to where Lot had been living.
"But he lingered" — there is hesitation and lingering in the place of judgment, when the judgment has already been pronounced. He ought to have left at once. But the place, the path, and the spirit of unbelief weaken the heart.
Something was pulling against the angels' grip. Lot was not leaving an address; he was leaving a life he had built.
How compassionate and patient God is! He was not content with urging Lot: "But he lingered. So the men seized him and his wife and his two daughters by the hand, the LORD being merciful to him." It was hard for Lot to leave the city. In it were all his possessions and all his associations. There too was everything he had worked for, everything he had found his life in, and perhaps some of his own relatives. Poor Lot and his wife and daughters were almost dragged out of Sodom, because their hearts were tied to the evil city by many strong bonds. And what did they have outside it? Sadly, many Christians are like Lot. Their practical ties are with this present world, and they know little of the bonds that bind a true believer to Christ in heaven.
He did not walk out. The angels pulled him out — and the way they did it settles what he could carry with him.
Then the angels literally took him, his wife and his two daughters by the hand and all but dragged them out of the house. They had two hands each, so that was all they could take.
One writer sees God's own character in that grip.
Oh, what grace! It is just like God's grace to take a lingerer by the hand.
Lot came out alive. He came out with nothing else.
Even while warning others, Lot is reluctant to leave Sodom. When urged to hurry out of the doomed city, we read "he lingered." Even so, the mercy of the LORD "brought him out and set him outside the city." His wife and two daughters are brought out with him, but all his possessions are left behind. He is saved so as through fire.
The loss was not a side effect of the rescue.
If the Lord's faithfulness is shown in saving Lot, it is shown also in breaking the links that bind him to the place.
Just before this, Abraham had pleaded with God over the city. What God then did for Lot went beyond what Abraham had asked.
Abraham is silent, "and the LORD went his way, when he had finished speaking to Abraham"; but He did more than Abraham asked. He withdrew Lot from Sodom and saved him. Nothing could be done till Lot was safe. God's eye was on him. What blessedness to be able to count on His love for the righteous!
The mercy shown here is real, but it is not an argument for waiting. One writer turns the verse straight on the reader who keeps postponing the decision.
There is nothing that leads a person to ruin like procrastination. It means putting off till tomorrow what should be done today… May the Lord's mercy meet you, as it met Lot. The infinite mercy of that God has spared you until now, and again gives you the opportunity of salvation through this simple message.
- Cause. Lot lingered because he had settled in a city already under sentence. Living there had weakened his heart for the moment he most needed to act.
- Ties. His possessions, his associations, everything he had worked for — all of it was in Sodom. That is why the angels almost had to drag him out.
- Grip. Mercy did not argue with the lingerer; it took him by the hand. Grace does that, and two hands each was the measure of all he carried away.
- Loss. Mercy set him outside the city alive, but with nothing — saved as through fire. His wife and daughters came out with him; his goods stayed behind.
- Result. God did more than Abraham asked; nothing could be done until Lot was safe. His eye was on the righteous man. That same mercy is why a warning, not fire, reaches you today.
And it came to pass when they had brought them outside, that he said, Escape for thy life look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain escape to the mountain, lest thou perish.
The angels have taken Lot by the hand and set him outside Sodom, and one command follows: run, don't look back, don't stop in the valley, reach the hills. Everything he built is behind him, and the verse presses one question: will a rescued man obey the word that rescued him?
The command comes to a man the angels have just led out. One writer traces both sides of that mercy — God saves him, and God also cuts the ties holding him.
The Lord sends Lot out of the middle of the destruction. Angels warn him, and faith makes him listen. But his heart is still there. There are connections that bind him to Sodom, and he would gladly take them with him. But you cannot take anything with you for God out of Sodom; you must leave it all behind. The Lord must put the pain where you find the pleasure… As for the goods, the sheep, and all the cattle, he must leave them behind. If the Lord's faithfulness is shown in saving Lot, it is shown also in breaking the links that bind him to the place.
The verse does not stop at "escape" — it names a destination. Leaving the city is one thing; arriving is another. (The writers quoted here say "mountain" and "plain"; the ESV reads "hills" and "valley.")
Led outside the city, he and those with him are put on the road to safety; but being on the road is not enough — they must reach the spot of safety… Sinner, have you really escaped to Christ?… There is nothing but judgment for those who linger in the plain. There is no safety until you reach God's appointed spot at the mountain top.
