Genesis 19:30 - Exposition

And Lot went up out of Zoar (probably soon after), and dwelt in the mountain ( i.e. of Moab, on the east of the Dead Sea), and his two daughters —step-daughters, it has been suggested, if Lot married a widow who was the mother of the two girls (Starke)— with him; for he feared to dwell in Zoar —from which the panic-stricken inhabitants may have fled towards the mountains (Murphy), either because at that time it was shaken by an earthquake (Jerome, Rosenmüller); or because he dreaded the conflagration which devoured the other cities might spread thither (Poole, Kalisch, Wordsworth), or the rising waters of the Dead Sea which engulfed them might reach to it (Bush)—apprehensions which were groundless and unbelieving, since God had granted Zoar for an asylum (Lange); or because he saw the wickedness of the inhabitants, who had not been improved by Sodom's doom (Vatablus, Inglis); or simply because he was driven by "a blind anxiety of mind" (Calvin). And he dwelt in a cave, — i.e. in one of those cavernous recesses with which the Moabitish mountains abound, and which already had been converted into dwelling-places by the primitive inhabitants of the region (cf. Genesis 14:6 )— he and his two daughters