Genesis xix.
Notes & Commentary:
Ver. 1. Ground. Thus shewing himself a true relation and imitator of Abraham.
Ver. 2. My lords. He took them to be men. — No. They refuse at first, that he may have the merit of pressing them to accept the invitation. (Haydock)
Ver. 4. Together. The whole city was corrupt; even the children were taught iniquity, as soon as they came to the years of discretion. (Menochius)
Ver. 5. Know them. They boldly proclaim their infamous design.
Ver. 7. This evil, so contrary to the rights of hospitality, and the law of nature.
Ver. 8. Known man. They were neglected, while men were inflamed with desires of each other. See Romans i. (Haydock) — Abuse. Lot tries by every means to divert them from their purpose; being well assured, that they would have nothing to do with his daughters, who were promised to some of the inhabitants. He endeavours to gain time, hoping perhaps that his guests would escape by some back way, while he is talking to the people. (Haydock) —Some allow that, under so great a perturbation of mind, he consented to an action which could never be allowed, though it was a less evil. (Menochius)
Ver. 9. Thither; from whence thou camest, or into the house. Dost thou pretend to tell us what is wrong? We will treat thee more shamefully. (Menochius) While they are beginning to offer violence.
Ver. 10. Behold, &c. the angels not only secure Lot, but strike the whole people with blindness, so that they could neither find Lot’s door nor their own homes. Indeed, if they had been able to get back into their own houses, it would have been but a small consolation to them; since in a few minutes, the whole city was buried in sulphur and flame, Wisdom xix. 16.
Ver. 14. Sons-in-law. Perhaps they also were among the crowd, (ver. 4,) and therefore deserved to be abandoned to their incredulity; though, if they would have consented to follow Lot, the angels would have saved them for his sake. — In jest. So little did they suffer God’s judgments to disturb them!
Ver. 16. He lingered, intreating the Lord to save the city; and loath, perhaps to lose all his property, for the sake of which he had chosen that abode. — Spared him, and his wife and two daughters, for his sake. These four were all that were even tolerably just: for we find them all soon giving signs of their weakness, and of the danger to which even the best are exposed by evil communications. (Haydock)
Ver. 17. Look not back. Flee with all expedition; let no marks of pity for the wretched Sodomites, nor of sorrow for the loss of your property, be seen.
Ver. 18. My lord, addressing himself to the angel, who led him and his wife. (Menochius)
Ver. 19. The mountain above Segor. He is faint-hearted, and does not comply with readiness and exactitude; though, when he had obtained leave to remain in Segor, he still fears, and flees to the mountain, ver. 30, (Haydock) on the south-east of the Dead Sea. (Calmet)
Ver. 22. Segor. That is, a little one. (Challoner) — In allusion to Lot’s words, ver. 20. As it was small, fewer sinners would of course be contained in it. God had resolved to spare it, and therefore inspired Lot to pray for its preservation. (Menochius) — Hence we may learn, how great a treasure and safeguard the just man is. (Haydock)
Ver. 23. Risen. It was morning when he left Sodom; (Ver. 15.) so this city must not have been very distant. It was before called Bala, or swallowed up, and afterwards Salissa. Theodoret supposes it was destroyed as soon as Lot had left it; and it seems Lot’s daughters thought so, since they concluded all men, except their father, had perished.
Ver. 24. The Lord rained…from the Lord, in a miraculous manner. Sodom and the other cities did not perish by earthquakes and other natural causes only, but by the divine wrath exerting itself in a visible manner. Here is an insinuation of a plurality of persons in God, as the C. of Sirmich declares, c. 14.[Council of Sirmich, canon 14.?] — And Gomorrha, and the other towns which were not so large, nor perhaps so infamous. — Brimstone and fire; to denote the bad odour and violence of their disorders. (Menochius)
Ver. 25. All the inhabitants, both the body and soul, Jude ver. 7: even the infants would probably die in original sin, as their parents were unbelievers, and careless of applying the proper remedies. (Haydock) — The women imitated the men in pride and dissolute morals, so that all deserved to perish. (Menochius) — All things; so that even now the environs are barren, and the lake dark and smoking. (Tirinus)
Ver. 26. And his wife. As a standing memorial to the servants of God to proceed in virtue, and not to look back to vice or its allurements. (Challoner) — His, Lot’s wife. The two last verses might be within a parenthesis. — Remember Lot’s wife, our Saviour admonishes us. Having begun a good work, let us not leave it imperfect, and lose our reward. (Luke xvii; Matthew xxiv.) — A statue of durable metallic salt, petrified as it were, to be an eternal monument of an incredulous soul, Wisdom x. 7. Some say it still exists. (Haydock) — God may have inflicted this temporal punishment on her, and saved her soul. (Menochius) — She looked back, as if she distrusted the words of the angel; but her fault was venial. (Tirinus)
Ver. 29. Lot. Even he owed his safety to the merits of Abraham.
Ver. 31. No man. If this had been true, Lot might have had children by them, without any fault. But they ought to have consulted him. (Haydock)
Ver. 35. Rose up; being oppressed with grief and wine, which would not excuse him from sin, particularly this second time. (Menochius)
Ver. 37. Elder. She first proposes: she is not ashamed to call her child Moab, “from father.” The younger is rather more modest, and calls her son Ammon, “my people,” not born of the Sodomites. Many reasons might be alleged to extenuate, or even to excuse the conduct of Lot and his daughters, as many of the fathers have done. But the Scripture barely leaves it upon record, without either commendation or blame. (Haydock)
Bible Text & Cross-references:
Lot entertaining angels in his house; is delivered from Sodom, which is destroyed: his wife, for looking back, is turned into a statue of salt.