Lot had once chosen the plain because it looked rich. The place he is now sent to is the opposite kind of ground.
The mountains speak of a level higher than that of the world. They picture the presence of God, the only real safety.
Judgment falls on the plain too, so the very ground he had valued gives him nothing.
In God's goodness Lot escapes the fire; under God's government he still loses all his possessions, and finds the things he had valued reduced to ashes. The plain that had appeared to him as the garden of God holds no refuge for him; it too is to be destroyed. All its rich and fertile pastures were soon to be like a smoking furnace. What a lesson for the Christian! What a warning for those who seek to settle down in the delights of a doomed world!
The next verses show what happens when someone ignores this command. One writer draws out the meaning of the punishment itself.
When the angels brought Lot out of Sodom, their command was, "Escape for your life. Do not look back." But Lot's wife "looked back, and she became a pillar of salt." God had brought her out of Sodom, yet she had left her heart there. She cared more about Sodom than about the word of God spoken by the angels… To the disciples, the Lord Jesus said, "You are the salt of the earth." Lot and his wife should have been "salt" in this way in Sodom. What she should have been in character inside Sodom, she becomes in body outside it — a monument to "the goodness and the severity of God."
Lot answers this command by asking for a nearer, smaller place. One writer sees that plea repeated ever since — a real step away from evil that stops short of the goal.
Neutrality is the Zoar, the little city, to which many a righteous Lot has fled for refuge since the days of Genesis 19. It is not Sodom, it is far removed from that wicked city, but it is not the "mountain," God's place of safety. It is a place reached without much difficulty, because it is in the plain. No hard climb up the mountain lies before those who want to reach it… Still, it is a step in the right direction, and so is every step away from evil. But it is a resting place short of the goal, so it becomes a snare.
Why does a rescued man bargain for less? One writer points to what unbelief does to a believer's judgment.
He has lost the sense of security in the path of faith. That is always the result of the path of unbelief in a believer: he thinks the path of faith is the most dangerous path in the world.
- Escape. The danger is real, so the word is urgent. The same hand that rescues also breaks the ties holding a man to the doomed place.
- Empty-handed. No one can carry anything out of Sodom for God — goods, flocks and cattle all stay behind, and what Lot valued ends in ashes.
- Eyes forward. "Do not look back" tested whether the word of God outweighed Sodom. Lot's wife failed, and became a monument of God's goodness and His severity.
- Elevation. The valley that once looked like the garden of God is doomed too. Safety lies only on higher ground, which pictures the presence of God.
- Every step. Out of the city is not the same as reaching the hills. A step in the right direction that stops short becomes a snare — halfway is not safety.
And Lot said to them, Not [so], I pray thee, Lord;
Angels have just pulled Lot out of Sodom and told him to run for the hills. His first answer is a refusal — why would a rescued man argue with the terms of his own rescue?
The refusal is not defiance but panic. The angel gives him a clear direction, and he cannot bring himself to take it.
What a picture! He seems like a drowning man, ready to catch even at a floating feather. The angel commanded him to flee to the mountain, but he refuses. He still clings to the idea of "a little city" — some little shred of the world. He feared death in the very place where God, in mercy, was directing him... He does not cast himself wholly on God. Sadly, he had walked too long at a distance from Him. He had breathed the thick air of a "city" too long. So he could not value the pure air of God's presence, or lean on the arm of the Almighty.
What Lot says next is a prayer. It is polite, grateful, and full of distrust. He thanks God for mercy already given, and refuses the mercy God offers now.
How many prayers unbelief dictates! And how plainly it marks this prayer all the way through! He admits a mercy he still dare not trust. He asks God for Zoar as a little city, so that He would spare it because it is little. And he asks for his own good, not for the human lives at stake. How base unbelief is! How wonderful the goodness that could spare Zoar at such a request!
The place Lot dreads is the very place Abraham had walked with God. Two believers looked at the same high ground and saw opposite things.
From the outside, the path of faith looks very painful. But for everyone who walks in it, it is full of sweetness and peace. The mountains, where God talked with Abraham and Abraham with God, were an object of terror to Lot. He thought he would die there.
One chapter earlier, Abraham prayed for other people. Here Lot pleads only for himself. Two prayers, two very different lives.
