Genesis 19:29

Gen 19:29 And it came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in the which Lot dwelt.

Ver. 29. God remembered Abraham, &c.] And shall he forget us, who have Christ to intercede for us?

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

LOT’S INFAMOUS DAUGHTERS, Gen_19:29-38.

29. God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out — Thus Lot’s rescue is attributed to Abraham’s prayer. This was Lot’s second rescue by the help of Abraham. See Gen_14:16.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CHAPTER 19:29-38

And it came to pass not a pluperfect (Rosenm as if a direct continuation of the preceding narrative, but a preterit, being the commencement of a new subdivision of the history in which the writer treats of Lot"s residence in Zoarwhen God Elohim. Hence, as a fragment of the original Elohist"s composition, the present verse is by the pseudo-criticism connected with; (Gen_17:27) (Ilgen, Tuch, Block) but "a greater abruptness of style and a more fragmentary mode of composition" than this would indicate "could not easily be imagined" (Kalisch). The change in the Divine name is sufficiently explained by the supposition that the destruction of the cities of the plain was not at the moment viewed by the writer in its connection with the Abrahamic covenant and intercession, but as a sublime vindication of Divine justice (cf. Quarry, p. 444)destroyed (literally, in he destroying, by Elohim, or in Elohim s destroying) the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham. If the narrative containing the intercession of Abraham and the overthrow of Sodom was due to the Jehovist, how came the earlier author to know anything about those events? The obvious allusions to them in the present verse could only have been made by one acquainted with them. Either, therefore, the present verse proceeded from the hand of the so-called Jehovist, or it requires explanation how in the original document this should be the first and only occasion on which they are referred to (cf. Quarry, p. 445). And in answer to Abatham"s prayer. (Gen_18:23) sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow (there is no reason to suppose that Abraham was aware of his nephew"s escape), when he overthrew literally, in the overthrowing of the cities, the inf. being construed with the case of its verb (vide Gesenius, 133)the cities in the which one of which (cf. Jud_1:15:7) Lot dwelt.

Ver. 29.

The last days of Lot.

I HAUNTED BY TERROR.

1. The terror of Divine judgment. The appalling spectacle of Sodom"s overthrow had no doubt filled him with alarm. And so are God s judgments in the earth designed to put the souls of men in fear. (Psa_9:20 Psa_46:8-10 Psa_119:120)

2. The terror of men. Dwelling in Zoar, he apprehended an outburst of wrath from the citizens, who probably regarded him as the cause of the ruin which had invaded Sodom. So are better men than Lot sometimes overtaken by the fear of man (2Sa_22:5; Psa_18:4) though they should not. (Isa_51:12)

3. The terror of conscience. That Lot enjoyed while in Zoar a calm and undisturbed repose of heart and mind is scarcely supposable. Rather it may be safely conjectured that after the storm and the fire and the earthquake through which he had lately passed, the still small voice of conscience spoke to him in awe-inspiring accents, unveiling his past life, reproving him of sin, and piercing him through with many sorrows; and that under the agitations produced by its accusations and reproaches he became afraid, and withdrew to the mountains. "Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all.

II SOUNDING THE LOWER DEEPS.

1. Descending into unbelief. God had promised to spare Zoar for him, and him in Zoar, and one would have thought Lot had been sufficiently warned of the sin of distrusting God. Yet he is scarcely established in the city which God had granted in response to his own prayer than he begins to think it hardly safe to remain within its precincts. How inveterate is unbelief!

2. Plunging into sin. The details of the present story clearly show that Lot, when he went to the mountain cave, endeavored to escape from his terrors not by carrying them to God"s throne, but by drowning them in dissipation. The wretched man, who had once been a saint in God"s Church, must have been in the habit of drinking to excess, else his daughters would never have thought of their abominable stratagem. Only one little gleam of virtue can be detected as entitled to be laid to Lot"s account, viz., that his daughters apparently believed that unless their father was drunk he would never be brought to assent to their lewd proposal.

3. Sinking into shame. Twice overcome by wine, he is twice in succession dishonored by his daughters; and twice over, while in his drink stupor, he allows himself to commit an act which almost out-Sodoms Sodom. To what depths a saint may fall when once he turns his back on God!

