Genesis 19

KJV · Chapter 19/50

¹And there came two angels to Sodom at even; and Lot sat in the gate of Sodom: and Lot seeing them rose up to meet them; and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground;

²And he said, Behold now, my lords, turn in, I pray you, into your servant’s house, and tarry all night, and wash your feet, and ye shall rise up early, and go on your ways. And they said, Nay; but we will abide in the street all night.

³And he pressed upon them greatly; and they turned in unto him, and entered into his house; and he made them a feast, and did bake unleavened bread, and they did eat.

⁴But 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:

⁵And 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.

⁶And Lot went out at the door unto them, and shut the door after him,

⁷And said, I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly.

⁸Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof.

⁹And they said, Stand back. And they said again, This one fellow came in to sojourn, and he will needs be a judge: now will we deal worse with thee, than with them. And they pressed sore upon the man, even Lot, and came near to break the door.

¹⁰But the men put forth their hand, and pulled Lot into the house to them, and shut to the door.

¹¹And they smote the men that were at the door of the house with blindness, both small and great: so that they wearied themselves to find the door.

¹²And the men said unto Lot, Hast thou here any besides? son in law, and thy sons, and thy daughters, and whatsoever thou hast in the city, bring them out of this place:

¹³For we will destroy this place, because the cry of them is waxen great before the face of the Lord; and the Lord hath sent us to destroy it.

¹⁴And Lot went out, and spake unto his sons in law, which married his daughters, and said, Up, get you out of this place; for the Lord will destroy this city. But he seemed as one that mocked unto his sons in law.

¹⁵And when the morning arose, then the angels hastened Lot, saying, Arise, take thy wife, and thy two daughters, which are here; lest thou be consumed in the iniquity of the city.

¹⁶And while he lingered, the men laid hold upon his hand, and upon the hand of his wife, and upon the hand of his two daughters; the Lord being merciful unto him: and they brought him forth, and set him without the city.

¹⁷And it came to pass, when they had brought them forth abroad, that he said, Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed.

¹⁸And Lot said unto them, Oh, not so, my Lord:

¹⁹Behold now, thy servant hath found grace in thy sight, and thou hast magnified thy mercy, which thou hast shewed unto me in saving my life; and I cannot escape to the mountain, lest some evil take me, and I die:

²⁰Behold 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.

²¹And he said unto him, See, I have accepted thee concerning this thing also, that I will not overthrow this city, for the which thou hast spoken.

²²Haste thee, escape thither; for I cannot do any thing till thou be come thither. Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar.

²³The sun was risen upon the earth when Lot entered into Zoar.

²⁴Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven;

²⁵And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground.

²⁶But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.

²⁷And Abraham gat up early in the morning to the place where he stood before the Lord:

²⁸And he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and beheld, and, lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace.

²⁹And 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.

³⁰And Lot went up out of Zoar, and dwelt in the mountain, and his two daughters with him; for he feared to dwell in Zoar: and he dwelt in a cave, he and his two daughters.

³¹And the firstborn said unto the younger, Our father is old, and there is not a man in the earth to come in unto us after the manner of all the earth:

³²Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father.

³³And they made their father drink wine that night: and the firstborn went in, and lay with her father; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose.

³⁴And it came to pass on the morrow, that the firstborn said unto the younger, Behold, I lay yesternight with my father: let us make him drink wine this night also; and go thou in, and lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father.

³⁵And they made their father drink wine that night also: and the younger arose, and lay with him; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose.

³⁶Thus were both the daughters of Lot with child by their father.

³⁷And the firstborn bare a son, and called his name Moab: the same is the father of the Moabites unto this day.

³⁸And the younger, she also bare a son, and called his name Ben–ammi: the same is the father of the children of Ammon unto this day.

📖 Chapter study

Summary

Two angels visit Lot in Sodom; the city is destroyed by fire and brimstone because of its wickedness, Lot's wife turns into a pillar of salt after looking back, and his daughters later have children by him through deception.