Are we interceding for others in love, as Abraham does in Genesis 18? Or are we begging off from what we dread, as Lot does in Genesis 19?... So it always is. Saints who live like everyone else in the world share the world's fears. Their prayers taste of its condition.
Lot's argument is size. He is not asking to stay in Sodom; he is asking for a smaller version of it.
Going into Zoar is like people who want to be saved, but want a little bit of the world as well. "Is it not a little one?" says Lot — that is, he is half-hearted. Must I make a clean break? he asks.
A Zoar is easy to reach. That is what makes it dangerous.
Neutrality is the Zoar, the little city, that many a righteous Lot has fled to for refuge since the days of Genesis 19. It is not Sodom, it is far removed from that wicked city, but neither is it the "mountain," God's place of safety. It is an easy place to reach. It lies in the plain, and no hard climb stands in the way of anyone who wants to get there... It is still a step in the right direction, but because it is a resting place short of the goal, it becomes a snare.
God grants what Lot asks. But later the chapter gives a reason that points away from Lot, and Lot does not stay in the town he begged for.
"And Lot went up out of Zoar and lived in the hills with his two daughters, for he was afraid to live in Zoar. So he lived in a cave with his two daughters" (verse 30)... Nothing could be done to Sodom and Gomorrah until Lot reached Zoar; but was that not for Abraham's sake? It happened then and there because "God remembered" — not Lot, but "Abraham."
The escape he asked for did not hold him long.
Yet he is not at ease even in Zoar, for he leaves it and goes up to the mountain. He does, through fear, what he would not do at the command of God's messenger.
- Rescued. Lot really is saved. Stronger hands pull him out. His failure is not whether he escapes, but how far he goes.
- Refusing. His "no" is fear, not rebellion: he dreads the mountain God points him to and trusts a town he can see instead.
- Praying. His prayer is built on unbelief. He thanks God for past mercy, will not trust present mercy, and asks only for himself.
- Shrinking. "Is it not a little one?" is half-hearted talk. It keeps a smaller piece of the world instead of making a clean break. It looks safe because it is easy to reach.
- Remembered. God spares Zoar, but He does it because He remembered Abraham. Lot then flees to the hills he first refused.
behold now, thy servant has found favour in thine eyes, and thou hast magnified thy goodness, which thou hast shewn to me in preserving my soul alive; but I cannot escape to the mountain, lest calamity lay hold on me, that I die.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
Behold now, this city is near to flee to, and it is small I pray thee, let me escape thither -- is it not small? -- and my soul shall live.
Angels have dragged Lot out of Sodom and told him to escape to the mountain, but instead of obeying he bargains for a nearer, smaller town. His plea raises a hard question: is being rescued from judgment the same as trusting the One who rescues you?
Lot begins by admitting God's mercy. He ends by asking for something other than what God told him to do. One writer traces that inconsistency through the whole prayer:
How many prayers unbelief dictates! And how plainly it marks this prayer all the way through! He admits a mercy he still does not dare to trust. He asks God for Zoar as a little city, so that He might spare it as such. And he asks for his own good, not for the human lives at stake. How low unbelief is! How wonderful the goodness that could spare Zoar in answer to such pleading!
The failure was not in the rescue, but in what came next.
God's mercy delivered him, and he is told to "escape to the mountain." He admits the mercy that saved him. But he has little faith in the protecting care of the One who sends him to the mountain. Fear and unbelief move him to plead that God will spare the little city of Zoar as a place of refuge.
Lot's whole case rests on size: the town is small, so sparing it costs little. Writers on this verse weigh that logic against how God saw Zoar:
Lot's plea was that Zoar was only a little city... his plea suggests that God might spare Zoar because it was small, since its evil would not be as great as Sodom's... Zoar might look different in Lot's eyes; it was little different in the Lord's eyes. Its sins, like Sodom's, reached to heaven, and called for the judgment of a righteous and holy God.
The same reasoning is easy to hear in modern form — a small allowance, a modest exception:
Lot hurries on. Listen to his miserable, rambling pleading that he might live in Zoar, because it was a little city. Oh, for a little pleasure, a little recreation, let me read just a few choice novels of a religious kind! This is how those plead who have fled from Sodom and long for Zoar.
