CHAPTER 19 Jan. 10 
Two Angels and Lot Confront the Wicked Sodomites
The two angels came to Sodom at evening. Lot sat in the gate of Sodom. Lot saw them, and rose up to meet them. He bowed himself with his face to the earth, 2and he said, See now, my lords, please turn aside into your servant’s house, stay all night, wash your feet, and you can rise up early, and go on your way. They said, No, but we will stay in the street all night. 3He urged them greatly, and they came in with him, and entered into his house. He made them a feast, and baked unleavened bread, and they ate. 4But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, surrounded the house, both young and old, all the people from every quarter. 5They called to Lot, and said to him, Where are the men who came in to you this night? Bring them out to us, that we may have sex with them. 6Lot went out to them to the door, and shut the door after him. 7He said, Please, my brothers, don’t act so wickedly. 8See now, I have two virgin daughters. Please let me bring them out to you, and you may do to them what seems good to you. Only don’t do anything to these men, because they have come under the shadow of my roof. 9They said, Stand back! Then they said, This one fellow came in to live as a foreigner, and he appoints himself a judge. Now will we deal worse with you, than with them! They pressed hard on the man Lot, and drew near in order to break the door. 10But the men reached out their hand, and brought Lot into the house to them, and shut the door. 11They struck the men who were at the door of the house with blindness, both small and great, so that they wearied themselves to find the door. 
Lot Abandons Doomed Sodom
12The men said to Lot, Do you have anybody else here? Sons-in-law, your sons, your daughters, and whoever you have in the city, bring them out of the place: 13for we will destroy this place, because the outcry against them has grown so great before Yahweh that Yahweh has sent us to destroy it. 14Lot went out, and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were pledged to marry his daughters, and said, Get up! Get out of this place, for Yahweh will destroy the city. But he seemed to his sons-in-law to be joking. 15When the morning came, then the angels hurried Lot, saying, Get up! Take your wife, and your two daughters who are here, lest you be consumed in the sin of the city. 16But he lingered; and the men grabbed his hand, his wife’s hand, and his two daughters’ hands, Yahweh being merciful to him; and they took him out, and set him outside of the city. 17It came to pass, when they had taken them out, that one of them said, Escape for your life! Don’t look behind you, and don’t stay anywhere in the plain. Escape to the mountains, lest you be consumed! 18Lot said to them, Oh, not so, my lord. 19See now, your servant has found favour in your sight, and you have magnified your grace, which you have shown to me in saving my life. I can’t escape to the mountain, lest evil pursue me there, and I die. 20See now, this city is near to flee to, and it is a little one. Oh let me escape there (isn’t it a little one?), and my soul will live. 21He said to him, Behold, I have granted your request concerning this thing also, that I will not overthrow the city of which you have spoken. 22Hurry, escape there, for I can’t do anything until you get there. Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar. 23The sun had risen on the earth when Lot came to Zoar. 
The Destruction of Sodom
24Then Yahweh rained on Sodom and on Gomorrah sulphur and fire from Yahweh out of the sky. 25He overthrew those cities, all the plain, all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew on the ground. 26But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt. 27Abraham got up early in the morning to the place where he had stood before Yahweh. 28He looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and looked, and saw that the smoke of the land went up as the smoke of a furnace. 29It happened, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the middle of the overthrow, when He overthrew the cities in which Lot lived.  
The Birth of Moab and Ammon 
30Lot went up out of Zoar and lived in the mountain, and his two daughters with him; for he was afraid to live in Zoar. He lived in a cave with his two daughters. 31The firstborn said to the younger, Our father is old, and there is not a man in the earth to come in to us in the way of all the earth. 32Come, let’s make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve our father’s seed. 33They made their father drink wine that night: and the firstborn went in, and lay with her father. He didn’t know when she lay down, nor when she arose. 34It came to pass on the next day, that the firstborn said to the younger, Behold, I lay last night with my father. Let us make him drink wine again tonight. You go in, and lie with him, that we may preserve our father’s seed. 35They made their father drink wine that night also. The younger went and lay with him. He didn’t know when she lay down, nor when she got up. 36Thus both of Lot’s daughters were with child by their father. 37The firstborn bore a son, and named him Moab. He is the father of the Moabites to this day. 38The younger also bore a son, and called his name Ben Ammi. He is the father of the children of Ammon to this day.

Commentary

19:3 The Angels who visited Lot in Sodom wanted initially to lodge in the street, but they were persuaded by Lot to change their plans. And who is to say that to some extent this isn’t possible today, too?
19:14 Lot’s sons in law “were to marry” his daughters. Christ perceived that they were marrying and giving in marriage the very day the flood came, and He pointed out the similarities with the Sodom situation (Lk. 17:27-29). Perhaps the very day of the double wedding, they had to leave? With all the build up to the wedding, Lot and his wife would so wanted to have stayed just another day to see the wedding of their two daughters. It is to the girls credit that they both left. But Lot’s wife had invested so much in it emotionally that she just had to look back. 
19:26 This suggests the picture of the wife following behind Lot, filled with remorse at the loss of all she had held dear. Lk. 17:29-33 comments concerning not desiring our “stuff which is in the house” in the day of Christ’s coming: “Remember Lot's wife. Whosoever (like her) shall seek (Greek: 'plot') to save his life shall lose it”. We can infer from this that she plotted and schemed how to save her possessions- i.e. her 'life', seeing that for her, her life did consist of the abundance of the things which she possessed (Lk.12:15). These feelings grew so strong that she paused to take a loving, wistful look at the city. The fire only fell after Lot was in Zoar; therefore the city was looking as it normally did. She was walking “behind him”, so Lot would not have actually seen her turn into a pillar of salt. As he ceased to hear her footsteps behind him he must have guessed what had happened- but now the Angel's words seemed more vital to him: “Don’t look behind you”. Sodom was turned into an area of salt (Dt.29:23; Zeph.2:9); as Sodom was turned into salt by fire, so Lot's wife suffered the same punishment through a bolt of fire striking her and turning her too into salt. The unworthy of the last day will suffer the same punishment as the surrounding world which they failed to truly leave.
19:29 The prayers and loving spiritual concern of the faithful really can have an effect on the salvation of our weaker brethren. Abraham's prayer that Sodom would be saved if ten righteous were found there was unanswered; but God knew the real spirit of his prayer, that Lot should be saved, and that God's justice should be upheld in not destroying the righteous with the wicked. It was this which God recognized and answered, even though Abraham had not specifically verbalized those thoughts in prayer. Our true spiritual love for our brethren will likewise be heard in these last days.