1 And the two angels came to Sodom in the evening,* and Lot was sitting in the gate of the city. And seeing them, he rose up and went to meet them: and worshipped prostrate to the ground.
2 And said: I beseech you, my lords, turn in to the house of your servant, and lodge there: wash your feet, and in the morning you shall go on your way. And they said: No, but we will abide in the street.
3 He pressed them very much to turn in unto him: and when they were come into his house, he made them a feast, and baked unleavened bread, and they ate:
4 But before they went to bed, the men of the city beset the house, both young and old, all the people together.
5 And they called Lot, and said to him: Where are the men that came in to thee at night? bring them out hither, that we may know them:
6 Lot went out to them, and shut the door after him, and said:
7 Do not so, I beseech you, my brethren, do not commit this evil.
8 I have two daughters who, as yet, have not known man; I will bring them out to you, and abuse you them as it shall please you, so that you do no evil to these men, because they are come in under the shadow of my roof.
9 But they said: Get thee back thither. And again: Thou camest in, said they, as a stranger, was it to be a judge? therefore we will afflict thee more than them. *And they pressed very violently upon Lot: and they were even at the point of breaking open the doors.
10 And behold the men put out their hand, and drew in Lot unto them, and shut the door.
11 And them, that were without, *they struck with blindness from the least to the greatest, so that they could not find the door.
12 And they said to Lot: Hast thou here any of thine? son-in-law, or sons, or daughters, all that are thine bring them out of this city:
13 For we will destroy this place, because their cry is grown loud before the Lord, who hath sent us to destroy them.
14 So Lot went out, and spoke to his sons-in-law that were to have his daughters, and said : Arise: get you out of this place, because the Lord will destroy this city. And he seemed to them to speak as it were in jest.
15 And when it was morning, the angels pressed him, saying: Arise, take thy wife, and the two daughters that thou hast: lest thou also perish in the wickedness of the city.
16 And as he lingered, they took his hand, and the hand of his wife, and of his two daughters, because the Lord spared him.
17 *And they brought him forth, and set him without the city: and there they spoke to him, saying: Save thy life: look not back, neither stay thou in all the country about: but save thyself in the mountain, lest thou be also consumed.
18 And Lot said to them: I beseech thee my Lord,
19 Because thy servant hath found grace before thee, and thou hast magnified thy mercy, which thou hast shewn to me, in saving my life, and I cannot escape to the mountain, lest some evil seize me, and I die.
20 There is this city here at hand, to which I may flee, it is a little one, and I shall be saved in it: is it not a little one, and my soul shall live?
21 And he said to him: Behold also in this, I have heard thy prayers, not to destroy the city for which thou hast spoken.
22 *Make haste, and be saved there: because I cannot do any thing till thou go in thither. Therefore the name of that city was called Segor.
23 The sun was risen upon the earth, and Lot entered into Segor.
24 *And the Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrha brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven.
25 And he destroyed these cities, and all the country about, all the inhabitants of the cities, and all things that spring from the earth.
26 *And his wife looking behind her, was turned into a statue of salt.
27 And Abraham got up early in the morning, and in the place where he had stood before with the Lord:*
28 He looked towards Sodom and Gomorrha, and the whole land of that country: and he saw the ashes rise up from the earth as the smoke of a furnace.
29 Now when God destroyed the cities of that country, remembering Abraham, he delivered Lot out of the destruction of the cities wherein he had dwelt.
30 And Lot went up out of Segor, and abode in the mountain, and his two daughters with him (for he was afraid to stay in Segor) and he dwelt in a cave, he and his two daughters with him.
31 And the elder said to the younger: Our father is old, and there is no man left on the earth, to come in unto us after the manner of the whole earth.
32 Come, let us make him drunk with wine, and let us lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father.
33 And they made their father drink wine that night: and the elder went in, and lay with her father: but he perceived not, neither when his daughter lay down, nor when she rose up.
34 And the next day the elder said to the younger : Behold I lay last night with my father, let us make him drink wine also to night, and thou shalt lie with him, that we may save seed of our father.
35 They made their father drink wine that night also, and the younger daughter went in, and lay with him: and neither then did he perceive when she lay down, nor when she rose up.
36 So the two daughters of Lot were with child by their father.
37 And the elder bore a son, and called his name Moab: he is the father of the Moabites unto this day.
38 The younger also bore a son, and she called his name Ammon; that is, the son of my people: he is the father of the Ammonites unto this day.
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*
1: Year of the World 2107, Year Before Christ 1897.; Hebrews xiii. 2.
9: 2 Peter ii. 8.
11: Wisdom xix. 16.; 2 Kings[4 Kings?] vi. 18.
17: Wisdom x. 6.
22: Wisdom x. 6.
24: Deuteronomy xxix. 23.; Isaias xiii. 19.; Jeremias l. 40.; Ezechiel xvi. 49.; Osee xi. 8.; Amos iv. 11.; Luke xvii. 29.; Jude i. 7.
26: Luke xvii. 32.
27: Genesis xviii. 1.