God grants the request. One writer sets that answer beside God's earlier offer to spare Sodom:
God also granted his request to shelter in the fifth and smallest city of the plain, instead of fleeing to the mountain... God would have spared Sodom if only ten righteous persons had been in it. He spared Zoar because only one righteous man entered it. Such is the abounding mercy of our God, and His slowness to judge.
Lot got exactly what he asked for. The half-way refuge kept him alive, but it did not give him rest:
At Zoar Lot had safety, but he did not have quiet, because he had not fully obeyed the Lord. The soul that turns to God half-heartedly is safe, but not very happy. Many a man who believes in Jesus is not at peace, and I will tell you why. He does not fully follow the Lord... You have just enough of Christ to make you miserable... He is safe, but not at rest in Zoar, so soon he goes on to the mountain top, the real place of safety.
Read as a pattern, Zoar is the middle ground — clear of the city under judgment, short of the place God named:
Neutrality is the Zoar, the little city, to which many a righteous Lot has fled for refuge since the days of Genesis 19. It is not Sodom, it is far removed from that wicked city, but it is not the "mountain," God's place of safety. You can reach it without much difficulty. It lies in the plain, and no hard climb stands in the way... It is still a step in the right direction, but being a resting-place short of the goal, it becomes a snare.
In the chapter before, Abraham prays for other people. Here Lot prays about his own fear:
Are we interceding for others in love, as Abraham did in Genesis 18, or pleading away what we dread, as Lot did in Genesis 19?... So it always is. Saints who live like everyone else in the world share the world's fears. Their prayers show the mark of the world's condition.
- Rescued. Mercy pulls Lot out of Sodom, and he admits that mercy in this very verse.
- Distrustful. He takes the rescue but not the direction. Unbelief in God's ongoing care shapes his prayer.
- Small. "Is it not a little one?" measures sin by size. But Zoar's sins looked no different to God than Sodom's.
- Granted. God spares Zoar for one man, showing mercy wider than the faith that asked for it.
- Restless. He gains safety and loses peace, and later leaves Zoar for the mountain after all — the half-way place is a snare, not a home.
And he said to him, Behold, I have accepted thee concerning this thing also, that I will not overthrow the city of which thou hast spoken.
The angels have just hurried Lot out of Sodom and told him to flee to the mountains, but he asks instead for a small town on the plain. Why does God grant a prayer so clearly shaped by fear, and what does it show about the man who prays it?
Lot does not doubt that mercy has saved him; he doubts that mercy will keep him. Commentators read his plea as fear talking, and the granting of it as pure goodness on God's side:
How many prayers does unbelief dictate! And how clearly it marks this prayer from start to finish! He admits a mercy he still does not dare to trust. He asks God for Zoar because it is a little city, so that He would spare it as such. And he asks it for his own good, not for the human lives at stake. How low unbelief is! How wonderful the goodness that, at such a plea, could spare Zoar!
The wonder of the answer does not soften the failure behind the request. God had just rescued him by an act of grace, and still he did not obey:
Lot's attempt to save Zoar seems a terrible proof of how low he had sunk morally. Grace is indeed shown wonderfully — but that such an amazing intervention of grace should not have led him to joyful obedience to the Angel's word!
Abraham had pleaded for Sodom and stopped at ten righteous men. The contrast between the two prayers shows how ready God is to accept any plea made on the ground of grace alone:
The friend of God does not get this, because he dares not ask for it. He has a conscience of righteousness. Yet the Lord grants that very thing to the fearful cry of troubled, unstable Lot, with instant and unhesitating grace. Dread wrung that cry out of him, and it came out in petty, distrustful arguments. It shows what the Lord's heart, and will, and mind were. He gladly welcomed any mediator who would plead for mercy on the ground of grace alone... And if He spares so freely for such a mediator, what will He not do for Him who pleads for His own? By His death and resurrection He has justified them and reconciled them.
The count runs the other way here. Sodom needed ten righteous men; Zoar needed one:
God granted his request to shelter in the fifth and smallest city of the plain instead of fleeing to the mountain. God would have spared Sodom if only ten righteous people had been in it. He spared Zoar because only one righteous man entered it. Such is the abounding mercy of our God, and His slowness to judge.
