Hello. Welcome to Bible Wisdom Today, for those willing to think deeply. My name is Stan Watkins. 

Have you ever looked at the world around you—or even at your own life—and quietly wondered, “Is God always fair?” 

When we read ancient biblical stories about entire cities being wiped out by fire and brimstone, or when we face unexpected, undeserved heartbreaks in our own lives, it is easy to feel like justice is blind, harsh, or completely random. Our story today, one of the most terrifying tales of divine judgment in the Bible, was written to answer that very question. “Is God always fair?” 

In this episode we will step directly into the smoke and burning asphalt of Sodom. We will look beyond the simple children’s stories of Abraham’s bold bartering with God and Lot’s harrowing rescue out the city gates. When we do, we will discover a raw, ancient story which still answers our deepest contemporary questions about divine justice, human frailty, and God’s priority for mercy. 

Whether you are struggling with the idea of a God of judgment, or trying to make sense of your personal unwarranted suffering this episode is for you. 

Just a quick note before we begin: due to the historical realities of the text, today's episode contains some mature themes and adult content, so you may want to use headphones if little ears are nearby. 

Now, join me in the Judean hills, where Abraham has just prepared a huge feast for three strangers who appeared at his tent, and God is preparing to make a bombshell announcement to Abraham; an announcement that prompts Abraham to ask a question which still reverberates in thinking minds through the centuries.

God reveals his plans for Sodom

As we ended our story in the last episode, it had become increasingly obvious that Abraham’s three guests were not simply men. We concluded that they were not men at all, but God in human form, along with two angels. Now, Abraham’s guests are getting ready to depart. As they do, God has a decision to make. Will he let his chosen man Abraham know what he plans to do next?  

Listen to how Genesis relates this story, beginning in chapter 18, verse 16— 

When the men got up to leave, they looked down toward Sodom, and Abraham walked along with them to see them on their way. Then the LORD said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do? Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all nations on earth will be blessed through him. For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing what is right and just, so that the LORD will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him.” 
 
 Then the LORD said, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know.”
 Genesis 18:16-21 

As the men got up to go, they looked down toward Sodom. This is the first hint that the next part of the story will feature that wicked city. God engages in a conversation either with himself or with his two companions about whether he should tell Abraham His plans. This makes the reader wiser than Abraham about what God intends to do. This monologue sounds a lot like God’s debate with himself before the flood and leaves us with an ominous feeling. Something significant is about to happen. I am not sure I’m going to like it. 

God had chosen Abraham to create a community of faith. His responsibility was not only to maintain his covenant with God, but to teach his children to act righteously. The phrase in God’s speech, “so that the LORD will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him,” shows that the fulfillment of God’s promise was contingent on Abraham’s obedience. 

God’s next words were spoken aloud, apparently to Abraham. He was going to investigate the situation in Sodom. The rest of the story makes clear that He will carry out this plan using his two messengers as feet on the ground. God will not enter the wicked city himself.  

God says that the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah was great. This refers to the city’s reputation. Like the blood of Abel cried out to God from the ground, the unpunished sin of this city cried out to God for vengeance. How ominous, especially when we remember how God dealt with great human wickedness before the flood! Now, just like God had gone down to investigate the situation of the proud tower-builders at Babel, now He goes down to Sodom to see if things are really as bad as he has heard. “If not,” He said, “I will know.” 

Now, the Bible continues the story as the two messengers from God part to go to Sodom and Abraham is left alone with God. Abraham has serious questions about what God plans to do and now takes the opportunity to confront Him.  

Listen to Genesis18 beginning in verse 22, 

The men turned away and went toward Sodom, but Abraham remained standing before the LORD. Then Abraham approached him and said: “Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing —to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?”
 Genesis 18:22-25 

This is the first place where we get true clarity about the identity of the leader among these visitors. He is the LORD. The other two men are further identified in the next chapter as angels. 

