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Genesis 19:26
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But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.
But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.
But his wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.
At that point Lot's wife looked back. When she did, she became a pillar of salt.
But Lot's wife looked back longingly and was turned into a pillar of salt.
But Lot's wife, from behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.
Now his wife behind him looked backe, and she became a pillar of salt.
Then his wife, from behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.
On the way, Lot's wife looked back and was turned into a block of salt.
But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a column of salt.
And his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.
Lot's wife was following behind him and looked back at the city. When she did, she became a block of salt.
But Lot's wife, behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.
But his wife looked back from behind him and she became a pillar of salt.
But Lot's wife looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt.
But Lot’s wife looked back and became a pillar of salt.
And his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.
And his wife loked behynde her, and was turned into a pillar of salt.
But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.
But Lot's wife, looking back, became a pillar of salt.
But Lots wyfe folowyng him, loked behynde her, & was turned into a piller of salt.
But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.
But his wife looked backe from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.
And his wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.
But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.
But Lot's wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.
And his wijf lokide abac, and was turned in to an ymage of salt.
And his wife looketh expectingly from behind him, and she is -- a pillar of salt!
But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.
But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.
But his wife looked back behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.
But Lot's wife looked back as she was following behind him, and she turned into a pillar of salt.
But Lot's wife behind him turned and looked toward the cities. And she was changed into salt.
But Lot's wife, behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.
But his wife looked from behind him, - and became - a pillar of salt.
And his wife looking behind her, was turned into a statue of salt.
But Lot's wife behind him looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.
But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.
But Lot's wife looked back and turned into a pillar of salt.
But his wife, from behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.
Contextual Overview
Bible Verse Review
from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge
looked: This unhappy woman, says the Rev. T. Scott, "looked back," contrary to God's express command, perhaps with a hope of returning, which latter supposition is favoured by our Lord's words, "Let him not return back: remember Lot's wife." She was, therefore, instantaneously struck dead and petrified, and thus remained to after ages a visible monument of the Divine displeasure. Genesis 19:17, Proverbs 14:14, Luke 17:31, Luke 17:32, Hebrews 10:38
and: Numbers 16:38
Reciprocal: Ecclesiastes 5:13 - riches Habakkuk 2:9 - that coveteth an evil covetousness Mark 13:15 - General Luke 21:21 - flee Philippians 3:7 - General
Cross-References
When they had brought them outside, one [of the angels] said, "Escape for your life! Do not look behind you, or stop anywhere in the entire valley; escape to the mountains [of Moab], or you will be consumed and swept away."
The firstborn said to the younger, "Our father is aging, and there is not a man on earth [available] to be intimate with us in the customary way [so that we may have children].
"Come, let us make our father drunk with wine, and we will lie with him so that we may preserve our family through our father."
"As for the censers of these people who have sinned at the cost of their lives, have the censers made into hammered sheets as a plating for the altar [of burnt offering], for they were presented before the LORD and they are sacred. They shall be a [warning] sign to the sons of Israel."
The backslider in heart will have his fill with his own [rotten] ways, But a good man will be satisfied with his ways [the godly thought and action which his heart pursues and in which he delights].
BUT MY RIGHTEOUS ONE [the one justified by faith] SHALL LIVE BY FAITH [respecting man's relationship to God and trusting Him]; AND IF HE DRAWS BACK [shrinking in fear], MY SOUL HAS NO DELIGHT IN HIM.
