Genesis 19

Sodom and Gomorrah Destroyed

1 The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city. When he saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground.
2 “My lords,” he said, “please turn aside to your servant’s house. You can wash your feet and spend the night and then go on your way early in the morning.” “No,” they answered, “we will spend the night in the square.”
3 But he insisted so strongly that they did go with him and entered his house. He prepared a meal for them, baking bread without yeast, and they ate.
4 Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom—both young and old—surrounded the house.
5 They called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.”
6 Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him
7 and said, “No, my friends. Don’t do this wicked thing.
8 Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don’t do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof.”
9 “Get out of our way,” they replied. “This fellow came here as a foreigner, and now he wants to play the judge! We’ll treat you worse than them.” They kept bringing pressure on Lot and moved forward to break down the door.
10 But the men inside reached out and pulled Lot back into the house and shut the door.
11 Then they struck the men who were at the door of the house, young and old, with blindness so that they could not find the door.
12 The two men said to Lot, “Do you have anyone else here—sons-in-law, sons or daughters, or anyone else in the city who belongs to you? Get them out of here,
13 because we are going to destroy this place. The outcry to the LORD against its people is so great that he has sent us to destroy it.”
14 So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were pledged to marry[a] his daughters. He said, “Hurry and get out of this place, because the LORD is about to destroy the city!” But his sons-in-law thought he was joking.
15 With the coming of dawn, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Hurry! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away when the city is punished.”
16 When he hesitated, the men grasped his hand and the hands of his wife and of his two daughters and led them safely out of the city, for the LORD was merciful to them.
17 As soon as they had brought them out, one of them said, “Flee for your lives! Don’t look back, and don’t stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away!”
18 But Lot said to them, “No, my lords,[b] please!
19 Your[c] servant has found favor in your[d] eyes, and you[e] have shown great kindness to me in sparing my life. But I can’t flee to the mountains; this disaster will overtake me, and I’ll die.
20 Look, here is a town near enough to run to, and it is small. Let me flee to it—it is very small, isn’t it? Then my life will be spared.”
21 He said to him, “Very well, I will grant this request too; I will not overthrow the town you speak of.
22 But flee there quickly, because I cannot do anything until you reach it.” (That is why the town was called Zoar.[f] )
23 By the time Lot reached Zoar, the sun had risen over the land.
24 Then the LORD rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah—from the LORD out of the heavens.
25 Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, destroying all those living in the cities—and also the vegetation in the land.
26 But Lot’s wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.
27 Early the next morning Abraham got up and returned to the place where he had stood before the LORD.
28 He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, toward all the land of the plain, and he saw dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace.
29 So when God destroyed the cities of the plain, he remembered Abraham, and he brought Lot out of the catastrophe that overthrew the cities where Lot had lived.

Lot and His Daughters

30 Lot and his two daughters left Zoar and settled in the mountains, for he was afraid to stay in Zoar. He and his two daughters lived in a cave.
31 One day the older daughter said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is no man around here to give us children—as is the custom all over the earth.
32 Let’s get our father to drink wine and then sleep with him and preserve our family line through our father.”
33 That night they got their father to drink wine, and the older daughter went in and slept with him. He was not aware of it when she lay down or when she got up.
34 The next day the older daughter said to the younger, “Last night I slept with my father. Let’s get him to drink wine again tonight, and you go in and sleep with him so we can preserve our family line through our father.”
35 So they got their father to drink wine that night also, and the younger daughter went in and slept with him. Again he was not aware of it when she lay down or when she got up.
36 So both of Lot’s daughters became pregnant by their father.
37 The older daughter had a son, and she named him Moab[g] ; he is the father of the Moabites of today.
38 The younger daughter also had a son, and she named him Ben-Ammi[h] ; he is the father of the Ammonites[i] of today.

