Abraham’s Family · c. 2067 BC
Chapter 4
Sodom and Gomorrah
Is anything too hard for Yahweh? At the set time I will return to you, when the season comes around, and Sarah will have a son.”
For parents
This chapter has some of the hardest passages in Genesis. The men of Sodom want to force themselves on Lot’s guests, and Lot offers them his daughters instead (19:4–9). God destroys Sodom and Gomorrah with everyone in them, and Lot’s wife becomes a pillar of salt (19:24–26). Lot’s daughters get him drunk and sleep with him, and both have sons by him (19:30–38). All of it is told without detail. Parents may want to read it first, or read it together.
The appeared to near the oaks of . It was the hottest part of the day, and Abraham was sitting in the doorway of his tent. He looked up and saw three men standing close by. When he saw them, he left the doorway and ran to meet them, and he bowed all the way to the ground.
“My lord,” he said, “if you are pleased with me, please don’t pass me by. Let me bring a little water so you can wash your feet and rest under the tree. Since you have come my way, let me get you a bite to eat to give you strength. After that you can go on your way.”
“Very well,” they said. “Do as you say.”
Abraham hurried into the tent to and said, “Quick! Take three seahs of fine flour, knead it and bake some bread.” That was about six gallons of flour. Then Abraham ran to the herd, chose a fine, tender calf and handed it to a servant, and the servant quickly prepared it. Abraham brought butter and milk, along with the calf that was now ready, and set the meal in front of them. He stood near them under the tree while they ate.
“Where is your wife Sarah?” they asked him.
“There, in the tent,” he said.
Then one of them said, “About this time next year I will surely come back to you, and your wife Sarah will have a son.” Sarah heard it from the tent door behind him.
Now Abraham and Sarah were very old, and Sarah was long past the age for having children. So Sarah laughed to herself and thought, “I have grown old, and my husband is old too. Will I really have such pleasure now?”
The Lord said to Abraham, “What made Sarah laugh and say, ‘Am I really going to have a baby when I’m old?’ Is anything too hard for the Lord? Next year, at the time I have set, I will come back to you, and Sarah will have a son.”
Sarah was afraid, so she denied it. “I didn’t laugh,” she said.
But he said, “No, you did laugh.”
The men got up to leave and looked out toward . Abraham went with them to see them off.
The Lord said, “Should I keep what I’m about to do a secret from Abraham? After all, Abraham is sure to become a great and mighty nation, and through him all the nations of the earth will be blessed. I have known him for a reason: so that he will tell his children and his household after him to follow the Lord’s way by doing what is right and fair. Then the Lord will do for Abraham everything he has said about him.”
Then the Lord said, “I have heard a great outcry against Sodom and , and their sin is very serious. I will go down now and see whether the things they do are as bad as the reports that have come to me. If they aren’t, I will know.”
The men turned away and went on toward Sodom, but Abraham was still standing before the Lord. Abraham stepped closer and said, “Will you wipe out the along with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous people inside the city. Will you still wipe it out? Wouldn’t you spare the place because of the fifty righteous people in it? You would never do a thing like that, killing the righteous along with the wicked, so that the righteous end up just like the wicked. You would never do that! Shouldn’t the Judge of all the earth do right?”
The Lord answered, “If I find fifty righteous people within the city of Sodom, then for their sake I will spare the whole place.”
Abraham spoke up again: “I have been bold enough to speak to the Lord, though I am only dust and ashes. What if there are forty-five, five short of fifty? Will you destroy the whole city because five are missing?”
He said, “I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there.”
Abraham spoke to him once more. “What if only forty are found there?”
“For the sake of the forty,” he said, “I will not do it.”
“Lord, please don’t be angry, but let me speak,” Abraham said. “What if only thirty are found there?”
“I will not do it if I find thirty there,” he said.
“I have been bold enough to speak to the Lord,” Abraham said. “What if only twenty are found there?”
“For the sake of the twenty,” he said, “I will not destroy it.”
“Lord, please don’t be angry,” Abraham said, “and I will speak just once more. What if only ten are found there?”
“For the sake of the ten,” he said, “I will not destroy it.”
When the Lord had finished speaking with Abraham, he went on his way, and Abraham went back home.