Explanation

This chapter shows the fulfillment of the judgment announced in the previous chapter: the extreme wickedness of Sodom (portrayed in the violent attempt of the city's men against Lot's visitors) leads to the complete destruction of the region. Lot, despite his earlier questionable choices (Genesis 13), is rescued by God's mercy, showing that salvation often comes in spite of our failures, not because of our merit. Lot's wife, by disobeying the order not to look back, becomes a symbol of attachment to what must be left behind — recalled by Jesus in Luke 17:32 ('remember Lot's wife'). The disturbing ending of the chapter, with Lot's daughters getting him drunk in order to have children, shows how the corrupted environment of Sodom had deeply affected even the values of his own family, without the text approving or glorifying the act.

Fun facts

The region where Sodom and Gomorrah stood is generally associated by archaeologists with the area south of the Dead Sea, a region rich in deposits of sulfur and bitumen, which may explain elements of the description of 'fire and brimstone' in the destruction.
Moab and Ammon, nations mentioned repeatedly throughout the rest of the Old Testament, originate, according to this chapter, from the sons born to Lot's daughters — showing how this painful episode connects to future conflicts and relations between Israel and its neighboring peoples.

Verse-by-verse explanation

Genesis 19:1The “two angels” who arrive at Sodom are two of the three visitors who had appeared to Abraham in the previous chapter—the third, understood to be the LORD Himself, had stayed behind talking with Abraham about the city’s fate. Here they arrive disguised as ordinary travelers, and that’s how Lot receives them.
Genesis 19:2Lot invites the two disguised angels to spend the night safely at his house instead of sleeping in the street—the same generous hospitality Abraham had shown in the previous chapter.
Genesis 19:3Lot insists so much that the visitors agree to come in, and he prepares a quick meal with unleavened bread—a simple dish, made in a hurry, showing the urgency of his hospitality.
Genesis 19:4Even before they lie down to sleep, men from all over the city surround Lot’s house—“both old and young” shows this wasn’t an isolated group, it was the whole city gathered.
Genesis 19:5Asking to “know” the visitors is a biblical euphemism for sexual relations—the men of the city want to sexually assault the two strangers Lot had welcomed into his home. It’s this group attack, driven by hostility toward outsiders, that confirms the city’s wickedness already mentioned back in chapter 13.
Genesis 19:6Lot goes out to try to stop the violence, shutting the door behind him—an attempt to protect the visitors by facing the crowd alone, without exposing them.
Genesis 19:7Lot calls the crowd “brethren” in an attempt to calm the situation, asking them not to harm the visitors staying in his house.
Genesis 19:8Lot goes so far as to offer his own daughters to the crowd to protect the visitors—a gesture that shocks any reader today, but that reflects how seriously hospitality toward a guest was taken in the culture of the time: protecting whoever was under your roof was seen as an almost sacred duty, even above the safety of one’s own family. The text doesn’t praise Lot’s choice, it simply records it.
Genesis 19:9The crowd turns its hostility against Lot himself, calling him a foreigner with no authority to judge anyone—and moves to break down the door, making clear that the violence won’t stop with words.
Genesis 19:10It’s the visitors themselves, not Lot, who resolve the situation: they pull Lot inside and shut the door, showing they had power to act beyond anything any human there could manage.
Genesis 19:11The visitors strike the crowd outside with blindness, keeping them from finding the door—the first concrete proof, for Lot, that these were no ordinary travelers.
Genesis 19:12The angels ask Lot if he has any more relatives in the city, because their intention is to get everyone who belongs to his family out before the destruction.
Genesis 19:13The angels openly reveal to Lot the reason for their visit: they were sent to destroy the city, because of how great the outcry against its wickedness had become.
Genesis 19:14Lot warns his sons-in-law about the coming destruction, but they don’t believe him and think he’s joking—no one in Lot’s extended family takes the warning seriously.
