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19 So the two messengers arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting at the city gate. When Lot saw them, he got up to meet them and knelt down in front of them with his face to the ground. 2 Then he said, “Listen, my masters: Come with me to your slave’s home and wash your feet and stay the night. Then you can get up early and continue on your way.”
But they said, “No, rather we’ll just spend the night in the street.” 3 However, Lot insisted, so they followed him off the main road and went into his house. Then he prepared a feast for them and baked unleavened bread, and they ate.
4 However, before they went to bed, the men of Sodom surrounded the house—there were young and old from all parts of the city—5 and they called out to Lot, “Where are the men who came to your place tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can ‘use’ them.”[ref]
6 So Lot went out to them at the entrance of the house and shut the door behind him 7 and said, “My brothers, don’t do this evil. 8 Listen, I’ve got two virgin daughters. Please let me bring them out to you and you can treat them however you like. But don’t do anything to these men, because they’ve entered my house and so I’m responsible for them.”
9 But they insisted, “Stand back!” Then they said to each other, “This guy came to stay with us, and now he’s judging us. We’ll treat you worse than them!” Then they started pushing hard against Lot and came closer to break down the door. 10 But the two visitors reached out their hands and pulled Lot into the house and shut the door again. 11 Then they struck the men who were at the entrance of the house with blindness—all of them from the lowly to the prominent men—so that they gave up trying to find the door.[ref]
12 Then the men said to Lot, “Who else belongs to you here, a son-in-law or your sons or your daughters or anyone else who belongs to you in the city? Take them out from this place, 13 because we’re about to destroy it. The people have repeatedly cried out to Yahweh, so he’s sent us to destroy the city.”
14 Then Lot went out and spoke to his future sons-in-law who were engaged to his daughters, and he told them, “Hurry, get out of this place, because Yahweh is going to destroy the city!” But they thought he was just joking.
15 At dawn the next day, the two messengers urged Lot, saying, “Get up, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, so that all of you won’t be swept away in the punishment of the city.” 16 When Lot hesitated, because of Yahweh’s mercy for him, the men grabbed his hand and his wife’s hand and the hands of their daughters, and led them out beyond the edge of the city.[ref] 17 At that point one of them told Lot, “Flee for your lives! Don’t turn around and look behind you and don’t stop anywhere down in the plain. Escape up to the hills so you don’t get swept away!”
18 But Lot argued, “Not right now, my masters. 19 Listen, you’ve been kind to me and show us mercy by saving my life, but I won’t be able to make it to the hills because the disaster will overtake me and I’ll die. 20 Listen, there’s a small town nearby that I could flee to. Let me escape there. It’s only small. Then my life would be saved.”
21 “Okay then,” the man replied, “I’ll also grant your request about this so I won’t overthrow the town that you’re talking about. 22 Hurry up, escape there, because I am not able to do a thing until you go there.”
That’s why they renamed the town to ‘Zoar’ (which means ‘small’).
23 The sun had already risen by the time Lot and family reached Zoar. 24 Then Yahweh rained burning sulfur down onto Sodom and Amorah (Gomorrah),[ref] 25 and he destroyed those cities and all their inhabitants as well, as all of the plain including all the vegetation. 26 But Lot’s wife who was following him looked back and she turned into a pillar of salt.[ref]
27 Meanwhile, Abraham got up early in the morning and went to the place where he had stood before Yahweh, 28 and he looked down towards Sodom and Amorah (Gomorrah) and the land of the plain. From there he saw, wow, that smoke was rising from the land like a furnace chimney. 29 So it was that when God destroyed the cities of the plain, he remembered Abraham and had Lot removed out of the middle of the destruction when he destroyed the cities that Lot had been living in.
30 Then Lot and his two daughters left Zoar and settled up in the hills, because he was afraid to stay in Zoar. So he lived in a cave up there with his two daughters. 31 Then the older girl said to the younger, “Dad’s old and there isn’t a single man up here to marry us like happens to other women in the world. 32 So let’s get Dad drunk and then we can lie with him, so that at least we can have some descendants through our father.” 33 So then, they got their father to drink wine that evening, and the oldest daughter went and lay with her father, but he wasn’t aware of her coming or going.