The two reached Sodom in the evening. was sitting at the city gate. He saw them and stood up to meet them, and he bowed low with his face to the ground.
“Please, my lords,” he said, “come to my house. Stay the night and wash your feet. Then you can get up early and be on your way.”
“No,” they said, “we’ll spend the night in the street.”
But Lot kept urging them, so they went home with him and came into his house. He made them a meal and baked bread without yeast, and they ate.
Before they had gone to bed, the men of Sodom surrounded the house. They came from every part of the city, young and old, every last one of them. They called out to Lot, “Where are the men who came to your house tonight? Bring them out to us, so we can force ourselves on them!”
Lot went out to them and shut the door behind him. “Please, my brothers,” he said, “don’t do something so wicked. Look, I have two daughters, and neither of them has ever slept with a man. Please let me bring them out to you instead, and you can do whatever you like with them. Only don’t do anything to these men. They are guests under my roof.”
“Get out of the way!” they said. Then they said, “This fellow came here to live as a foreigner, and now he’s acting like our judge! We’ll do worse to you than to them!” They pushed hard against Lot and moved forward to break down the door.
But the men inside reached out their hands, pulled Lot in with them, and shut the door. Then they made the men at the door of the house blind, young and old alike. The blinded men wore themselves out trying to find the door.
Then the angels said to Lot, “Is there anyone else here who belongs to you? Sons-in-law, sons, daughters, anyone at all in the city? Get them out of this place, because we are going to destroy it. The Lord has heard such a great outcry against its people that he has sent us to destroy it.”
So Lot went out and spoke to his future sons-in-law, the men who were to marry his daughters. “Hurry, get out of this place!” he said. “The Lord is going to destroy the city!” But they thought he was joking.
When morning came, the angels urged Lot, “Get up! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here. Otherwise you will be swept away along with the city when it is punished.” But Lot hesitated. So the angels grabbed his hand and the hands of his wife and his two daughters, because the Lord was merciful to him. They brought them out and left them outside the city.
When they had taken them out, one of them said, “Run for your life! Don’t look back, and don’t stop anywhere on the plain. Get away to the mountains, or you will be wiped out!”
“Oh no, my lord, please!” Lot said to them. “You have been kind to me and shown me great mercy by saving my life, but I can’t run to the mountains. The disaster will catch up with me, and I’ll die. Look, there is a town near enough to run to, and it’s a small one. Please let me run there. It’s only a small town, isn’t it? Then my life will be saved.”
“Very well,” he said, “I will grant this request too. I will not destroy the town you are talking about. Hurry, run there, because I can’t do anything until you get there.”
That is why the town was named , which means “little”.
The sun had risen over the land by the time Lot reached Zoar. Then the Lord rained burning sulfur and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah. Sulfur is a yellow rock that burns. The sulfur and fire came from the Lord out of the sky. He destroyed those cities and the whole plain, along with everyone who lived in the cities and everything that grew on the ground.
But Lot’s wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.
Early in the morning, Abraham went up to the place where he had stood before the Lord. He looked out toward Sodom and Gomorrah and over the whole plain, and he saw smoke rising up from the land, like the smoke from a furnace.
When God destroyed the cities of the plain, God remembered Abraham, and he brought Lot out of the middle of the destruction that swept away the cities where Lot had lived.
Lot was afraid to stay in Zoar, so he left and went to live in the mountains with his two daughters. The three of them lived in a cave.
Lot’s older daughter said to her younger sister, “Our father is old. There isn’t a man anywhere on earth to marry us and give us children, the way people do all over the world. Come, let’s get our father drunk with wine and sleep with him, so that we can keep our father’s family line alive.”
That night they made their father drink wine. The older daughter went in and slept with her father. He didn’t know when she lay down or got up.
The next day the older daughter told the younger one, “I slept with my father last night. Let’s make him drink wine again tonight, and then you go and sleep with him. That way we can keep our father’s family line alive.” So that night, too, they got their father drunk with wine, and the younger daughter went and slept with him. He didn’t know when she lay down or got up.
So both of Lot’s daughters became pregnant by their father. The older one had a son and named him . He became the ancestor of the Moabites, a people still living when this was written. The younger one had a son too, and she called him . He became the ancestor of the Ammonites, who were also still living when this was written.