19:1–3 The two men who accompanied the Lord on his visit to Abraham are now identified as “angels” (Hb. malʾakim). The Hebrew word can be used of both human and angelic messengers, focusing attention on their task as agents of their master. In this case they are not bringing a message to the inhabitants of Sodom; rather, they have been sent to investigate whether the outcry the Lord had heard was accurate (18:20–21). In light of Abraham’s negotiation with the Lord, presumably they are now tasked also with determining whether there are at least ten righteous people in the city. Significantly, they arrive in Sodom at dusk, as the darkness is deepening (19:1); the angels and Lot will leave the city before sunrise (v. 23). The contrast between the bright sunlight of Abraham’s noontime encounter with the Lord and the black night of Sodom is emblematic of the two entirely contrasting communities.

As soon as the angels arrive in Sodom, they meet Lot, sitting in the city gate (v. 1). Ancient city gates had rooms within them, forming the place where the elders and decision makers of the city would sit (cf. Ruth 4:1–4). Lot’s presence at the city gate shows that he is now an honored member of the community in Sodom. He has come to regard the men of Sodom as his “brothers” (Gen. 19:7), while his daughters are engaged to be married to men of the city (v. 14). His transition from envious outsider in Genesis 13 to settled man of substance with a house of his own in Sodom is complete, yet significant compromises must have marked his rise in the community. It is not possible to live comfortably in a place of such wickedness as Sodom without compromise.

But even while he compromises, the spark of Lot’s faith is not utterly extinguished. He is called “righteous” in the NT because he apparently grieves over the wickedness that he sees around him (cf. 2 Pet. 2:7–8). Genesis 19 also implies that Lot must be considered among the righteous, since he is rescued (Gen. 19:29), and Abraham’s intercession was on behalf of the righteous.275 Lot never totally identifies with the world in which he lives, but at the same time he is unwilling to leave it behind. Derek Kidner calls him “the righteous man without the pilgrim spirit.”276

This concern for righteousness, however muted, is seen in Lot’s immediate reaction to meeting the angels, which is to show them hospitality; like Abraham, he gets up to meet the men and prostrates himself before them, addressing them in deferential terms and offering them lodging for the night and water to wash the dust of their journey from their feet (Gen. 19:1–2; see 18:2–5). When they make to decline Lot’s offer, instead desiring to spend the night in the city square, he continues to press them strongly—so much so that the reader begins to suspect that all is not well in Sodom (19:3) if spending the night in the town square is unsafe for travelers. That concern may also lie behind his encouragement for them to get on their way early in the morning, before the inhabitants of Sodom become aware of their presence.277 The two men finally accept his offer, and he makes for them a “feast” (mishteh). The only food specified at Lot’s feast, however, is unleavened bread (19:3), which pales in comparison to the genuinely outrageous meal that Abraham had served them earlier the same day, with cakes made of fine flour, a tender young calf, curds, and milk (18:6–8).278

19:4–11 This peaceful scene of domestic comfort is soon shattered as an angry mob gathers outside Lot’s house (19:4). This mob comprises the whole male population of Sodom, an entirety stressed by repetition in the Hebrew, which reads, “The men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man, surrounded the house.” This is the definitive answer to the question in chapter 18 about the number of righteous men within Sodom: zero (with the exception of Lot himself). They call on Lot to violate the cultural standards of hospitality and surrender the men he is hosting so that the mob can “know” them, in the sense of sexual intercourse (19:5).279 This is not a consensual homosexual relationship, though such encounters are also clearly forbidden in the OT and NT (Lev. 20:13; 1 Cor. 6:9–11), but rather homosexual rape—an expression of power and humiliation rather than lust.

Lot goes out to speak to the men of Sodom, addressing them as “brothers” and pleading with them not to act wickedly (Gen. 19:7). However, his “solution” to the situation is every bit as wicked as theirs: he proposes bringing out his two betrothed daughters for the mob to do with as it pleases (v. 8). This is a mark of how seriously ancient people took the responsibility to protect guests who had come under their roof, though ancient audiences would have found the idea of Lot’s turning his daughters over to a mob as abhorrent as modern people do. Many ancient law codes required the death penalty for violating a betrothed woman.280 Lot’s sensibilities have clearly been impacted negatively by his time in Sodom; he is concerned more to maintain his artificial relationship with the men of Sodom as his brothers than to defend his own daughters.

Lot’s proposal falls on deaf ears, as the mob ridicules Lot as a “sojourner” rather than recognizing the status of “brother” he has just claimed. They threaten to abuse him as well as the two visitors if he prevents their access to the house, and they move in to try to break down the door (v. 9). They resist the idea that Lot will be their judge (v. 9), though in reality they have a far more fearsome authority to fear, the “Judge of all the earth” (cf. 18:25). Lot deems their behavior “wicked” (Hb. rʿʿ; 19:7), and they threaten to treat him more wickedly than the two men (rʿʿ; v. 9; “deal worse”). Only the timely intervention of the two angels rescues Lot, as they blind the nearest group of men and draw Lot back into the house (vv. 10–11).281 By miraculously closing the eyes of their attackers the two men open Lot’s eyes to their true angelic identity.