III DISAPPEARING INTO OBLIVION. Nothing could more distinctly mark the Divine disapprobation with Lots conduct than the fact that after this he was suffered

1. To live an unrecorded life, being never heard of again in the pages of Holy Scripture.

2. To die an unnoticed death. Where and how he met his end the historian does not condescend to state.

3. To sink into an unknown grave. Whether buried in his mountain cave or entombed in the Jordan valley no man knoweth unto this day.

See

1. The danger of turning aside from God and good men. (Heb_3:12 Heb_10:25)

1. The melancholy end of a worldly life. (1Co_10:6; Php_3:19; 2Ti_4:10)

2. The bitter fruits of parental neglect (1Sa_2:27-36; Pro_29:15-17)

HOMILIES BY W. ROBERTS Ver. 29.

The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah

I THE VISIBLE JUDGMENT. "God overthrew the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah the cities in which Lot dwelt.

1. The reason.

2. The instrumentality.

3. The reality.

4. The lessons of the overthrow.

II THE UNKNOWN MERCY. "He sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow." To Abraham this was

1. A great mercy.

2. A mercy granted in answer to prayer. But

3. An unknown mercy, there being no reason to believe that Abraham ever saw Lot again, or knew of his deliverance.

Learn

1. That God always mixes-mercy with his judgments.

2. That his mercies are not always so perceptible to the eye of sense and reason as his judgments.

3. That God"s people get more mercies poured into their cups than they are at all times cognizant of. W.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

19:29 God honored Abraham’s intercession (cp. 18:23-32), but Lot’s entire world was gone because he lived by instinct and desire, not by faith in God. He could no longer live in the good land he selfishly chose for himself (13:10-13; cp. Matt 16:26; 2 Cor 5:7).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

when God destroyed the cities, &c.--This is most welcome and instructive after so painful a narrative. It shows if God is a "consuming fire" to the wicked [Deu 4:24; Heb 12:29], He is the friend of the righteous. He "remembered" the intercessions of Abraham, and what confidence should not this give us that He will remember the intercessions of a greater than Abraham in our behalf.

Next: Genesis Chapter 20

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 29. God remembered Abraham] Though he did not descend lower than ten righteous persons, (see Ge 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 perished with the other gainsayers.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

29. God remembered Abraham. Although Moses does not assert that the deliverance of Abraham’s nephew was made known to him; yet since he says, that Lot was saved from destruction for Abraham’s sake, it is probable that he was not deprived of that consolation which he most needed; and that he was conscious of the benefit, for which it became him to give thanks. If it seems to any one absurd, that the holy man Lot should be granted for the sake of another; as if the Lord had not respect to his own piety: I answer, these two things well agree with each other; that the Lord, since he is wont to aid his own people, cared for Lot, whom he had chosen, and whom he governed by his Spirit; and yet that, at the same time, he would show, in the preservation of his life, how greatly he loved Abraham, to whom he not only granted personal protection, but also the deliverance of others. It is however right to observe, that what the Lord does gratuitously, — induced by no other cause than his own goodness, — is ascribed to the piety or the prayers of men, for this reason; that we may be stirred up to worship God, and to pray to him. We have seen, a little while before, how merciful God proved himself to be, in preserving Lot; and truly, he would not have perished, even if he had not been the nephew of Abraham. Yet Moses says, it was a favor granted to Abraham, that Lot was not consumed in the same destruction with Sodom. But if the Lord extended the favor which he had vouchsafed to his servant, to the nephew also, who now was as a stranger from his family; how much more confidently ought every one of the faithful to expect, that the same grace shall, by no means be wanting to his own household? And, if the Lord, when he favors us, embraces others also who are connected with us, for our sake, how much more will he have respect to ourselves? In saying that Lot dwelt in those cities, the figure synecdoche, which puts the whole for a part, is used, but it is expressly employed to make the miracle more illustrious; because it happened, only by the singular providence of God, that when five cities were destroyed a single person should escape.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

