“But he lingered. So the men seized him and his wife and his two daughters by the hand, the LORD being merciful to him, and they brought him out and set him outside the city” (Genesis 19:16 ESV).
There are some characters in the Bible that I just don’t understand. Abraham’s nephew, Lot, is one of them. Lot had made a name for himself in Sodom. He accumulated both wealth and prestige sufficient to hold a position of honor at the city gate. He had a wife whom he spoiled with the treasures of a culture rich in inventions and beauty from its location in the fertile plains north of the Dead Sea. He had two daughters, both of whom he betrothed to influential men of the city, further securing his leadership.
Lot understood that his city was corrupt, especially in light of the word of Yᵊhōvâ ( יְהֹוָה), whose holiness could not look at such rebellion and sin. Something in his relationship with Abraham stuck, even though it had been years since Lot chose for himself the best land, leaving his uncle with the wilder lands 35 miles to the west. Even then, Lot demonstrated that he was a man of weak morals, more interested in position than God’s blessing.
Lot knew enough to recognize angelic strangers as they came into town. He must have had some residual fear of the Lord in him, because he insisted that the visitors stay in his home, away from the city square where darkness ruled in every possible way. He prepared a feast for them, and made them comfortable. However, the safety of his house would not deter the evil men of Sodom, who surrounded the building and pounded on the door, demanding that the visitors be released to them for sex (Genesis 19:5). Unwilling to risk offending God, Lot offered his daughters to the riotous crowd. The men, not to be denied, reminded Lot that he was an alien in their midst and that he had no right or authority to judge them. As they attempted to break down the doors to rape and murder, the angelic visitors pulled Lot into the house and then struck the men outside with blindness.
At this point, Lot clearly lacks any noble qualities. He enjoyed his position of wealth and power, relying on his reputation to protect his guests. But reputation is meaningless to a mob. Instead of calling on the Lord for protection, he offered his virgin daughters to the rapists, somehow imagining that the men would be satisfied with such easy prey. When the angels pulled Lot back into the house before he could do any more foolish things, they warned him to get his family out of town before morning before the Lord destroyed the city and everything in it. Lot’s future sons-in-law (whose betrotheds had just been offered as tribute to the vile men of the town), thought he was kidding. By daybreak, Lot was still hanging around his house, undecided what to do. Not only did Lot lack any noble qualities, but also any kind of sense, common or otherwise.
Now, if I’m running the world, I’m about done with Lot and the whole family. Foolish, short-sighted people whose god was their ego and whose corruption was thorough. God, however, is not like me (amen and amen). Instead of leaving Lot disgustedly, as I probably would have done, the angels seized Lot, his wife, and their two daughters and pulled them, unwillingly, to the edge of the city and told them to run for it without looking back.
Lot still argued about how far to go, and the angels relented enough to save a small town front he wrath that was about to unleash on Sodom and Gomorrah. As they fled, a cosmic burst of energy hotter than 3,600 degrees Fahrenheit and 1000 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, unleashed total annihilation on the region. Lot’s wife, still hoping to go home again, looked back and became a pillar of salt. (That the cities were near the Dead Sea explains why salt.) Historically, there is a significant gap between the Bronze Age and the Iron age in the region, and soil samples hint at nothing less than a meteorite explosion over the cities, leaving devastation in its wake.
Why did the angels force Lot and his family to leave? Why didn’t they leave him to what seems like a just end for his disobedience and corruption? Genesis 19:16 explains that it was God’s mercy. Nothing more. That they angels had to seize (ḥāzaq: חָזַק) Lot and his family by force juxtaposes God’s goodness and mercy with our stubborn sinful natures. It’s a reminder that our acts of righteousness, our good works, our positions in the local church, and the extent of our ministry is nothing compared to God’s holiness. Paul reminded Titus of this when he wrote,
For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God, our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, but the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life (Titus 3. 3-7. ESV)
Sometimes God has to remind us who is in control, and whose sovereign mercy alone allows us to live as we do. I imagine Lot felt annoyed, frustrated, and punished when the angels seized him. It wasn’t a gentle taking of the hand but rather a firm grasp more like an arrest than anything else. Where was God? Why was everything being taken away from him? Don’t we argue with God when we find ourselves going somewhere we neither sought nor expected? As stubborn as Lot, we whine and hedge about obedience, and so God, rich in mercy, seizes us by the hands and puts us where we need to be. It’s easy for us to think that God isn’t answering our prayers or that he is punishing us. We aren’t so different from Lot, especially those of us in the US or other Western countries where living is relatively easy. When God moves us in spite of our protestations, it is not punishment, but mercy. It is mercy from his goodness and his love.
Resources
Genesis 13-19. The ESV Study Bible: English Standard Version. Crossway Bibles, 2008.
Lesmeister, Nic. “Where Was Sodom & Gomorrah?” Center for Israel Advocacy and Education, https://centerforisrael.com/article/where-was-sodom-gomorrah/.
University of California – Santa Barbara. “Sodom and Gomorrah: Evidence That a Cosmic Impact Destroyed a Biblical City in the Jordan Valley.” SciTechDaily, 20 Sept. 2021, https://scitechdaily.com/sodom-and-gomorrah-evidence-that-a-cosmic-impact-destroyed-a-biblical-city-in-the-jordan-valley/.
Defaulting to Grace 