Gill's Notes on the Bible
But his wife looked back from behind him,.... That is, the wife of Lot, whose name the Jewish writers x say was Adith, or as others Irith y; and, according to the Targums of Jonathan and Jerusalem, she was a native of Sodom: now, as they were going from Sodom to Zoar, she was behind Lot, his back was to her, so that he could not see her; this was a temptation to her to look back, since her husband could not see her; and this she did, either, as the above paraphrases suggest, that she might see what would be the end of her father's house and family, or whether her married daughters, if she had any, were following her, after whom her bowels yearned; or being grieved for the goods and substance left behind, and for the people of Sodom in general, for whom she had too much concern; however, be it on what account it may, she was severely punished for it:
and she became a pillar of salt; was struck dead at once, either by the immediate hand of God, or by the shower of fire and brimstone; and her body was at once changed into a metallic substance, a kind of salt, hard and durable, such as Pliny z speaks of, cut out of rocks, with which houses were built, and hardened with the sun, and could scarcely be cut with an iron instrument; so that she did not fall to the ground, but stood up erect as a pillar, retaining very probably the human form, Josephus a says, this pillar continued to his times, and that he saw it; Irenaeus b and Tertullian c speak of it as in their times, a thing incredible; and Benjamin of Tudela says d, it stood in his times two parsas from the sea of Sodom; and though the flocks were continually licking it, yet it grew again to its former size. Rauwolff e relates something of the same kind by information, but not on his own testimony; that the pilgrims who visit it used to beat off some small pieces, and yet was found whole again; nay, which is beyond all credit, that they once knocked off a whole hand and took it away, and when they returned found it whole again: and one f that travelled in those parts in the beginning of the sixteenth century affirms, that almost in the midway to Zoar is seen to this day the pillar of salt into which Lot's wife was turned; he does not say indeed that he saw it, but leaves his reader to think so; and the Jerusalem Targum says, it will remain until the resurrection; but modern travellers of credit and intelligence could never see it; and when they have inquired of the country people about it, they either tell them there is no such thing, or say it stands in the mountains, where it cannot be come at, because of the Arabs, or because of wild beasts g: but no doubt there was such a statue, but how long it continued cannot be said; nor should it be thought incredible, when there are similar facts affirmed by authors of the best credit and reputation: Aventinus h reports, that in Bavaria, in 1348, more than fifty peasants, with the cows they had milked, at the time of an earthquake were struck with a pestilential air, and stiffened into statues of salt, and which he himself saw, and the chancellor of Austria: and Bisselius relates i, that Didacus Almagrus, who was the first person that with his army penetrated through the cold countries from Peru into Chile, lost abundance of his men, through the extremity of the cold and a pestiferous air; and that, returning to the same place five months afterwards, he found his men, horse and foot, standing unmoved, unconsumed, in the same situation, form, and habit, the pestilence had fastened them; one lying on the ground, another standing upright, another holding his bridle in his hand, as if about to shake it; in short, he found them just as he left them, without any ill smell or colour, common to corpses: indeed, the very fables of the Heathens, which seem to be hammered out of this history, serve to confirm the truth of the whole of it: as the fable of Jupiter and Mercury coming to a certain place in Phrygia, where they were hospitably entertained by Baucis and Philemon, when the doors were shut against them by others; wherefore they directed their guests, after being entertained by them, to leave the place and follow them to the mountains, when they turned the town into a standing lake k: and also that of Niobe being changed into a marble stone while weeping for the death of her children: and of Olenus and Lethaea, turned into stones also l. But, leaving these, and passing by other instances that might be observed, we are directed to remember this wonderful case by our Lord himself, Luke 17:32; and it should be an instruction to us not to look back nor turn back from the profession of the true religion we have made, but to follow Christ, and abide by his truths and ordinances.
x Pirke Eliezer, c. 25. y Baal Hatturim in loc. z Nat. Hist. l. 31. c. 7. a Antiqu. l. 1. c. 11. sect. 4. b Adv. Haeres. l. 4. c. 51. c In Carmine Sodoma. d ltinerarium, p. 44. e Travels, par. 3. c. 21. p. 313. by Ray. f Baumgarten. Peregrinatio, l. 3. c. 12. p. 96. g Universal History, ib. p. 124. Witsii Miscellan. Sacr. tom. 2. p. 195. h Annal. Bojor. apud Heidegger. Hist. Patriarch. tom. 2. exercitat. 8. p. 270. & Witsii Miscellan. tom. 2. exercitat. 7. p. 201. i Argonaut. Americ. l. 14. c. 2. apud Witsium, ib. p. 202. k Ovid. Metamorph. l. 8. fab. 8. l Ib. l. 6. fab. 4. & l. 10. fab. 1. Apollodor. de Deorum Orig. l. 3. p. 146.
Barnes' Notes on the Bible
- The Destruction of Sodom and Amorah
9. ×ש×Ö¾<×××× gesh-haÌl'aÌh, âapproach to a distant point,â stand back.
11. ×¡× ×ר×× saneveÌrıÌym, âblindness,â affecting the mental more than the ocular vision.
37. ×××× moÌ'aÌb, Moab; ××× meÌ'aÌb, âfrom a father.â ××Ö¾×¢×× ben-âamıÌy, Ben-âammi, âson of my people.â ×¢××× âamoÌn, âAmmon, âof the people.â
This chapter is the continuation and conclusion of the former. It records a part of Godâs strange work - strange, because it consists in punishment, and because it is foreign to the covenant of grace. Yet it is closely connected with Abrahamâs history, inasmuch as it is a signal chastisement of wickedness in his neighborhood, a memorial of the righteous judgment of God to all his posterity, and at the same time a remarkable answer to the spirit, if not to the letter, of his intercessory prayer. His kinsman Lot, the only righteous man in Sodom, with his wife and two daughters, is delivered from destruction in accordance with his earnest appeal on behalf of the righteous.
