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