Genesis
Chapter 19
The Sin of Sodom
When the two angels reached Sodom in the evening, Lot was sitting at the town gate. As soon as he saw them, he rose to meet them and bowed with his face to the ground.
He said:
“My lords, I pray you come to your servant’s house to stay the night. Wash your feet, and then in the morning, you may rise early and go on your way.”
They said:
“No, we will spend the night in the square.”
But so strongly did he insist that they went with him to his house; he prepared a meal for them, baking bread without yeast. This they ate.
They had not yet gone to bed when men from the town surrounded the house; they were the men of Sodom, both young and old, the entire population.
They called Lot and asked him:
“Where are the men who arrived tonight? Send them out so that we may have sex with them.”
Lot went out to meet them, shut the door behind him, and said:
“I beg you, my brothers, don’t do such a wicked thing.
I have two daughters who are still virgins; let me bring them out to you; you may do with them as you please, but don’t do anything to these men, for they have come to shelter under my roof.”
But they replied:
“Get out of the way! This fellow is a foreigner, and he wants to play the judge! Now, we will do worse with you than with them.”
They pressed hard against Lot and drew near to break the door.
But the visitors inside the house stretched out their hands to bring Lot inside and then shut the door.
As for those at the entrance to the house, they were struck with blindness, from the smallest to the largest, so they could not find the door.
Deliverance of Lot
The visitors asked Lot, “Who is still here with you? Your sons-in-law? Get them out of the place: your sons, your daughters, and all your townspeople. We are about to destroy this place.
The cry for retribution against it is great before the LORD who has sent us to destroy it.”
Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were to marry his daughters, saying:
“Hurry, leave, for the LORD is about to destroy the town.”
But they took what he said as a joke.
At daybreak, the angels urged Lot, saying:
“Hurry! Take your wife and two daughters who are here, lest they perish because of the sin of the town.”
As he hesitated, the men took him by the hand along with his wife and two daughters with him because the LORD had mercy on him. They led him outside the town.
When they were outside, the visitors said to him:
“Flee for your life, don’t look back, and don’t stop anywhere in the plain. Flee to the mountain lest you perish.”
But Lot replied:
“My lords, your servant has found favor with you,
and you have shown me great kindness in saving my life. However, I cannot flee to the mountains for fear that the disaster will overtake me and I will die. Look, there is a town nearby that I can escape to, and it’s a small one.
Let me flee there; it is very small (that is why the town is called Zoar). Then I will be safe.”
And the angel answered:
“I grant you this favor by not destroying the town you speak of.
But flee quickly, for I can do nothing until you arrive there.” Therefore, the city was called Zoar.
Punishment of Sodom and Gomorrah
The sun had risen over the earth when Lot arrived in Zoar.
Then the LORD rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah from the heavens,
and he utterly destroyed those cities, as well as all the valley, the inhabitants of the towns, and everything that grew there.
Lot’s wife looked back and turned into a pillar of salt.
Early the next morning, Abraham returned to the place where he had stood before the LORD.
He looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah and all the land of the valley, and he saw smoke rising from the earth like the smoke from a furnace.
So when God destroyed the towns of the plain, he remembered Abraham and allowed Lot to escape from the catastrophe while he annihilated the cities where Lot had lived.
Lot’s Daughters: Origin of the Moabites and Ammonites
Lot went up from Zoar and lived in the hills with his two daughters because he was afraid to stay in Zoar. He lived in a cave with them.
The elder said to the younger:
“Our father is old, and there is not a man in the country to lie with us as is the custom all over the world.
Come, let us make our father drunk with wine; we shall lie with him and ensure the race survives through our father.”
So they made their father drink wine that night, and the elder went to lie with her father. He knew nothing of it, neither when she lay down nor when she left.
The next day, the elder daughter said to the younger:
“Last night, I lay with my father. Let us give him wine again tonight and you go and lie with him. In this way, we shall continue the race through our father.”
Again that night, they got their father to drink wine. The younger went and lay with him. He knew nothing, neither when she lay with him nor when she left.
And the two daughters of Lot became pregnant by their father.
The elder gave birth to a son and named him Moab. He was the ancestor of the Moabites who live today.
The younger also gave birth to a son and named him Ammon. He is the ancestor of the Ammonites who exist to this day.
Commentaries
The Sin of Sodom.
This situation is similar to that of Chapter 18. The two angels of the Lord enter the city, and at Lot’s insistence, they stay in his house. The story describes the nature of Sodom’s sin: sexual perversion (5) and the violation of the precept/law of hospitality (4.9-10a). Verse 8 highlights the extent to which the obligation to protect the life of a guest is sacred: Lot proposes to hand over his daughters to the aggressors rather than allow the outrage against those who had taken shelter under his roof.
Deliverance of Lot.
The punishment of Sodom is imminent. Only Lot, because of his kinship with Abraham, the bearer of the divine blessing, along with his family, is spared from the punishment.
Punishment of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Once Lot and his family are safe, Sodom and Gomorrah are destroyed by brimstone and fire. The details of this story attempt to “explain” the origin of a phenomenon of which there is no “certain” knowledge. The setting of the story is indeed extremely arid and desert-like. We are near the Dead Sea, in the far southern region of the desert of Judah. No grass grows there, there is no life, and the heat is unbearable. The imagination of the ancients generated this legend and enriched it with characters related to the ancestors of the people: Abraham, Lot, and his family. However, the story also serves a pedagogical purpose. It presents a moral judgment made by the community against two infractions considered serious: sexual perversion, whose favorable legislation is found in Leviticus 18:22; 20:13; Deuteronomy 23:18f, and the neglect of the protection of the life of the emigrant or foreigner who must be respected and loved (Lv 19:33f; 24:22; cf. Dt 10:18f, etc.).
Lot’s Daughters: Origin of the Moabites and Ammonites.
This story seeks to explain Israel’s relations with its neighbors, Moab and Ammon, who are somewhat distant relatives but ultimately enemies (cf. Nm 22-24; Jgs 3:12-14,26-30; 10:6-11:33 and prophetic oracles). Relations with these groups were never cordial. Reciprocal hostility and mutual hatred account for their cursed origin from the outset: the conception of their ancestors is marked by deception, falsehood, and incest. The biblical legislation on incest is found in Leviticus 18:6-17.