Genesis 19:1-3
The two angels. - These are the two men who left Abraham standing before the Lord Genesis 18:22. âLot sat in the gate,â the place of public resort for news and for business. He courteously rises to meet them, does obeisance to them, and invites them to spend the night in his house. âNay, but in the street will we lodge.â This is the disposition of those who come to inquire, and, it may be, to condemn and to punish. They are twice in this chapter called angels, being sent to perform a delegated duty. This term, however, defines their office, not their nature. Lot, in the first instance, calls them âmy lords,â which is a term of respect that may be addressed to men Genesis 31:35. He afterward styled one of them Adonai, with the special vowel pointing which limits it to the Supreme Being. He at the same time calls himself his servant, appeals to his grace and mercy, and ascribes to him his deliverance. The person thus addressed replies, in a tone of independence and authority, âI have accepted thee.â âI will not overthrow this city for which thou hast spoken.â âI cannot do anything until thou go thither.â All these circumstances point to a divine personage, and are not so easily explained of a mere delegate. He is pre-eminently the Saviour, as he who communed with Abraham was the hearer of prayer. And he who hears prayer and saves life, appears also as the executor of his purpose in the overthrow of Sodom and the other cities of the vale. It is remarkable that only two of the three who appeared to Abraham are called angels. Of the persons in the divine essence two might be the angels or deputies of the primary in the discharge of the divine purpose. These three men, then, either immediately represent, or, if created angels, mediately shadow forth persons in the Godhead. Their number indicates that the persons in the divine unity are three.
Lot seems to have recognized something extraordinary in their appearance, for he made a lowly obeisance to them. The Sodomites heed not the strangers. Lotâs invitation; at first declined, is at length accepted, because Lot is approved of God as righteous, and excepted from the doom of the city.
Genesis 19:4-11
The wicked violence of the citizens displays itself. They compass the house, and demand the men for the vilest ends. How familiar Lot had become with vice, when any necessity whatever could induce him to offer his daughters to the lust of these Sodomites! We may suppose it was spoken rashly, in the heat of the moment, and with the expectation that he would not be taken at his word. So it turned out. âStand back.â This seems to be a menace to frighten Lot out of the way of their perverse will. It is probable, indeed, that he and his family would not have been so long safe in this wicked place, had he not been the occasion of a great deliverance to the whole city when they were carried away by the four kings. The threat is followed by a taunt, when the sorely vexed host hesitated to give up the strangers. âHe will needs be a judge.â It is evident Lot had been in the habit of remonstrating with them. From threats and taunts they soon proceed to violence. His guests now interfere. They rescue Lot, and smite the rioters with blindness, or a wandering of the senses, so that they cannot find the door. This ebullition of the vilest passion seals the doom of the city.
Genesis 19:12-23
The visitors now take steps for the deliverance of Lot and his kindred before the destruction of the cities. All that are related to him are included in the offer of deliverance. There is a blessing in being connected with the righteous, if men will but avail themselves of it. Lot seems bewildered by the contemptuous refusal of his connections to leave the place. His early choice and his growing habits have attached him to the place, notwithstanding its temptations. His married daughters, or at least the intended husbands of the two who were at home (âwho are hereâ), are to be left behind. But though these thoughts make him linger, the mercy of the Lord prevails. The angels use a little violence to hasten their escape. The mountain was preserved by its elevation from the flood of rain, sulphur, and fire which descended on the low ground on which the cities were built. Lot begs for a small town to which he may retreat, as he shrinks from the perils of a mountain dwelling, and his request is mercifully granted.
Genesis 19:24-26
Then follows the overthrow of the cities. âThe Lord rained brimstone and fire from the Lord from the skies.â Here the Lord is represented as present in the skies, whence the storm of desolation comes, and on the earth where it falls. The dale of Siddim, in which the cities were, appears to have abounded in asphalt and other combustible materials Genesis 14:10. The district was liable to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions from the earliest to the latest times. We read of an earthquake in the days of king Uzziah Amos 1:1. An earthquake in 1759 destroyed many thousands of persons in the valley of Baalbec. Josephus (De Bell. Jud. iii. 10, 7) reports that the Salt Sea sends up in many places black masses of asphalt, which are not unlike headless bulls in shape and size. After an earthquake in 1834, masses of asphalt were thrown up from the bottom, and in 1837 a similar cause was attended with similar effects.