And Lot went up out of Zoar,.... Which lay in the plain, and therefore when he went from thence to the mountain, it was by an ascent:

and dwelt in the mountain; which the Lord had directed him to go to before, but was unwilling, and chose Zoar, and desired he might flee thither, and that that might be spared; but now he likes God's advice for him better than his own, and therefore betook himself to the mountain, where he might think himself safest, and where he continued; very probably this was the mountain Engaddi, under which Zoar is said to lie by Adrichomius (n):

and his two daughters with him: his wife was turned into a pillar of salt, and these two were all of his family that with him were saved from the destruction; and these are the rather mentioned for the sake of an anecdote hereafter related:

for he feared to dwell in Zoar; it being near to Sodom; and the smoke of that city and the rest might not only be terrible but troublesome to him, and the tremor of the earth might continue and reach as far as Zoar; and perceiving the waters to rise and overflow the plain, which formed the lake where the cities stood, he might fear they would reach to Zoar and swallow up that; and especially his fears were increased, when he found the inhabitants were as wicked as those of the other cities, and were unreformed by the judgment on them; and so he might fear that a like shower of fire would descend on them and destroy them, as it had the rest, though it had been spared for a while at his intercession; and, according to the Jewish writers (o), it remained but one year after Sodom:

and he dwelt in a cave, he and his two daughters; which was in the mountain, the mountain of Engedi. Josephus (p) makes mention of the mountains of Engedi; and here was a cave, where David with six hundred men were, in the sides of it, when Saul went into it, Sa1 24:1; and perhaps may be the same cave where Lot and his two daughters lived.

(n) Theatrum Terrae S. p. 54. (o) Juchasin, fol. 8. 1. (p) Antiqu. l. 6. c. 13. sect. 4.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Lot. Even he owed his safety to the merits of Abraham.

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

God remembered Abraham; either,

1. The promise made to Abraham, Gen 12:3. Or,

2. The prayer made by Abraham, Gen 18:23-32, who doubtless in his prayers for Sodom would not forget Lot, though his prayer for him be not there mentioned. And hereby it is insinuated, that Lot, though he was a righteous man, and should be saved eternally, yet deserved to perish temporarily with those wicked people, to whom he associated himself merely for worldly advantages, and should have done so, if Abraham had not hindered it by his prayers.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

God remembered Abraham, and for his sake sent Lot out of the overthrow - God will certainly give an answer of peace to the prayer of faith in his own way and time.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

For on the destruction of these cities, God had thought of Abraham, and rescued Lot. This rescue is attributed to Elohim, as being the work of the Judge of the whole earth (Gen 18:25), and not to Jehovah the covenant God, because Lot was severed from His guidance and care on his separation from Abraham. The fact, however, is repeated here, for the purpose of connecting with it an event in the life of Lot of great significance to the future history of Abraham's seed.

Gen 19:30-35

From Zoar Lot removed with his two daughters to the (Moabitish) mountains, for fear that Zoar might after all be destroyed, and dwelt in one of the caves (מערה with the generic article), in which the limestone rocks abound (vid., Lynch), and so became a dweller in a cave. While there, his daughters resolved to procure children through their father; and to that end on two successive evenings they made him intoxicated with wine, and then lay with him in the might, one after the other, that they might conceive seed. To this accursed crime they were impelled by the desire to preserve their family, because they thought there was no man on the earth to come in unto them, i.e., to marry them, "after the manner of all the earth." Not that they imagined the whole human race to have perished in the destruction of the valley of Siddim, but because they were afraid that no man would link himself with them, the only survivors of a country smitten by the curse of God. If it was not lust, therefore, which impelled them to this shameful deed, their conduct was worthy of Sodom, and shows quite as much as their previous betrothal to men of Sodom, that they were deeply imbued with the sinful character of that city. The words of Gen 19:33 and Gen 19:35, "And he knew not of her lying down and of her rising up," do not affirm that he was in an unconscious state, as the Rabbins are said by Jerome to have indicated by the point over בּקוּמה: "quasi incredibile et quod natura rerum non capiat, coire quempiam nescientem." They merely mean, that in his intoxicated state, though not entirely unconscious, yet he lay with his daughters without clearly knowing what he was doing.