Genesis 19:15At daybreak, the angels press Lot to leave at once with his wife and two daughters, warning that he too will be destroyed if he keeps hesitating inside the city.
Genesis 19:16Even after the warning, Lot is slow to act, and it’s the angels themselves who take the family by the hand and pull them out of the city by force—the text credits this to God’s mercy, not to any initiative on Lot’s part.
Genesis 19:17Outside, the angels give a clear instruction: flee without looking back and without stopping in the plain, seeking refuge in the mountains.
Genesis 19:18Lot responds by asking not to have to follow that instruction exactly, opening the way for the alternative request he makes in the verses that follow.
Genesis 19:19Lot acknowledges the mercy he has already received, but argues he won’t be able to reach the mountains in time to escape the danger.
Genesis 19:20Lot asks to flee to a small, nearby town instead of the distant mountains—a request for an exception to the original instruction.
Genesis 19:21The angel accepts Lot’s request and agrees to spare that small town as well, granting what he asked.
Genesis 19:22The angel hurries Lot to move quickly, explaining that the destruction can only begin once he’s safe—and the text explains that this is why the city receives the name Zoar, tied to the word for “little.”
Genesis 19:23Marks the exact moment: the sun had already risen when Lot finally enters Zoar, safe.
Genesis 19:24Describes the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah with brimstone and fire from the sky—an image of total, sudden judgment upon the cities.
Genesis 19:25The destruction reaches not only the cities but the whole surrounding region, including the vegetation—nothing in the area was left standing after this judgment.
Genesis 19:26Lot’s wife looks back, disobeying the order not to look, and turns into a “pillar of salt”—likely a popular, ancient explanation for salt-rock formations that really do exist in the Dead Sea region. The point of the story is the disobedience to the order to flee without looking back, more than the physical mechanism of the transformation.
Genesis 19:27Abraham returns to the very place where he had negotiated with God in the previous chapter, looking out the next morning to see what had happened to Sodom.
Genesis 19:28Abraham sees smoke rising from the region like from a furnace—visual confirmation, from a distance, that the destruction really happened.
Genesis 19:29The text clarifies that Lot was spared because of Abraham, not on his own merit—God remembers the relationship between the two of them when it comes time to pull Lot out of the destruction.
Genesis 19:30Afraid to stay in Zoar, Lot ends up going to the mountains anyway, living in a cave with his two daughters—the very fate he had tried to avoid earlier.
Genesis 19:31Lot’s daughters, isolated in the mountains, believe there’s no man left in the world to father children with them—a fear that leads to the plan told through the rest of the chapter.
Genesis 19:32Lot’s daughters get pregnant by their own father after getting him drunk, believing there were no more men available to father children after Sodom’s destruction. It’s one of the harshest episodes in the book of Genesis, and the text neither approves nor explicitly condemns it—it simply narrates what happened and why, without moral comment.
Genesis 19:33On the first night, the older daughter carries out the plan: she gets her father drunk and lies with him without his realizing anything, either at the time or afterward.
Genesis 19:34The next day, the older daughter proposes repeating the plan with her younger sister, keeping the same justification of preserving their father’s line.
Genesis 19:35The second night repeats the first: the father is made drunk, and the younger daughter lies with him without his realizing it.
Genesis 19:36Confirms the outcome of the two sisters’ plan: both become pregnant by their own father.
Genesis 19:37The names given to the two sisters’ sons, Moab and Ben-ammi, sound in Hebrew like “from father” and “son of my people”—a way of explaining, through the names themselves, the origin of the Moabite and Ammonite peoples, who will later appear as Israel’s neighbors further on in the Bible. It’s an origin legend told through wordplay on names, a common device in this kind of ancient narrative.
Genesis 19:38The younger daughter also has a son, Ben-ammi, who gives rise to the Ammonite people—together with the Moabite people mentioned in the previous verse, these two nations neighboring Israel are born from this episode.