Genesis 19:18-22

6. The Flight to Zoar (Genesis 19:18-22)

18 And Lot said unto them, Oh, not so, my lord: 19 behold now, thy servant hath found favor in thy sight, and thou hast magnified thy lovingkindness, which thou hast showed unto me in saving my life; and I cannot escape to the mountain, lest evil overtake me, and I die: 20 behold now, this city is near to flee unto, and it is a little one. Oh let me escape thither (is it not a little one?), and my soul shall live. 21 And he said unto him, See, I have accepted thee concerning this thing also, that I will not overthrow the city of which thou hast spoken. 22 Haste thee, escape thither; for I cannot do anything till thou be come thither. Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar.

Note in Genesis 19:17, Lot's mode of address, my Lord, marginal rendering, O Lord. Does this mean that Yehwe Himself has arrived on the scene (cf. again, Genesis 18:1; Genesis 18:3, also 22, where Jehovah is represented as remaining behind to converse with Abraham, after the two angels had gone on their way, etc.), or that He has been present all along in the person of the Angel of Yahweh? (Read Lange on The Angel of Jehovah, infra.) Whitelaw (PCG, 255): Adonai, which should rather be translated Lord; whence it would almost seem as if Lot knew that his interlocutor was Jehovah. Keil admits that Lot recognised a manifestation of God in the angels, and Lange speaks of a miraculous report of the voice of God coming to him along with the miraculous vision of the angels. That the historian uses -them-' instead of -him-' only proves that at the time Jehovah was accompanied by the angels, as he had previously been at Mamre (Genesis 18:1). Concerning the address, my Lord, the Rabbis construe this as God (SC, 96).

It seems that even now Lot could not tear himself away altogether from his worldly environment. This reluctance, coupled with fear that those who had been his fellow-citizens might hunt him down and kill him, caused him to plead that one of the five cities might be preserved as his dwelling-place, because it was a little one; Whence this city, previously known as Bela, (was called Zoar tiny place, little). (Cf. Genesis 13:10; Genesis 14:2-8). This petition, though evidently a singular display of moral obtuseness and indolent selfishness, was granted and Lot and his daughters entered Zoar at sunrise. Lot bases his plea on the favor that has been bestowed on him. He reinforces it by a plea of physical inability to reach the mountains. He claims the evil from which God is delivering him will overtake him neverthelessnot a very commendable attitude. Finally, he makes the smallness of. the place that he has in mind a plea for sparing it, in case he flees thither. It almost taxes the reader's patience to bear with this long-winded plea at a moment of such extreme danger. Lot appreciated but little what was being done for him (EG, 566). (Cf. also Genesis 36:32-33; Genesis 46:21; Numbers 26:38-40; 1 Chronicles 1:43-44; 1 Chronicles 5:8; 1 Chronicles 7:6-7; 1 Chronicles 8:1; 1 Chronicles 8:3). This town, Bela, or Zoar, which was well known in Old Testament times, lay to the southeast of the Dead Sea (Genesis 13:10, Deuteronomy 34:3, Isaiah 15:5, Jeremiah 48:34). During the Roman hegemony anperhaps anotherearthquake occurred and the town was flooded, but it was rebuilt farther up from the shore and inhabited until the Middle Ages.

Review Questions

See Genesis 19:30-38.