God ties a reason to the permission: He holds the destruction back until Lot arrives. Writers see that delay as a settled principle, not a one-off favour:
The angel's word in verse 22 is worth noting: he cannot do anything until Lot reaches Zoar. Why "cannot"? Not because He lacked the power to judge, but because it is a fixed principle of God's ways that punishing, eternal wrath is never to touch His people. The vengeance of eternal fire could not possibly touch Lot, since he was a righteous man, though a misguided one.
The same principle reaches wider. The presence of the righteous holds judgment back from a whole place:
God had to provide for Lot before the fiery storm could come down. The Lord said He could do nothing till Lot had gone out of the city, and He spared the little city of Zoar for Lot's sake, because Lot asked Him to. For the sake of the righteous, God spares the wicked. "You are the salt of the earth."
Lot's argument is about size. One writer answers that smallness is his measurement, not God's:
Zoar might look different in Lot's eyes; it was little different in Jehovah's eyes. Its sins, like Sodom's, reached to heaven and called for the judgment of a righteous and holy God. The principles of the world are seen in both Sodom and Zoar. The Christian is called to walk apart from these principles... not to be trapped either in the small cities or the large cities of men.
- Fear asks. Lot's request grew out of unbelief — he admitted the mercy that saved him but would not trust it to keep him safe on the mountain.
- Grace grants. The Lord gave at once what Abraham's careful conscience had not dared to ask.
- One saves many. Ten righteous would have saved Sodom; one righteous man entering Zoar saved Zoar.
- Judgment waits. The angel could do nothing until Lot was safe. That is not weakness but principle: wrath does not fall while God's people are still in its path.
- A greater plea. God spared a whole city for one frightened man's plea. He will do far more for those Christ pleads for, whom He has justified and reconciled by His death and resurrection.
Haste, escape thither; for I cannot do anything until thou art come there. Therefore the name of the city is called Zoar.
Judgment on Sodom is settled and the fire is ready. Yet the angel tells Lot that nothing can happen until one man reaches a small town he picked himself. The verse holds two surprises. God's care for a believer holds the judgment back, and a whole town survives because that believer ran into it. (Older translations read the angel's words as "I cannot do anything till you come there.")
The word is striking on the lips of a messenger sent to destroy. One writer asks why, and answers from the way God always acts, not from any limit on His power.
The word of the angel in verse 22 is worth noting: "I cannot do anything till you come there." Why "cannot"? It is not because He lacked power to judge. It is a fixed principle of God's ways that penal and eternal wrath is never to touch His people. The judgment of these cities was not only a matter of governmental wrath. Penal wrath was involved too, as we see in Jude 7. The "vengeance of eternal fire" could not touch Lot. He was a righteous man, though a misguided one.
In the chapter before, Abraham bargained down to ten righteous people in Sodom. Ten were not found.
Abraham is silent (Gen. 18:33), "and the Lord went His way, when He had finished speaking with Abraham"; but He did more than Abraham asked. He withdrew Lot from Sodom and saved him. Nothing could be done till Lot was safe; Gen. 19:16, 22. God's eye was upon him. What blessedness to be able to reckon on His love for the righteous!
Zoar's survival mirrors Sodom's fall. The numbers run the opposite way from Abraham's plea.
He asked to shelter in the fifth and smallest city of the plain instead of fleeing to the mountain, and God granted it. Sodom would have been spared if only ten righteous persons had been in it. Zoar was spared because only one righteous man entered it. Such is the abounding mercy of our God, and His slowness to judge.
The angels had told Lot to run to the hills. He argued for a nearby town instead. One writer is hard on the heart behind that plea, and amazed that God answered it. The verse's closing line ties the town's name to that request.
How many prayers unbelief dictates! And how plainly it marks this prayer all the way through! He admits a mercy he still dares not trust. He asks God for Zoar because it is a little city, and asks Him to spare it as such. He asks for his own good, not for the human lives at stake. How low unbelief is! How wonderful the goodness that, at such a request, could spare Zoar!
"Escape there quickly" sits right beside the guarantee. Being sure of rescue was never a reason to slow down. One writer turns this against every excuse for delay in leaving what God has condemned.
We may also remember that Lot believed the angel and yet is told to escape "quickly" (Gen. 19:22), that Ananias urged Paul the believer not to "delay," but to be baptised (Acts 22:16), and that Paul himself, writing to the Hebrews (Heb. 6:18), speaks of those who "have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us."