19:12–14 Just as corporate judgment is about to fall upon Sodom, so is there the possibility of salvation for any who identifies with Lot—and thus with his wider family, including Abraham. This includes not merely blood relatives but in-laws: just as Noah’s daughters-in-law were delivered alongside his sons (Gen. 7:7), so too an offer of salvation is extended to the two young men to whom his daughters are betrothed. If the earlier language describing those surrounding Lot’s house was as comprehensive as it sounded, then these men must have been part of the assault group (19:4), but, even if they were somehow excluded, they reveal their true nature by thinking that Lot must surely be joking rather than serious (v. 14). A desperate last-minute appeal in the dead of night will not convince them, perhaps because Lot has never spoken to them before about God or about divine judgment. The doctrine of divine judgment is perhaps the hardest doctrine for fallen men and women to believe and has been a primary focus of Satan’s assaults since the beginning (3:4). Even when the men are warned of the impending arrival of final judgment upon Sodom, Lot’s words seem like an idle tale to them, and so they perish along with their city (19:14).

Despite their disbelief the decree of judgment has already been delivered: the facts of the case have been thoroughly explored by the Judge of all the earth, and Sodom has proved itself guilty as charged. The iniquity of the Amorites might not yet be full (cf. Gen. 15:16), but the sins of the Sodomites are more than sufficient to warrant their total elimination (19:13). Nothing more can be done to save the city or its inhabitants; it is time for Lot and his family to wipe Sodom’s dust off their feet and leave the city to its fate (cf. Matt. 10:14–15).

19:15–26 It is not easy for Lot to leave Sodom, even after hearing its imminent destruction announced. It entails leaving his house and possessions, all the worldly goods that he has labored for, and so Lot lingers as long as possible (v. 16). As morning finally dawns on the darkened city of Sodom, the angels take Lot and his family by the hand and virtually drag them outside the city, telling him to flee to the hills lest they be swept away in Sodom’s downfall (vv. 16–17). The family must not stop, or even look back (v. 17).

Even then Lot still lingers, paralyzed by fear, claiming that he could not possibly flee to the mountains and asking for the small city of Zoar to be saved as a refuge within running distance (v. 20). As a result, prior to Sodom’s destruction at the hands of a righteous and just God, that same God offers yet another demonstration of his unfathomable grace. He holds back his entire timetable of destruction on Sodom so that he can save poor, compromised Lot and with him the little town of Zoar. For the sake of Abraham and his intercession on Lot’s behalf, Lot is not destroyed (cf. v. 29).

The Lord no sooner provides a refuge for Lot than the threatened destruction falls on Sodom and Gomorrah in the shape of “sulfur and fire from . . . heaven”—or perhaps “burning sulfur” if we take this as a hendiadys (Gen. 19:24). This is no mere accident of nature but the Lord of nature’s summoning the created order to do his bidding, as he will do with the plagues of Egypt.282 The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and their inhabitants, along with the surrounding area and its vegetation, is complete; the cities are “overthrown” (Hb. hapak, “overturned”), a word that the rest of the OT associates repeatedly with this destruction (cf. Deut. 29:23).283

Tragically, Lot’s wife is caught up in the destruction, as she fails to heed the angel’s warning and instead looks longingly backward (Gen. 19:26). The word translated “looked” (nabat) does not mean a casual glance but suggests an intense gaze; her heart and affections are still bound up in Sodom, and so she shares the fate of the rest of the inhabitants.284 That “she became a pillar of salt” implies that she is overcome where she stands and is buried in a salty deposit that would remain a recognizable landmark. This highlights the fact that being outwardly part of the community that God has marked out for salvation will not save us if we do not combine that membership with faith (cf. Heb. 3:7–19). The Lord can do to his own people what he did to Sodom and Gomorrah if they share the latter’s wickedness (cf. Deut. 29:23).

19:27–29 From the destruction of Sodom and the narrow escape of Lot the text returns to Abraham’s vantage point. Early the next morning he goes back up to the place of intercession to see what has happened to Sodom and Gomorrah (19:27). Perhaps he is hoping for a last-minute miracle of repentance, as will happen to Nineveh in Jonah’s day (Jonah 3). One look at the rising cloud of dense, black smoke, however, gives Abraham the answer (Gen. 19:28). The Judge of all the earth has done what is just and destroyed the cities (cf. 18:25). Yet Abraham’s intercession for Sodom has not been wasted. It is on account of God’s remembering Abraham, just as he remembered Noah in 8:1, that God has rescued Lot out of the midst of the destruction despite his sinfully compromised lifestyle. The final judgment of the wicked is not incompatible with the gracious deliverance of sinners on account of the intercession of a righteous mediator on their behalf.

19:30–38 The aftermath of Lot’s story continues his tragic downward trajectory. Although he has sought safety in the town of Zoar and been assured of it by the angel (19:20–21), he is afraid to stay there for long and ends up living in a cave in the hill country, completely isolated from wider society, with only his daughters for company (v. 30). So much for his earlier choice of the land that looked “like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt” (13:10)!

Because of the absence of any potential husband to provide Lot’s daughters with children, and thus with meaning in life, they hatch a plan worthy of the inhabitants of Sodom in order to get themselves pregnant: they will get their father sufficiently drunk and then sleep with him in turn as a means of continuing the family (19:31–33). There is a certain irony in this plan; Lot was willing to sacrifice their virginity without consulting them in order to achieve his own purposes earlier (v. 8), and now they use him sexually to achieve their own purposes without his knowledge. The heightened echoes of Noah’s disgrace in Genesis 9:21 are obvious, even if that incident did not involve sexual misconduct, as this episode does.

The result of the sordid plan is the birth of the ancestors of two of Israel’s neighboring nations, Moab and Ammon (vv. 37–38). Their incestuous origins means that Moabites and Ammonites cannot normally be added to the Israelite assembly (Deut. 23:2–3). However, gracious exceptions are made: King David himself comes from Moabite ancestry through Ruth, giving hope to those who would normally be excluded from God’s family (Ruth 4:13–22).