Genesis 19:20

The night before had shown what Sodom was. The men of the city had surrounded Lot’s house and demanded his two guests, and the guests, who were angels, had struck the crowd with blindness (Genesis 19:4–11). They then told Lot why they had come: the LORD had sent them to destroy the place (Genesis 19:12–13). Verse 15 opens as that night ends. “When the morning arose” marks the end of the night’s reprieve, and the angels “hastened” Lot. The verb is ʼûwts, to press or urge, which tells us that Lot was slow and that the angels were pushing him to move. Their words are short commands, “Arise, take thy wife, and thy two daughters, which are here”, and they name exactly who is to come.

The reason follows: “lest thou be consumed in the iniquity of the city.” “Consumed” is çâphâh, to scrape away, and so to be swept away or to perish. “Iniquity” is ʻâvôn, a word for perversity and moral evil that can also mean the punishment such evil brings. Anyone who stays inside Sodom will share in what Sodom’s guilt has earned. Scripture gives the same call to God’s people in later days. Paul tells believers to come out from among unbelievers and be separate (2 Corinthians 6:17), and a voice from heaven says of Babylon, “Come out of her, my people” (Revelation 18:4).

“And while he lingered” is one of the most honest lines in the story. The verb mâhahh means to hesitate or delay. Lot has seen the mob, has heard the warning and has been told to get up, and he is still in Sodom.

The angels, here called “the men”, answer his delay by taking hold of him. “Laid hold” is châzaq, to seize or hold fast, a word built on the idea of strength. They take Lot’s hand, his wife’s hand and the hands of his two daughters, bring them out and set them “without the city”. Between the seizing and the bringing out, the verse stops to give the reason: “the LORD being merciful unto him.” The noun is chemlâh, pity or compassion. Lot’s rescue is credited wholly to God’s pity for a man who was still delaying.

Behind that pity stands Abraham. He had pleaded with the LORD for the righteous in Sodom (Genesis 18:23–33), and when the cities were destroyed, God remembered Abraham and sent Lot out of the overthrow (Genesis 19:29). God had promised that blessing would flow through Abraham to others (Genesis 12:3), and Lot is among the first to receive it. This is how God’s mercy works throughout Scripture. He set his love on Israel because he loved them and was keeping his oath, and their size had nothing to do with it (Deuteronomy 7:7–8). He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion” (Romans 9:15–16).

Once the family is outside the city, one of the angels speaks, and verse 17 gives his orders in quick succession. “Escape for thy life” uses mâlaṭ, to escape or be delivered. “Look not behind thee” uses nâbaṭ, the ordinary verb for looking, with ʼachar, “behind”. “Neither stay thou in all the plain” closes off every halfway stopping place, because the whole plain lies under the coming judgment. “Escape to the mountain” names the refuge. The word is har, a mountain or range of hills, high ground set over against the low plain that is about to be destroyed. Scripture often makes the mountains a place of refuge, as in the Lord’s later word, “let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains.” The warning that closes the verse, “lest thou be consumed”, shares its English word with the warning of verse 15.

Lot’s reply fills three verses, and it begins with a plea: “Oh, not so, my Lord.” The Hebrew behind “Oh, not so” is al-na, the language of earnest entreaty. “Lord” is ʼâdôwn, master or sovereign, a title that could be given to a human superior and that here acknowledges the authority of the ones who have rescued him. The verb that introduces the speech, ʼâmar, is the plain word for saying. So Lot (Lôwṭ) honours his deliverer as lord and in the same breath asks him to alter the command.

He starts with thanks, and the thanks are sound. “Thy servant hath found grace in thy sight” joins mâtsâʼ, to find, with chên, favour. “Thou hast magnified thy mercy” uses gâdal, to make great, and cheçed, kindness, the word Scripture uses for the LORD’s faithful love. “In saving my life” joins châyâh, to live or keep alive, with nephesh, the word for a living being, a life or a self. Lot knows that he is alive only because God has been very kind to him.

Then fear takes over. “I cannot escape to the mountain” puts yâkôl, to be able, beside the angel’s own verb mâlaṭ, and “lest some evil take me, and I die” uses raʻ, evil or harm, and mûwth, to die. The mountain meant open, unfamiliar country, with whatever wild beasts, weather or robbers it might hold. The man who has just thanked God for saving his life is afraid that the road God has chosen will kill him. Peter walked on the water toward Jesus, saw the wind, grew afraid and began to sink, and Jesus caught him and asked why he doubted (Matthew 14:30–31). Lot’s fear is of the same kind. Abraham stands on the other side: he obeyed and went out with no knowledge of where he was going (Hebrews 11:8).