34 Then the next day, the older girl said to the younger, Listen, last night I lay with my father. Let’s get him drunk again tonight then you go lie with him so that we’ll give life to descendants through our father.” 35 So that next evening also, they got their father to drink wine and the younger girl went and lay with him, but again he wasn’t aware of her coming or going. 36 In that way, both of Lot’s daughters got themselves pregnant through their father. 37 Then the eldest daughter gave birth to a son and she named him Moab (which means ‘from my father’). (He’s the ancestor of the Moabites to this day.) 38 The younger daughter also gave birth to a son and she named him Ben-Ammi (which means ‘son of my people’). (He’s the ancestor of Ammonites to this day.)
Genesis 18-19
Author’s note: This article assumes that Sodom, Gomorrah, and Bela (Zoar) were located at Bab edh-Dhra, Numeira, and Khirbat ash-Sheikh `Isa, respectively. The exact locations of the cities of the plain are widely debated, with the primary dispute centering around whether the cities are to be found in the northern area of the Dead Sea (since Lot headed east from Bethel [Genesis 13]) or the southern area (as the Medeba Map shows). It is beyond the scope of this article to present all the evidence to support a southern location, but many of them are well summarized here: “The Discovery of the Sin Cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.” In addition, Eusebius in his Onomasticon describes the Dead Sea as lying between Jericho and Zoar. This author has also recently found that Eusebius notes that Nebereim (Nimrim; see Isaiah 15:6 and Jeremiah 48:34) is located at a village called Bennamareim (likely the site of Gomorrah on this map), which he also says is north of Zoar. Thus, if Eusebius is correct, Zoar is clearly located in the southern area of the Dead Sea, which fits very well with the location shown on this map. Also, Lot’s relocation to Sodom after moving east to the plain of the Jordan suggests that Sodom was located on the east side of the Dead Sea.
The famous cities of Sodom and Gomorrah are first mentioned in Genesis 10:19 in a description of the territory of the Canaanites. The cities are mentioned again in chapter 13, which notes that while Abraham (then called Abram) was living near Bethel (also called Luz), tension began to grow between Abraham’s herders and the herders working for Abraham’s nephew Lot. To resolve the problem, Abraham suggested that he and Lot permanently part ways, and he offered Lot first choice of where to live. Lot chose to move east to the plain of the Jordan, because the land was well watered, and he eventually settled in the city of Sodom. Genesis 14 then describes how Lot was captured by four Mesopotamian kings as they attacked the cities of the plain, but Abraham rescued Lot. Sometime after this Abraham moved to the oaks of Mamre, near Hebron, and three visitors (one of whom is later called “the Lord,” and the other two “angels”) approached his tent. Abraham invited them to share a meal with him and then later accompanied them for the first part of their journey. Along the way the visitors revealed to Abraham that they were going to Sodom to destroy it for its wickedness. Abraham appealed to the Lord to spare the city if even a few righteous lived there, and the Lord agreed and went his way. The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening (Genesis 19:1), presumably the same day they left, although perhaps they actually took more than one day to travel to Sodom, because the distance from Mamre to Sodom is over 35 miles (56 km), and Scripture does not specifically note that it was the same day. The events that followed that evening are well known, and in the morning the angels compelled Lot and his family to flee the city before it was destroyed. The angels instructed them to flee to the hills, but Lot convinced them to allow him to take refuge in a small village on the plain and not destroy it. Genesis 19:23 seems to suggest that it took Lot’s family a full day and night to reach Zoar, which fits well with the 16 mile (25 km) distance from Sodom to Zoar. As they were reaching Zoar, the Lord rained down fire and burning sulfur on Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, completely destroying them. As Lot’s family was still fleeing, Lot’s wife looked back and turned into a pillar of salt. That same morning Abraham got up and went to where he had last spoken with the visitors, and when he looked out across the plain he saw columns of smoke rising from the destroyed cities. Later Lot and his daughters moved into the hills and lived in a cave, because they were afraid to remain in Zoar. Fearing they would never marry, Lot’s daughters both got their father drunk and conceived children by him, though he was unaware of it. These children became ancestors of the Moabites and the Ammonites.
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