The lake lies in the lowest part of the valley of the Jordan, and its surface is about thirteen hundred feet below the level of the sea. In such a hollow, exposed to the burning rays of an unclouded sun, its waters evaporate as much as it receives by the influx of the Jordan. Its present area is about forty-five miles by eight miles. A peninsula pushes into it from the east called the Lisan, or tongue, the north point of which is about twenty miles from the south end of the lake. North of this point the depth is from forty to two hundred and eighteen fathoms. This southern part of the lake seems to have been the original dale of Siddim, in which were the cities of the vale. The remarkable salt hills lying on the south of the lake are still called Khashm Usdum (Sodom). A tremendous storm, accompanied with flashes of lightning, and torrents of rain, impregnated with sulphur, descended upon the doomed cities.
From the injunction to Lot to âflee to the mountain,â as well as from the nature of the soil, we may infer that at the same time with the awful conflagration there was a subsidence of the ground, so that the waters of the upper and original lake flowed in upon the former fertile and populous dale, and formed the shallow southern part of the present Salt Sea. In this pool of melting asphalt and sweltering, seething waters, the cities seem to have sunk forever, and left behind them no vestiges of their existence. Lotâs wife lingering behind her husband, and looking back, contrary to the express command of the Lord, is caught in the sweeping tempest, and becomes a pillar of salt: so narrow was the escape of Lot. The dashing spray of the salt sulphurous rain seems to have suffocated her, and then encrusted her whole body. She may have burned to a cinder in the furious conflagration. She is a memorable example of the indignation and wrath that overtakes the halting and the backsliding.
Genesis 19:27-29
Abraham rises early on the following morning, to see what had become of the city for which he had interceded so earnestly, and views from afar the scene of smoking desolation. Remembering Abraham, who was Lotâs uncle, and had him probably in mind in his importunate pleading, God delivered Lot from this awful overthrow. The Eternal is here designated by the name Elohim, the Everlasting, because in the war of elements in which the cities were overwhelmed, the eternal potencies of his nature were signally displayed.
Genesis 19:30-38
The descendants of Lot. Bewildered by the narrowness of his escape, and the awful death of his wife, Lot seems to have left Zoar, and taken to the mountain west of the Salt Sea, in terror of impending ruin. It is not improbable that all the inhabitants of Zoar, panic-struck, may have fled from the region of danger, and dispersed themselves for a time through the adjacent mountains. He was now far from the habitations of people, with his two daughters as his only companions. The manners of Sodom here obtrude themselves upon our view. Lotâs daughters might seem to have been led to this unnatural project, first, because they thought the human race extinct with the exception of themselves, in which case their conduct may have seemed a work of justifiable necessity; and next, because the degrees of kindred within which it was unlawful to marry had not been determined by an express law. But they must have seen some of the inhabitants of Zoar after the destruction of the cities; and carnal intercourse between parent and offspring must have been always repugnant to nature. âUnto this day.â This phrase indicates a variable period, from a few years to a few centuries: a few years; not more than seven, as Joshua 22:3; part of a lifetime, as Numbers 22:30; Joshua 6:25; Genesis 48:15; and some centuries, as Exodus 10:6. This passage may therefore have been written by one much earlier than Moses. Moab afterward occupied the district south of the Arnon, and east of the Salt Sea. Ammon dwelt to the northeast of Moab, where they had a capital called Rabbah. They both ultimately merged into the more general class of the Arabs, as a second Palgite element.
Clarke's Notes on the Bible
Verse Genesis 19:26. She became a pillar of salt — The vast variety of opinions, both ancient and modern, on the crime of Lot's wife, her change, and the manner in which that change was effected, are in many cases as unsatisfactory as they are ridiculous. On this point the sacred Scripture says little. God had commanded Lot and his family not to look behind them; the wife of Lot disobeyed this command; she looked back from behind him - Lot, her husband, and she became a pillar of salt. This is all the information the inspired historian has thought proper to give us on this subject; it is true the account is short, but commentators and critics have made it long enough by their laborious glosses. The opinions which are the most probable are the following:
1. "Lot's wife, by the miraculous power of God, was changed into a mass of rock salt, probably retaining the human figure."
2. "Tarrying too long in the plain, she was struck with lightning and enveloped in the bituminous and sulphuric matter which abounded in that country, and which, not being exposed afterwards to the action of the fire, resisted the air and the wet, and was thus rendered permanent."
3. "She was struck dead and consumed in the burning up of the plain; and this judgment on her disobedience being recorded, is an imperishable memorial of the fact itself, and an everlasting warning to sinners in general, and to backsliders or apostates in particular."