Lot’s proposal follows in verse 20. A town is “near to flee unto”, and it is “a little one”, mitsʻâr, a small or insignificant thing. The phrase “a little one” comes twice in verse 20, the second time as a question that expects the answer yes. His reasoning is that so small a place is a small thing to spare. “And my soul shall live” brings back nephesh and châyâh from the verse before. Staying alive is all he asks.

The request was fearful and second-best, and the story bears that out. Lot was afterwards afraid to remain in Zoar, and he went up to the mountain after all and lived in a cave (Genesis 19:30).

The answer is pure kindness. “See” is hinnêh, “behold”, calling attention to what follows. “I have accepted thee” uses nâsâʼ, to lift, in the Hebrew expression for lifting up someone’s face, which means receiving him with favour. “Concerning this thing also” uses dâbâr, a word that means both “word” and “matter”. The “also” matters: this is a further favour added to the rescue Lot has already received. “I will not overthrow this city” uses hâphak, to turn over or overturn, the verb for what is about to happen to the cities of the plain. “For the which thou hast spoken” uses dâbar, to speak. The town is spared because Lot spoke for it, and the town itself had no goodness to plead.

The messenger speaks here with God’s own authority, and what he says shows who God is. The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and plenteous in mercy (Psalm 103:8). He will not break a bruised reed (Isaiah 42:3). “The LORD is nigh unto all them that call upon him, to all that call upon him in truth” (Psalm 145:18). Lot’s prayer was frightened and concerned with his own survival, and God heard it. That gives weight to Paul’s counsel to bring every request to God with thanksgiving (Philippians 4:6–7) and to James’s word that “the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much” (James 5:16).

Verse 23 is brief and exact. “Sun” is shemesh. “Was risen” is yâtsâʼ, to go or come out, so the sun had come out over the earth. “Entered” is bôwʼ, to go or come in. The angels began to hurry Lot at first light, and by full sunrise he is inside the town.

The timing is the point of the verse. The condition the angel gave in verse 22 has now been met, and the very next verse brings the fire. Sunrise usually speaks of a new beginning, and that morning it was the last hour of the cities of the plain. God had every moment in hand, and he placed the deliverance of his own ahead of the judgment.

Lot’s escape from a burning city is a small picture of a greater deliverance. John the Baptist spoke of people warned “to flee from the wrath to come” (Matthew 3:7), and Paul says that Jesus is the one who delivers us from it (1 Thessalonians 1:10). The wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23), and God so loved the world that he gave his Son, so that whoever believes in him is not condemned (John 3:16–18). Jesus is the way (John 14:6), the refuge to which we flee to lay hold on the hope set before us (Hebrews 6:18), and “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).

The mercy is of the same kind as Lot’s, and it runs deeper. The angels took hold of a lingering man, and “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us”, so that we are saved from wrath through him (Romans 5:8–9). Salvation is by grace through faith, the gift of God (Ephesians 2:8–9). Where Lot bargained for an easier road, Christ was obedient to death, even the death of the cross (Philippians 2:8). Where Lot’s frightened plea spared one small town, Christ lives for ever to intercede for those who come to God by him (Hebrews 7:25). There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1–2). His own summons carries the angels’ urgency: “repent ye, and believe the gospel” (Mark 1:15).

Zoar sheltered Lot for a short while. The refuge Christ gives is lasting. The name of the LORD is a strong tower, and the righteous run into it and are safe (Proverbs 18:10). God is our refuge and strength (Psalm 46:1), the fortress of the one who dwells in the secret place of the most High (Psalm 91:1–2). Jesus calls the weary to himself for rest (Matthew 11:28–30), gives life abundantly (John 10:10), prepares a place for his own (John 14:2–3) and brings them to “the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem” (Hebrews 12:22).

Most of us know Lot from the inside. He believed the warning and still lingered. He thanked God for his life and still feared the road God chose for him. The passage is honest about that weakness, and it is just as clear that the weakness of the one being saved was never what the rescue rested on. It rested on “the LORD being merciful unto him.”

So these verses give us good reason for both soberness and comfort. The warning was real, the plain was destroyed that same morning, and Jesus tells us to remember the one who looked back. God’s patience with a sinful world has the purpose Peter names: he is longsuffering, and he wills that people come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9). And the same God who judges Sodom takes a hesitant family by the hand, listens to a frightened and imperfect prayer, and holds back the fire until the last of his own is safely inside. If you belong to him, you are held by that same mercy, and it is stronger than your delays.