Gen 19:36-38

But Lot's daughters had so little feeling of shame in connection with their conduct, that they gave names to the sons they bore, which have immortalized their paternity. Moab, another form of מאב "from the father," as is indicated in the clause appended in the lxx: λέγουσα ἐκ τοῦ πατρός μου, and also rendered probable by the reiteration of the words "of our father" and "by their father" (Gen 19:32, Gen 19:34, and Gen 19:36), as well as by the analogy of the name Ben-Ammi = Ammon, Ἀμμάν, λέγουσα Υἱος γένους μου (lxx). For עמּון, the sprout of the nation, bears the same relation to עם, as אגמון, the rush or sprout of the marsh, to אגם Delitzsch). - This account was neither the invention of national hatred to the Moabites and Ammonites, nor was it placed here as a brand upon those tribes. These discoveries of a criticism imbued with hostility to the Bible are overthrown by the fact, that, according to Deu 2:9, Deu 2:19, Israel was ordered not to touch the territory of either of these tribes because of their descent from Lot; and it was their unbrotherly conduct towards Israel alone which first prevented their reception into the congregation of the Lord, Deu 23:4-5. - Lot is never mentioned again. Separated both outwardly and inwardly from Abraham, he was of no further importance in relation to the history of salvation, so that even his death is not referred to. His descendants, however, frequently came into contact with the Israelites; and the history of their descent is given here to facilitate a correct appreciation of their conduct towards Israel.

Keil & Delitzsch — Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1861–1891) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API. (Old Testament only.)

when God

(See Scofield "Gen 19:36").

The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

General Information:

Verse 29 is a summary of this chapter.

God called Abraham to mind

This tells why God rescued Lot. To "call to mind" is a way of saying "remember." This does not imply that God forgot about Abraham. It means he considered Abraham and had mercy on him. AT: "God thought about Abraham and had mercy on him" (See: Idiom)

out of the midst of the destruction

"away from the destruction" or "away from danger"

translationWords

Abraham

mind

Lot

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

ויזכר אלהים את אברהם GOD REMEMBERED ABRAHAM — What bearing has God’s remembering Abraham upon the rescue of Lot? He remembered that Lot knew that Sarah was Abraham’s wife and that when he heard that Abraham said in Egypt regarding Sarah, “She is my sister”, he did not betray him because he had sympathy with him. For this reason God had mercy upon him (Lot) (Genesis Rabbah 51:6).

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

AND G-D REMEMBERED ABRAHAM, AND SENT LOT OUT FROM THE CATASTROPHE. The purport of this verse is that Lot had shown kindness towards the righteous one by going with him and roaming here and there, following him wherever he went. This is the intent of the verse, And Lot went with him, meaning that he went at Abraham’s command. Therefore he had the merit to be saved on account of Abraham’s meritoriousness as it was on account of him that he lived in Sodom, and were it not for Abraham he would have still been in Haran with his family. Now it is inconceivable that some evil should overtake him [Lot] because of Abraham who had left his country at his Creator’s command. This was also the reason why Abraham endangered himself by pursuing the kings on account of him., 14:14.

Ramban (Nachmanides) on the Tanakh — English translation: “Commentary on the Torah by Ramban (Nachmanides). Translated and annotated by Charles B. Chavel. New York, Shilo Pub. House, 1971-1976” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

ויהי בשחת, the reason why the Torah phrases this thus is to remind us that Lot’s having been saved was due to the merit of Avraham. Even though, by comparison to the people of Sodom he was relatively righteous, he was not righteous enough to have deserved G’d extending Himself to save him as a result of his own merits. G’d now wanted to put Avraham’s mind at rest by indicating to him that Lot had indeed been saved from this conflagration.

וישלח את לוט מתוך ההפכה, He had sent away from the midst of this upheaval, i.e. immediately preceding it.

בהפך את הערים, when He was about to turn these cities inside out, for the angel had told Lot that he could not carry out his task until he had brought Lot to safety. (verse 22).

Radak on the Tanakh — English translations: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “Eliyahu Munk, HaChut Hameshulash” (CC BY 4.0); “Rabbi Mike Feuer, Jerusalem Anthology” (CC BY 4.0); and “R. David Kimhi on the first book of Psalms, Translated by R.G. Finch, London, 1919” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.