Genesis 19 Commentary

Chapter 19

The destruction of Sodom, and the deliverance of Lot. (1-29) The sin and disgrace of Lot. (30-38)

Verses 1-29 Lot was good, but there was not one more of the same character in the city. All the people of Sodom were very wicked and vile. Care was therefore taken for saving Lot and his family. Lot lingered; he trifled. Thus many who are under convictions about their spiritual state, and the necessity of a change, defer that needful work. The salvation of the most righteous men is of God's mercy, not by their own merit. We are saved by grace. God's power also must be acknowledged in bringing souls out of a sinful state If God had not been merciful to us, our lingering had been our ruin. Lot must flee for his life. He must not hanker after Sodom. Such commands as these are given to those who, through grace, are delivered out of a sinful state and condition. Return not to sin and Satan. Rest not in self and the world. Reach toward Christ and heaven, for that is escaping to the mountain, short of which we must not stop. Concerning this destruction, observe that it is a revelation of the wrath of God against sin and sinners of all ages. Let us learn from hence the evil of sin, and its hurtful nature; it leads to ruin.

Verses 30-38 See the peril of security. Lot, who kept chaste in Sodom, and was a mourner for the wickedness of the place, and a witness against it, when in the mountain, alone, and, as he thought, out of the way of temptation, is shamefully overtaken. Let him that thinks he stands high, and stands firm, take heed lest he fall. See the peril of drunkenness; it is not only a great sin itself, but lets in many sins, which bring a lasting wound and dishonour. Many a man does that, when he is drunk, which, when he is sober, he could not think of without horror. See also the peril of temptation, even from relations and friends, whom we love and esteem, and expect kindness from. We must dread a snare, wherever we are, and be always upon our guard. No excuse can be made for the daughters, nor for Lot. Scarcely any account can be given of the affair but this, The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? From the silence of the Scripture concerning Lot henceforward, learn that drunkenness, as it makes men forgetful, so it makes them to be forgotten.

