Not many years after his separation from Abraham (B.C. 2080), Lot was carried away jirisoner by Chedor- laomer, along with the other inhabitants of Sodom, and was rescued and brought back by Abraham (Gen. xiv), as related under other heads. See Aisraham ; Ciiedor- T.AOJIER. Tliis exploit procured for Abraham much ce- lebrity in Canaan ; and it ought to have procured for Lot respect and gratitude from the people of .Sodom, who had lieen delivered from hard slavery and restored to their homes on his accouutT But this does not ap- pear to have been the result.
At length (B.C. 2064) the guilt of "the cities of the plain" brought down the signal judgments of heaven
(Gen. xix, 1-29). Lot is still living in Sodom (Gen. xix), a well-known resident, with wife, sons, and daugh- ters— married and marriageable. The rabbinical tra- dition is that he was actually "judge" of Sodom, and sat in the gate in that capacity. (See quotations in Otho, I^ex. Rabbin, s. v. Lotli and Sodomah.) But in the midst of the licentious corruption of Sodom — the eating and drinking, the buying and selling, the plant- ing and building (Luke xvii, 28), and of the darker evils exposed in the ancient narrative — he still preserves some of the delightful characteristics of his wandering Ufe, his fervent and chivalrous hospitality (xix, 2, 8), the unleavened bread of the tent of the wilderness (ver. 3), the water for the feet of the wayfarers (ver. 2), afford- ing his guests a reception identical with that which they had experienced that very morning in Abraham's tent on the heights of Hebron (comp. xviii, 3, G). It is this hospitality which receives the commendation of the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews in words that have passed into a familiar proverb, '• Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares" (Heb. xiii, 2). On the other hand, it is his deliverance from the guilty and condemneil city — the one just man in that mob of sensual, lawless wretch- es— which points the allusion of St. Peter, to " the godly delivered out of tem])tations, the unjust reserved unto tlie day of judgment to l)e punished, an ensample to those that after should live ungodly" (2 Pet. ii, G-9). The avenging angels, after having been entertained by Abraliam, repaired to Sodom, where they were received and entertained by Lot, who was sitting in the gate of the town when they arrived. While they were at sup- per the house was beset by a number of men, who de- manded that the strangers should be given up to them, for the unnatural jjurposes which have given a name of infamy to Sodom in all generations. Lot resisted this demand, and \vas loaded with abuse by the A-ile fellows outside on that account. Thev had iiearlv forced the
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door, when the angels, thus awfully by their own expe- rience convinced of the righteousness of the doom they came to execute, smote them with uistant blindness, by which their attempts were rendered abortive, and they were constrained to disperse. Towards morning the an- gels apprised Lot of the doom -which hung over the place, and urged him to hasten thence with his famih'. He was allowed to extend the benefit of this deliver- ance to the families of his daughters who had married in Sodom ; but the warning was received by those fam- ilies with incredulity and insult, and he tlierefore left Sodom accompanied only by his wife and two daugh- ters. As they went, being hastened by the angels, the wife, anxious for those who had been left behind, or re- luctant to remove from the place which had long been her home, and where much valuable property Avas iiec- cssarOy left behind, lingered behind the rest, and was suddenly involved in the destruction by which — smoth- ered and stiffened as she stood by saline incrustations — she became "a pillar of salt" (Gen. xix, 1-2G). This narrative has often been regarded as one of the " difficul- ties" of the Bible. But it surely need not be so. Even under tlie above extreme view of the suddenness of the event, the circumstances appear to be all sufficient!}' ac- counted for. In the sacred record the words are simply these : " His wife looked back from behind him, and be- came a pillar of salt;" words which neither in them- selves nor in their position in the narrative afford any serious difficulty, even without the supposition of a mir- acle. It is true that, when taken with what has gone before, they seem to imply (vers. 22, 23) that the work of destruction by fire did not commence till after Lot liad entered Zoar. The storm, however, raaj' have overtaken her in consequence of her delay. Later ages have not been satisfied to leave the matter, but have insisted on identifying the "piUar" with some one of the fleeting forms which the perishable rock of the south end of the Dead Sea is constantly assuming in its process of de- composition and liquefaction (Anderson's Off. Nai-r. p. 180). The first allusion of this kind is perhaps that in "Wisd. X, 7, where " a standing pillar of salt, the monu- ment (/(j7/^tio)') of an unbelieving soul," is mentioned with the "waste land that smoketh," and the "plants bearing fruit that never come to ripeness," as remaining to that A&y, a testimony to the wickedness of Sodom. This notion was regarded by the Koman Catholics as scriptur.'.l authority that might not be disputed. See the quotations from the fathers and others in Hofmann's Lexikon (s. v. Lot), and in IMislin, Lieux Saints (iii,224). Josephus also (.1?;^ i, 11, 4) says that he had seen it, and that it was then remaining. So, too, do Clemens Romanus (Epist. i, 11) and IreuKus (iv, 51, 64). So does Benjamin of Tudela, whose account is more than usu- ally circumstantial (ed. Asher, i, 72). Eabbi Petachia, on the other hand, looked for it, but "did not see it; it no longer exists" (ed. Benisch, p. 61), The same state- ment is to be found in travellers of every age, certainly of our own times (see Maimdrell, Slarch 30). The ori- gin of these traditions relative to this pillar has lately been satisfactorily explained by the discovery by the American party under Lieut. Lynch of an actual column still standing on the south-western shore of the Dead Sea, at a place retaining the traces of the name of Sod- om in the form of Usdum, of which he gives a pictorial sketch, describing it as a round pillar, about forty feet high, on a lofty pedestal, standing detached from the general mass of the mountain, of solid salt, slightly de- creasing in size upwards, and capped with carbonate of lime; but, althougVi himself a Catholic, he admits, with scicntilic candor, that it is merely t^jie result of the ac- tion of the winter rains upon the rock-salt hills, which the cap of limestone has here protected, leaving the sur- rounding parts to wash away, till a column has thus gradually been carved out (Xarraiice of Ea-pedition, p. 307,3(IS). Prof. Palmer also visited this singular object, called by the Arabs Bint Shc-ik Lot, or " Lot's [daughter] wife.'' He describes and gives a view of it as " a tall