The delay lasted exactly as long as Lot's journey — not one moment more.
The One to whom vengeance belongs has settled the whole plan of safety. But a solemn scene of judgment goes with all this. The sun had risen on the earth as Lot entered Zoar. And that sunny hour was the very time for the rain of brimstone and fire to fall. Nothing could be done till Lot entered the city, but then nothing remained to be done before the fire came down.
One writer finds the same order in an earlier judgment, and in the one still to come.
God could do nothing till Noah was safe in the ark, after He Himself had shut him in. So also in the case of the five cities of the plain. Lot had to be provided for before the fiery storm could come down, and the little city of Zoar was spared for his sake and at his request. For the sake of the righteous the wicked are spared. "You are the salt of the earth." And the world is preserved now because the children of God are in it, for "He is not willing that any should perish"; and all these, the true Church, must and will be taken out of it before judgment comes down on it.
- Cannot — the angel's "I cannot" is not weakness. It is a fixed rule of God's ways: penal wrath never falls on His righteous ones.
- Care — God did more than Abraham asked; His eye was on Lot, and the whole judgment waited on one man's safety.
- Cover — Zoar lived because one righteous man walked into it, while Sodom died for lack of ten.
- Concession — Lot's plea came from unbelief and self-interest. God's goodness granted it anyway.
- Clock — safety first, then fire. The sun rose, Lot entered, and judgment fell at once. God keeps that order still.
The sun rose upon the earth when Lot came to Zoar.
The sun rose over the plain that morning like any other morning. By the time it was up, Lot had reached the small town he had begged for. Two things hang on that one line. Why did the fire wait until one man was inside a gate? And why did the sky over Sodom look so calm on the day it burned?
The verse marks a moment in a plan. One writer shows how God fitted the rescue and the fire together:
The One to whom vengeance belongs has settled the whole plan of safety. The sun had risen on the earth, and after this Lot came to Zoar. And yet that sunny hour was the very time for the rain of sulfur and fire to fall. Nothing could happen until Lot entered the city; once he was in, nothing was left to do before the fire came down.
The angel had said he could do nothing until Lot arrived. One writer explains what lay behind that limit:
Why "cannot"? Not because power was lacking to act in judgment, but because it is a fixed principle of God's ways that penal and eternal wrath is never to touch His people. The judgment of these cities was not only a matter of governmental wrath; penal wrath was there too, as we see in Jude 7. The "vengeance of eternal fire" could not touch Lot, since he was a righteous man, though a misguided one.
Zoar stood among the cities of the plain and should have burned with them. It survived because of who walked through its gate that morning.
Sodom would have been spared if only ten righteous persons had been in it. Zoar was spared because only one righteous man entered it. Such is the abounding mercy of our God, and His slowness to judge.
Nothing in the weather that day hinted at what was coming. The city was busy, prosperous, and confident.
They held their market; their trading hall was open, and businessmen met there. In came the farmers with their produce from the country. The housewives went out to buy the food for the day, and everybody was busy. The sons-in-law would no doubt be there — godless men they were. They would be telling their friends how the old father-in-law had come in the dead of night and woken them with a foolish story: their city was about to be destroyed. The city had never been more prosperous. Look at the sun. It never shone more brightly. Yes, quite true, "the sun had risen on the earth when Lot came to Zoar," and on the surface nothing had changed in nature or in the city. God is not going to give the world one single bit of warning when He judges it, any more than He gave Sodom. Its only warning was the angels leading Lot out of it, and that warning they clearly despised.
The Lord Himself pointed back to Sodom's last morning when He spoke of His own return.
How solemn are these words, "The sun had risen." It speaks of a cloudless day with no sign of the coming judgment. As the Lord tells us of the men of Sodom, "they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building." All went on as usual. But "on the day when Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed them all." The Lord adds the solemn words, "so will it be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed" (Luke 17:28-30).
God told him to escape to the mountain. He asked for a nearer, smaller place instead, and the sunrise found him there.
He admits the mercy that has saved him, but he has little faith in the preserving care of the One who directs him to the mountain. Moved by fear and unbelief, he pleads that the little city of Zoar may be spared as a place of refuge. His prayer is granted; and as the sun rises Lot enters Zoar.
One writer compares Lot with Abraham, and finds a picture of Israel in Lot's position.