On these opinions it may be only necessary to state that the two first understand the text literally, and that the last considers it metaphorically. That God might in a moment convert this disobedient woman into a pillar or mass of salt, or any other substance, there can be no doubt. Or that, by continuing in the plain till the brimstone and fire descended from heaven, she might be struck dead with lightning, and indurated or petrified on the spot, is as possible. And that the account of her becoming a pillar of salt may be designed to be understood metaphorically, is also highly probable. It is certain that salt is frequently used in the Scriptures as an emblem of incorruption, durability, c. Hence a covenant of salt, Numbers 18:19, is a perpetual covenant, one that is ever to be in full force, and never broken on this ground a pillar of salt may signify no more in this case than an everlasting monument against criminal curiosity, unbelief, and disobedience.
Could we depend upon the various accounts given by different persons who pretend to have seen the wife of Lot standing in her complete human form, with all her distinctive marks about her, the difficulty would be at an end. But we cannot depend on these accounts; they are discordant, improbable, ridiculous, and often grossly absurd. Some profess to have seen her as a heap of salt; others, as a rock of salt; others, as a complete human being as to shape, proportion of parts, c., c., but only petrified. This human form, according to others, has still resident in it a miraculous continual energy break off a finger, a toe, an arm, c., it is immediately reproduced, so that though multitudes of curious persons have gone to see this woman, and every one has brought away a part of her, yet still she is found by the next comer a complete human form! To crown this absurd description, the author of the poem De Sodoma, usually attributed to Tertullian, and annexed to his works, represents her as yet instinct with a portion of animal life, which is unequivocally designated by certain signs which every month produces. I shall transcribe the whole passage and refer to my author and as I have given above the sense of the whole, my readers must excuse me from giving a more literal translation: -
_____________________et simul illic
In fragilem mutata salem, stetit ipsa
sepulchrum,
Ipsaque imago sibi, formam sine corpore servans
Durat adhuc etenim nuda statione sub aethra,
Nec pluviis dilapsa situ, nec diruta ventis.
Quinettam, si quis mutilaverit advena formam,
Protinus ex sese suggestu vulnera complet.
Dicitur et vivens alio sub corpore sexus
Munificos solito dispungere sanguine menses.
TERTULLIANI Opera, vol. ii., p. 731.
Edit. OBERTHUR.
The sentiment in the last lines is supported by Irenaeus, who assures us that, though still remaining as a pillar of salt, the statue, in form and other natural accidents, exhibits decisive proofs of its original. Jam non caro corruptibilis, sed statua salis semper manens, et, per naturalla, ea quoe sunt consuetudinis hominis ostendens, lib. iv., c. 51. To complete this absurdity, this father makes her an emblem of the true Church, which, though she suffers much, and often loses whole members, yet preserves the pillar of salt, that is, the foundation of the true faith, c. See Calmet.
Josephus says that this pillar was standing in his time, and that himself had seen it: ÎÎ¹Ï ÏÏηλην αÌλÏν μεÏεβαλεν, ιÌοÏοÏηκα δ' Î±Ï ÏηνΠεÏι Î³Î±Ï ÎºÎ±Î¹ Î½Ï Î½ διαμενει. Ant. lib. i., c. xi. 3, 4.
St. Clement, in his First Epistle to the Corinthians, chap. ii., follows Josephus, and asserts that Lot's wife was remaining even at that time as a pillar of salt.
Authors of respectability and credit who have since travelled into the Holy Land, and made it their business to inquire into this subject in the most particular and careful manner, have not been able to meet with any remains of this pillar and all accounts begin now to be confounded in the pretty general concession, both of Jews and Gentiles, that either the statue does not now remain, or that some of the heaps of salt or blocks of salt rock which are to be met with in the vicinity of the Dead Sea, may be the remains of Lot's wife! All speculations on this subject are perfectly idle and if the general prejudice in favour of the continued existence of this monument of God's justice had not been very strong, I should not have deemed myself justified in entering so much at length into the subject. Those who profess to have seen it, have in general sufficiently invalidated their own testimony by the monstrous absurdities with which they have encumbered their relations. Had Lot's wife been changed in the way that many have supposed, and had she been still preserved somewhere in the neighbourhood of the Dead Sea, surely we might expect some account of it in after parts of the Scripture history; but it is never more mentioned in the Bible, and occurs nowhere in the New Testament but in the simple reference of our Lord to the judgment itself, as a warning to the disobedient and backsliding, Luke 17:32:
Remember Lot's wife!
