The Curious Case of Lot and the Five Cities

Everyone knows the story of Lot and along with his wife and two daughters of how he escaped certain death in Sodom and Gomorrah. What not everyone knows is how he ended up in Sodom:  due to the nomadic culture of the era, Lot and his family encamped in the Jordan River valley due north of the modern-day Dead Sea and immediately claimed the land eastward toward the nearest town. He and Abram had ventured out of Egypt toward the land of Canaan and once they arrived in the Jordan Plain, Abram gave Lot a choice to keep following him or to take the plains to the east for his own settlement.

Guess where Lot went?

He chose the land eastward toward the nearest town – Sodom – and eventually settled into the area. Perhaps he became too comfortable with the hedonistic lifestyle of the city as the men lived in an “anything goes” manner since his own wife began to indulge in the culture. During this time, Sodom was known for its cruelty and inhospitable ways to the stranger. In addition to the sexual sins that dominate our knowledge of the region, they also committed economic crimes, blasphemy, and bloodshed. One of the worst things was to give money or even gold ingots to beggars with their names inscribed onto them and subsequently refusing to sell them food! As a result, beggars died all over the region, and the lenders simply would reclaim the money as their own. A modern-day example of this would be the illicit practice of selling and buying food stamps when the cardholder “sells” the card for some quick cash and shortly reports the card as stolen denying the “buyer” the opportunity at tax-free food. The “seller” gets a new card and is able to repeat the scam.

Gomorrah was not exempt, nor was Admah, Zeboyim, and Bela in their conscious disregard of God. Yet Bela is the only city in the valley that remained standing after their fiery destruction, perhaps to serve as witness for what happens when God has had enough.

For some evil cities, none of the five kingdoms were sovereign as they were occupied by the Elamites for the past twelve years with the outside perception of being free rather than economic bondage – and later, literal slavery after a failed rebellion. The tide turned after Abram gathered an elite force that slaughtered King Chedorlaomer’s forces in Hobah , north of Damascus leading to the freeing of the cities from Elam’s rule. People will not like the comparison, but choose any sub-Saharan African nation that suffered decades under western European rule until internal forces uprooted the Belgians, French, British, etc. for each nation’s own sovereign rule.

You would think Lot would’ve gotten out of town the first chance he was given, but he oddly stayed. He should’ve thanked God that his uncle Abram was praying for him that he wouldn’t fall prey to the hedonism in the cities!

In Genesis 18 three angels disguised as men approached Abraham in the pains of Mamre. After they received the hospitality of Abraham and his wife Sarah, the Lord revealed to Abraham that the cities would be destroyed because of their sin. In response, Abraham inquired of the Lord if he would spare the cities if fifty righteous people were found for the sake of the righteous citizens. That number was lowered to 45, then 40, then 30, then 20, and finally ten with the Lord agreeing each time. Two of the angels were sent to Sodom to investigate the city and were met by Lot, who convinced them to stay and eat with him. What happened next confirmed that the cities needed to be destroyed, as described in Genesis 19:4-5:

4 But before they lay down, the men of the city, [even] the men of Sodom, compassed the house round, both old and young, all the people from every quarter:

5 And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where [are] the men which came in to thee this night? Bring them out unto us, that we may know them.

Lot refused to give his guests to the booty warriors of Sodom; instead, he offered his two virgin daughters “which have not known man” and to “do ye to them as [is] good in your eyes”. (Genesis 19:8) However, they refused this offer, complained about Lot giving orders, and nearly kicked down the door. The angels rescued him and blinded the men; following that, Lot was informed of their mission to destroy the city.

All of this because there were not even ten upright citizens in Sodom!

Lot reckoned that escaping was the only to survive, so he gathered his family to leave. One of the angels commanded to them not to look back only to keep running. Unfortunately, Lot’s wife was curious at the wrong moment when she turned back at the city and instantly became a pillar of salt. Today, this region remains a burning waste of sulfur and salt as it is one of the most uninhabitable spaces on the Earth.

So what made Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboyim so awful that God destroyed them with brimstone and fire?

The Protestant Church, particularly the evangelical wings, tends to place all of the blame on rampant homosexuality. Yet in Lot’s day, any nonvaginal sex was an abomination – no anal or bestiality obviously, but also oral sex was also out the question. The men turned to each other as the women engaged in fornication with the angels resulting in giants for sons and daughters (see Genesis 6) likely because they couldn’t compete sexually. Taken further, homosexuality [forced rape in this instance, akin to prison rape] was the prevalent physical sin of Sodom – even above its detested reputation for greed, arrogance, and selfishness. As a result, the violence and the threat of violence could be seen as the ethical downfall of the Five Cities and their subsequent destruction.

To further underscore the cruelty toward hospitality, the Sodomites – and likely the majority of the other cities – were firm believers of “what is mine is mine, and what is yours is mine, too”, which capitalized the lack of compassion. One incident describes Eliezer, Abraham’s servant, visiting Lot in Sodom and getting into a dispute with a Sodomite who hit him in the forehead with a stone and demanded Eliezer pay him for bloodletting. A Sodomite judge sided the offender, and Eliezer then struck the judge in the forehead with a stone and asked the judge to pay the other Sodomite. Imagine a loved one fatally shot by law enforcement and being asked to pay for the ambulance ride and assorted 911 services, as was the case of the late Tamir Rice of Cleveland.

Another case involved Lot’s own daughter Paltith and another young girl:  she gave some bread to a poor man who had entered the city. The townspeople were so cruel that they burned Paltith and smeared the other girl’s body with honey, hanging her on the city wall until she was eaten by bees! While we are not that grotesque today, consider this:  although we do look out for our own family’s protection as providers, we sometimes place ourselves on a higher plane and become judgmental of those less fortunate. Money and power are not everything, and a large number of people have gone to hell chasing either one or both entities here in America.

Why would Lot offer his two virgin daughters to a bunch of horny men?

Possibly because even in a patriarchal society, the male Sodomites were so deep into their own lust for strange men that even two beautiful young women could not turn away their intentions of raping the angels. This proved that the men were more interested in their own hedonistic pleasures than even potentially reproducing with the opposite sex! Certainly he valued women:  Lot did take his wife and the two daughters with him outside of the city as God rained fire and brimstone on it to safety despite his wife meeting her demise as she turned back to see the cities burn.