I cannot escape to the mountain - He saw the destruction so near, that he imagined he should not have time sufficient to reach the mountain before it arrived. He did not consider that God could give no command to his creatures that it would be impossible for them to fulfill; but the hurry and perturbation of his mind will at once account for and excuse this gross oversight. read more
It is a little one - Probably Lot wished to have it for an inheritance, and therefore pleaded its being a little one, that his request might be the more readily granted. Or he might suppose, that being a little city, it was less depraved than Sodom and Gomorrah, and therefore not so ripe for punishment; which was probably the case. read more
See, I have accepted thee - How prevalent is prayer with God! Far from refusing to grant a reasonable petition, he shows himself as if under embarrassment to deny any. read more
I cannot do any thing till thou be come thither - So these heavenly messengers had the strictest commission to take care of Lot and his family; and even the purposes of Divine justice could not be accomplished on the rebellious, till this righteous man and his family had escaped from the place. A proof of Abraham's assertion, The Judge of all the earth will do right. The name of the city was called Zoar - צוער Tsoar , Little, its former name being Bela. read more
The Lord rained - brimstone and fire from the Lord - As all judgment is committed to the Son of God, many of the primitive fathers and several modern divines have supposed that the words ויהוה vaihovah and יהוה מאת meeth Yehovah imply, Jehovah the Son raining brimstone and fire from Jehovah the Father; and that this place affords no mean proof of the proper Divinity of our blessed Redeemer. It may be so; but though the point is sufficiently established elsewhere, it does not appear... read more
And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain - This forms what is called the lake Asphaltites, Dead Sea, or Salt Sea, which, according to the most authentic accounts, is about seventy miles in length, and eighteen in breadth. The most strange and incredible tales are told by many of the ancients, and by many of the moderns, concerning the place where these cities stood. Common fame says that the waters of this sea are so thick that a stone will not sink in them, so tough and clammy... read more
She became a pillar of salt - The vast variety of opinions, both ancient and modern, on the crime of Lot's wife, her change, and the manner in which that change was effected, are in many cases as unsatisfactory as they are ridiculous. On this point the sacred Scripture says little. God had commanded Lot and his family not to look behind them; the wife of Lot disobeyed this command; she looked back from behind him - Lot, her husband, and she became a pillar of salt. This is all the... read more
Abraham gat up early in the morning - Anxious to know what was the effect of the prayers which he had offered to God the preceding day; what must have been his astonishment when he found that all these cities, with the plain which resembled the garden of the Lord, Genesis 13:10 , burnt up, and the smoke ascending like the smoke of a furnace, and was thereby assured that even God himself could not discover ten righteous persons in four whole cities! read more
God remembered Abraham - Though he did not descend lower than ten righteous persons, (see Genesis 18:32 ;), yet the Lord had respect to the spirit of his petitions, and spared all those who could be called righteous, and for Abraham's sake offered salvation to all the family of Lot, though neither his sons-in-law elect nor his own wife ultimately profited by it. The former ridiculed the warning; and the latter, though led out by the hands of the angel, yet by breaking the command of God... read more
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Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible - Genesis 19:17
When they had brought them forth, etc. - Every word here is emphatic, Escape for thy Life; thou art in the most imminent danger of perishing; thy life and thy soul are both at stake. Look not behind thee - thou hast but barely time enough to escape from the judgment that is now descending; no lingering, or thou art lost! one look back may prove fatal to thee, and God commands thee to avoid it. Neither stay thou in all the plain, because God will destroy that as well as the city. Escape to... read more