Israel will be much more like Lot, for they will be inside the very place where the judgment falls. Lot went into his shelter — that is, Zoar — when the judgment came. Abraham was completely outside the trial, pleading before the LORD in earnest prayer. Yet before the day came, he knew about it far better than Lot.
reason: repeated keyword frame; "above it" not what the quote says; cuts qualifier
And Jehovah rained on Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from Jehovah out of heaven,
Fire falls on Sodom the morning after the angels pull Lot out. The wording is strange — the LORD rains it from the LORD — and commentators ask two things: what that doubled name shows about God, and what this ruined plain still warns us about.
The verse names the LORD twice — once acting on earth, once sending from heaven. Where the ESV prints "the LORD," older translations use the name "Jehovah":
Notice verse 24. "Then the LORD rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the LORD out of heaven." Here was a Jehovah on earth and He called to Jehovah in heaven.
This is not two Gods. Scripture holds to one God only, yet with distinct Persons in the Godhead — and this verse hints at what the New Testament later states openly:
Though there is but one God (Deuteronomy 6:4), and no other (Isaiah 43:10), there are distinct Persons in the Godhead. The Old Testament already knew this truth. There we read (Genesis 19:24), "Then the LORD [that is, Jehovah] rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the LORD [that is, Jehovah] out of heaven." Yet only the New Testament taught it as doctrine, after Christ came in flesh. Other scriptures pointed to it as well, as New Testament teaching makes plain — Psalm 45, 102 and 110, and Daniel 7:13, which the Lord quoted, and which His hearers took to refer to a Divine Person.
after-reason: n/a
The ESV calls it sulfur; older translations say brimstone. Scripture keeps coming back to it:
Bitumen, pitch, or sulphur, which is still found in its raw state in Palestine. God rained it down from heaven in judgment. Genesis 19:24; Psalm 11:6; Ezekiel 38:22; Luke 17:29. It is a symbol of what will add to the torment and anguish of the wicked.
The text says what fell and who sent it. It never says how:
Judgment from God falls suddenly, as brimstone and fire, like what a volcanic eruption might produce. But we are not told how this terrible disaster came. Some would die at once. No doubt others had time to realise that God was punishing them for their gross wickedness. But it was too late to escape. The judgment and desolation was total.
The angel had said he could do nothing until Lot reached Zoar. The delay shows a principle, not a limit on God's power:
The word of the angel in verse 22 is worth noting: "I can do nothing till you arrive there." Why "cannot"? Not because power was lacking to act in judgment, but because it is a fixed principle of God's ways that eternal, punishing wrath must never touch His people. The judgment on these cities was not only God acting as ruler of the world; real punishment was involved, as Jude 7 shows. That vengeance of eternal fire could not possibly touch Lot, since he was a righteous man, though a misguided one.
The timing runs both ways: the fire waits for Lot, then waits no longer:
The sun had risen on the earth as, after this, Lot entered Zoar. And yet that sunny hour was the very time for the rain of brimstone and fire to fall. Nothing could happen till Lot entered the city, but once he was inside, nothing held the fire back.
One writer measures the destruction by what is missing today:
Almost in a moment, God's judgment wiped several once prosperous cities out of existence. The ruin was so complete that today we cannot be sure where they stood. Well may the apostle exclaim, "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God" (Hebrews 10:31).
Why does this story stand so early in the Bible? One writer answers:
God has not left Himself without witness, on a small scale, of what He plans as punishment for the ungodly who choose to ignore His warning... The book of Genesis itself records how God destroyed the cities of the plain, not long after the flood. Their impurity was so great that it went against fallen nature itself.
Both men come through the fire, but not in the same place. One writer draws the contrast:
Abraham is again in that high place, watching the desolation from far off. He was, in the spirit of the place where he stood, in the company of the One who was carrying out the judgment. But Lot is only rescued. Lot is a delivered man; Abraham is a separated one.
- Source — The LORD rains it from the LORD. One God, yet distinct Persons — hinted here, taught openly only in the New Testament.
- Substance — Brimstone is sulphur. Scripture keeps it as the symbol of the torment of the wicked.
- Sequence — The fire could not fall until Lot was clear. Eternal wrath never touches God's people.
- Scale — God erased the cities so completely that no one is sure today where they stood.
