1And the two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting at Sodom’s gate, and Lot saw and got up toward them, and he bowed, nose to the ground.
2And he said, “Here, my lords, turn to your servant’s house and spend the night and wash your feet, and you’ll get up early and go your way.”
And they said, “No, we’ll spend the night in the square.”
3And he pressed them very much, and they turned to him and came to his house, and he made a feast and baked unleavened bread for them, and they ate.
4They had not yet lain down, and the people of the city, the people of Sodom, surrounded the house, from youth to old man, all the people, from the farthest reaches.
5And they called to Lot and said to him, “Where are the people who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, and let’s know them!”
19:5. let’s know them. The word “know” sometimes has the meaning of sexual intimacy, as in the case of “Cain knew his wife, and she became pregnant.” That is how it is commonly understood in this passage: the people are threatening sexual abuse of the guests. This is possible, and even likely (in light of a parallel story in Judges 19). But this episode is also commonly understood to be about homosexual rape. I see no basis for this whatever. The text says that two people come to Sodom, and that all of the people of Sodom come and say, “Let’s know them.” The homosexuality interpretation apparently comes from misunderstanding the Hebrew word ’
n
šîm to mean “men,” instead of “people.”
6And Lot went out to them at the entrance and closed the door behind him,
7and he said, “Don’t do bad, my brothers.
8Here I have two daughters who haven’t known a man. Let me bring them out to you, and do to them as is good in your eyes. Only don’t do anything to these people, because that is why they came under the shadow of my roof.”
19:8. I have two daughters.... do to them as is good in your eyes. Some say that this is a matter of ancient Near Eastern hospitality: Lot as the host must do anything to protect his guests. Some say that daughters were held in low esteem in that world’s values. Ramban and others say that this shows that Lot had an evil heart. It seems to me that it is not the Near Eastern tradition of hospitality but of bargaining that accounts for what is going on here. When Abraham goes to buy a tomb for Sarah, the seller says to him, “I’ve given it to you!” (Gen 23:11). But he does not give it. Then Abraham says, “I’ve given the money” (23:13). Then the seller says, “Land worth four hundred shekels of silver: what’s that between me and you?!” (23:15) as if this were a small sum. But it is a very large sum. And Abraham pays it without another word. Interpreters have frequently noted the traditions of negotiating there: deliberate overstatement, saying things one does not mean: “gracious insincerity.” I suggest that they apply here as well. Lot is supposed to make an extraordinary gesture. He offers his own daughters. But no one is supposed to take him up on it. And then, in this horrible town, the gesture does not work anyway. The people only become angry. (In the parallel story in Judges 19, in a similar circumstance a host offers his own daughter and his guest’s concubine to the crowd. But the guest gives them the concubine. The host does not give his daughter.) For another example of these Near Eastern conventions, see the comment on Gen 33:9.
9And they said, “Come over here,” and they said, “This one comes to live, and then he judges! Now we’ll be worse to you than to them.” And they pressed the man, Lot, very much and came over to break down the door.
10And the people reached their hand out and brought Lot in to them in the house, and they closed the door.
11And they struck the people who were at the house’s entrance with blindness, from smallest to biggest, and they wearied themselves with finding the entrance.
12And the people said to Lot, “Who else do you have here—son-in-law and your sons and your daughters and all that you have in the city-take them out from the place,
13because we’re destroying this place, because its cry has grown big before YHWH’s face, and YHWH has sent us to destroy it.”
14And Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who had married his daughters, and said, “Get up, get out of this place, for YHWH is destroying the city.” And he was like a joker in his sons-in-law’s eyes.
15And as the dawn rose the angels urged Lot, saying, “Get up, take your wife and your two daughters who are present, or else you’ll be annihilated for the city’s crime.”
16And he delayed. And the people took hold of his hand and his wife’s hand and his two daughters’ hands because of YHWH’s compassion for him, and they brought him out and set him outside the city.
17And it was as they were bringing them outside, and He said, “Escape for your life. Don’t look behind you and don’t stop in all of the plain. Escape to the mountain or else you’ll be annihilated.”
18And Lot said to them, “Let it not be, my Lord.
19Here, your servant has found favor in your eyes, and you’ve magnified your kindness that you’ve done for me, keeping my soul alive, and I’m not able to escape to the mountain, in case the bad thing will cling to me and I’ll die.
20Here, this city is close to flee there, and it’s small. Let me escape there—isn’t it small?—and my soul will live.”
21And He said to him, “Here, I’ve granted you this thing, too, that I won’t overturn the city of which you spoke.
22Quickly, escape there, because I can’t do a thing until you get there.”
On account of this the city’s name was called Zoar.
19:22. Zoar. This name has the same root as the word “small,” which Lot uses twice in his plea to go there (19:20).
23The sun rose on the earth, and Lot came to Zoar.
24And YHWH rained brimstone and fire on Sodom and on Gomorrah, from YHWH out of the skies.
25And He overturned these cities and all of the plain and all of the residents of the cities and all the growth of the ground.
26And his wife looked behind him, and she was a pillar of salt!
27And Abraham got up early in the morning to the place where he had stood in YHWH’s presence,
28and he gazed at the sight of Sodom and Gomorrah and at the sight of all the land of the plain. And he saw: and, here, the smoke of the land went up like the smoke of a furnace.
29And it was, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham and let Lot go from inside the overthrow: at the overthrowing of the cities in which Lot lived.
30And Lot went up from Zoar and lived in the mountain, and his two daughters with him, because he feared to live in Zoar, and he lived in a cave, he and his two daughters.
31And the firstborn said to the younger one, “Our father is old, and there’s no man in the earth to come to us in the way of all the earth.
32Come on, let’s make our father drink wine, and let’s lie with him and make seed live from our father.”
33And they made their father drink wine in that night, and the firstborn came and lay with her father. And he did not know of her lying down and her getting up.
34And it was on the next day, and the firstborn said to the younger one, “Here, I lay with my father last night. Let’s make him drink wine tonight as well, and you come and lie with him, and we’ll make seed live from our father.”
35And they made their father drink wine in that night as well, and the younger one got up and lay with him, and he did not know of her lying down and her getting up.
36And Lot’s two daughters became pregnant by their father.
37And the firstborn gave birth to a son and called his name Moab. He is the father of Moab to this day.
38And the younger one, she too gave birth to a son and called his name ben-Ammi. He is the father of the children of Ammon to this day.