Cross References 65

  • 1. S Genesis 18:2; Hebrews 13:2
  • 2. Genesis 18:22
  • 3. S Genesis 11:27
  • 4. S Genesis 18:1
  • 5. S Genesis 17:3; Genesis 48:12; Ruth 2:10; 1 Samuel 25:23; 2 Samuel 14:33; 2 Kings 2:15
  • 6. S Genesis 18:4; Luke 7:44
  • 7. Judges 19:15,20
  • 8. Genesis 33:11
  • 9. Job 31:32
  • 10. Exodus 12:39
  • 11. S Genesis 18:6
  • 12. S Genesis 13:13
  • 13. S Genesis 13:13; Leviticus 18:22; Deuteronomy 23:18; Judges 19:22; Isaiah 3:9; Romans 1:24-27
  • 14. Judges 19:23
  • 15. Judges 19:24; 2 Peter 2:7-8
  • 16. Genesis 23:4
  • 17. S Genesis 13:8; Exodus 2:14; Acts 7:27
  • 18. S Genesis 18:2
  • 19. Deuteronomy 28:28-29; 2 Kings 6:18; Acts 13:11
  • 20. S Genesis 6:18; Genesis 7:1
  • 21. Exodus 12:29; 2 Samuel 24:16; 2 Kings 19:35; 1 Chronicles 21:12; 2 Chronicles 32:21
  • 22. Genesis 18:20
  • 23. 1 Chronicles 21:15; Psalms 78:49; Jeremiah 21:12; Jeremiah 25:18; Jeremiah 44:22; Jeremiah 51:45
  • 24. Numbers 16:21; Revelation 18:4
  • 25. Exodus 9:21; 1 Kings 13:18; Jeremiah 5:12; Jeremiah 43:2; Luke 17:28
  • 26. Numbers 16:26; Job 21:18; Psalms 58:9; Psalms 73:19; Psalms 90:5
  • 27. Revelation 18:4
  • 28. 2 Peter 2:7
  • 29. Exodus 34:6; Psalms 33:18-19
  • 30. 1 Kings 19:3; Jeremiah 48:6
  • 31. ver 26
  • 32. S Genesis 13:12
  • 33. S ver 19; S Genesis 14:10; Matthew 24:16
  • 34. S Genesis 6:8; S Genesis 18:3
  • 35. Genesis 24:12; Genesis 39:21; Genesis 40:14; Genesis 47:29; Ruth 1:8; Ruth 2:20; Ruth 3:10
  • 36. S ver 17,30
  • 37. 1 Samuel 25:35; 2 Samuel 14:8; Job 42:9
  • 38. S Genesis 13:10
  • 39. S Genesis 13:10
  • 40. Job 18:15; Psalms 11:6; Isaiah 30:33; Isaiah 34:9; Ezekiel 38:22
  • 41. Deuteronomy 29:23; Isaiah 1:9; Isaiah 13:19; Jeremiah 49:18; Jeremiah 50:40; Amos 4:11
  • 42. S Genesis 18:17; S Leviticus 10:2; S Matthew 10:15; Luke 17:29; 2 Peter 2:6; Jude 7
  • 43. S ver 24; Ezekiel 26:16; Zephaniah 3:8; Haggai 2:22
  • 44. S Genesis 13:12
  • 45. Psalms 107:34; Isaiah 1:10; Jeremiah 20:16; Jeremiah 23:14; Lamentations 4:6; Ezekiel 16:48
  • 46. S ver 17
  • 47. Luke 17:32
  • 48. Genesis 18:22
  • 49. Genesis 15:17; Exodus 19:18; Revelation 9:2; Revelation 18:9
  • 50. S Genesis 13:12
  • 51. S Genesis 8:1
  • 52. 2 Peter 2:7
  • 53. Genesis 14:12; Ezekiel 14:16
  • 54. ver 22; S Genesis 13:10
  • 55. S ver 19; S Genesis 14:10
  • 56. S Genesis 16:2
  • 57. ver 34,36; Genesis 38:18
  • 58. ver 35
  • 59. S ver 32
  • 60. Genesis 9:21
  • 61. ver 33
  • 62. S ver 32
  • 63. Genesis 36:35; Exodus 15:15; Numbers 25:1; Isaiah 15:1; Isaiah 25:10; Jeremiah 25:21; Jeremiah 48:1; Ezekiel 25:8; Zephaniah 2:9
  • 64. Numbers 22:4; Numbers 24:17; Deuteronomy 2:9; Judges 3:28; Ruth 1:4,22; 1 Samuel 14:47; 1 Samuel 22:3-4; 2 Samuel 8:2; 2 Kings 1:1; 2 Kings 3:4; Ezra 9:1; Psalms 108:9; Jeremiah 48:1
  • 65. Numbers 21:24; Deuteronomy 2:19; Deuteronomy 23:3; Joshua 12:2; Judges 3:13; Judges 10:6,7; 1 Samuel 11:1-11; 1 Samuel 14:47; 1 Chronicles 19:1; 2 Chronicles 20:23; 2 Chronicles 26:8; 2 Chronicles 27:5; Nehemiah 2:19; Nehemiah 4:3; Ezekiel 25:21">Jer Ezekiel 25:21; Jeremiah 40:14; Jeremiah 49:1; Ezekiel 21:28; Ezekiel 25:2; Amos 1:13

Footnotes 9

  • [a]. Or "were married to"
  • [b]. Or "No, Lord" ; or "No, my lord"
  • [c]. The Hebrew is singular.
  • [d]. The Hebrew is singular.
  • [e]. The Hebrew is singular.
  • [f]. "Zoar" means "small."
  • [g]. "Moab" sounds like the Hebrew for "from father."
  • [h]. "Ben-Ammi" means "son of my father’s people."
  • [i]. Hebrew "Bene-Ammon"

Chapter Summary

INTRODUCTION TO GENESIS 19

The contents of this chapter are Lot's entertainment of two angels that came to Sodom, Ge 19:1-3; the rude behaviour of the men of Sodom towards them, who for it were smote with blindness, Ge 19:4-11; the deliverance of Lot, his wife and two daughters, by means of the angels he entertained, Ge 19:12-17; the sparing of the city of Zoar at the entreaty of Lot, to which he was allowed to flee, Ge 19:18-22; the burning of Sodom and Gomorrah, Ge 19:23-25; Lot's wife turned into a pillar of salt for looking back, Ge 19:26; Abraham's view of the conflagration of the cities, Ge 19:28,29; Lot's betaking himself to a mountain, and dwelling in a cave with his two daughters, by whom he had two sons, the one called Moab, and the other Benammi, Ge 19:30-38.

Genesis 19 Commentaries

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