- Sample — Sodom is a small-scale witness of the judgment God plans for the ungodly. Abraham watched it from the height; Lot escaped it just in time.
and overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew upon the ground.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
And his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.
Lot's wife walks out of a doomed city with her family, and then stops being a person and starts being a landmark. Why did judgment fall on someone who had already left the city? And what was wrong with one backward look?
The verse notes where she stood as well as what she did. One commentator reads the two together.
Lot had entered Zoar, but not his wife. It seems she lagged behind. Her heart was plainly still in Sodom. Lot seems to have married her in Sodom, since 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.
Her body had moved; her affections had not. Another writer puts the gap between the two in a single line:
His wife—a fitting picture of someone who merely professes faith—is looking, as Lot taught her years before, towards Sodom. Her body is out of the city, but her heart is still in it, until God stops its beating and fixes her forever as the figure of a mere professor.
The command had been plain: escape, do not look behind you. One writer traces her ruin back to what she believed about that warning.
She was almost saved, but was not. She was within sight of the place of safety, but failed to reach it. She was on the verge of getting divinely appointed security, but missed it. Two things worked in her heart to her ruin: unbelief and disobedience. She did not in her heart believe that God would judge Sodom, and despite His plain command against it, she would look back. In that moment she was cut off. She stands as a lasting beacon of the terrible folly of disobeying the Lord.
Her disobedience grew out of doubting the message.
She died outside the city, and not by the fire that fell on it. One writer pictures a traveller coming on the scene later.
A stranger travelling through that scene afterwards, looking over the blackened country, would be struck with surprise by the bright, shining pillar that met his view, untouched by smoke. Small wonder if he said, "What does this mean?" Lot's wife did not fall in the judgment of Sodom. It was a distinct judgment by the hand of God on unbelief, which He always judges sooner or later. Disobedience, too, He always judges.
Salt in Scripture preserves and gives flavour. Here it does something different, and one commentator marks the difference sharply.
In Genesis 19:26 salt is clearly not a mark of consecration but a stroke of judgment. For Lot's wife, disobeying at such a time, became a lasting monument of divine judgment. The LORD said the same about Israel. If they rebelled and fell under the curse, He declared that their whole land would be brimstone and salt, like the overthrow of Sodom (Deuteronomy 29:23). The New Testament adds the terrible picture of salt that loses its taste. Such salt is no use for the land or the manure heap, so it gets thrown out. Easy-going unbelief destroys all savour in those who bear the Lord's name without self-judgment.
Another writer sets that salt beside the Lord's words to His followers about being the salt of the earth:
The Lord Jesus told His disciples, "You are the salt of the earth." Lot and his wife should have been "salt" like that in Sodom. She should have been salt there in a moral sense. Outside Sodom she becomes salt in a physical sense, as a memorial of "the goodness and the severity of God."
The lesson does not stop with her. One writer presses it on how we feel about leaving the world behind.
She perished not in Sodom, but between Sodom and Zoar. To her the departure from Sodom was exile, not deliverance. Many in the camp in the wilderness treated separation from Egypt with the same mind. And this raises a solemn, practical question for us. What do our souls make of separation from the world? In our hearts, do we count it exile or redemption? Are we singing over that thought, like Israel at the Red Sea; or, like Israel afterwards, are we remembering the fish of Egypt?
The Lord Jesus turned this whole scene into three words of warning. One commentator explains why she, of all people, became the example.
To this the Lord adds a strange but no less solemn word, short as it is: "Remember Lot's wife!" It seems angelic power rescued the wife of Lot. The angels certainly brought her out of the doomed city. But that only made her the more striking monument of God's all-searching judgment. There she stands alone. The others perished; but she remained a pillar of salt — the memorial of God's hatred of a false heart, and morally speaking that memorial never perishes. Despite outward deliverance, that heart still gave its affections to a scene marked out for destruction.
- Heart — She had left Sodom, but Sodom had not left her; her affections stayed where her feet no longer stood.
- Unbelief — She doubted the warning first. The disobedient look came second.
- Distinct — No fire from Sodom touched her. Her judgment was a separate stroke of God's hand on unbelief and disobedience.
- Salt — She would not be salt inside the city, so God made her salt outside it: a lasting monument of judgment.
- Remember — Christ made her a one-line sermon. So the test lands on us: is leaving the world exile, or rescue worth singing about?