Abraham begins his interrogation of God with a deep theological question. “Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked?” If God does not distinguish good people from bad, then God is not good.  

The idea that God would reward people according to their deeds, either good or bad, was a fundamental assumption of ancient religion and a basic principle in the Hebrew scripture as well. For example, in Psalm 146, verses 8 and 9 we read: 

the LORD loves the righteous. 
 …but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.
 Psalms 146:8-9 

In fact, God, himself, had just asserted this principle in his earlier commentary on Abraham’s character. He had chosen Abraham because he knew that Abraham would direct his household in the way of the LORD. God would keep His promises as a direct result of Abraham’s faithfulness to the covenant. Abraham’s whole approach to God is based on this same assumption.  

“Will you really sweep the city away and not spare the place for the sake of…fifty righteous people in it?” Perhaps, Abraham seemed to say, this was just an oversight by God. The righteous had been lost among the wicked, but Abraham’s next comment is much sharper. “Far be it from you to do such a thing—to kill the righteous with the wicked.” This implies that God’s judicial sentence is deliberate. He is willing to condemn the righteous. Abraham says that this is cold-blooded killing and far from the standard even demanded of human judges. “Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?” 

People still ask this question. I have tried to capture it simply with the title of this episode, “Is God always fair?” Sometimes people hear only part of the biblical story, that God destroyed the ancient world with a flood because of their wickedness, that God destroyed the city of Sodom with fire and brimstone, that God destroyed the Canaanite people by sending in his own chosen nation to slaughter them and then they conclude, “What a vindictive, judgmental God! Thank God He mellowed out by the time we get to the New Testament.” 

Behind this theological question often is a more personal question, “Is God always fair to me? It seems like I have faced all sorts of trouble in my life that I really didn’t deserve. Where is the fairness in that?” 

The whole narrative before us today seems designed to answer this important question, “Is God always fair?” It does so, not by means of a theological treatise or philosophical deliberations, but through story. It answers our question with a resounding, “Yes, God is always fair.” The author of Genesis defines God’s fairness through His actions. 

Throughout this story, Genesis describes God using a literary device called anthropomorphism. This word combines two Greek roots that together mean “human form.” The Bible often presents the infinite, invisible God using limited human terms, giving God physical characteristics and actions as well as human emotions. Here, we have already seen God wrestling with his own thoughts and going down to Sodom to investigate the wickedness He has heard about. Representing God in this way creates better communication with limited beings like us. We come to see God, not as an abstract invisible force, but as someone who cares deeply about his relationship with us. Surely God already knew all that He needed to know about the conditions in Sodom, but this story of God taking a trip to investigate helps us see that God is never blind or hasty in His judgment. This is our first answer to the question, “Is God always fair?” “Yes, God is always fair, because God bases His judgment on full knowledge. 

God makes this very clear as Abraham presses into the limits of God’s righteous judgment. He has already asked God if he would spare Sodom if he found fifty righteous people in it. Listen to how their conversation continues in verse 26. 

The LORD said, “If I find fifty righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake.” 
 
 Then Abraham spoke up again: “Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, though I am nothing but dust and ashes, what if the number of the righteous is five less than fifty? Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five people?”
 “If I find forty-five there,” he said, “I will not destroy it.” 
 
 Once again he spoke to him, “What if only forty are found there?”
 He said, “For the sake of forty, I will not do it.” 
 
 Then he said, “May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak. What if only thirty can be found there?”
 He answered, “I will not do it if I find thirty there.” 
 
 Abraham said, “Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, what if only twenty can be found there?”
 He said, “For the sake of twenty, I will not destroy it.” 
 
 Then he said, “May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak just once more. What if only ten can be found there?”
 He answered, “For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it.” 
 
 When the LORD had finished speaking with Abraham, he left, and Abraham returned home.
 Genesis 18:26-33 

God had given Abraham a slender hope that he might change his mind when He first told Abraham that he was going down to Sodom to see if things were as bad as He had heard. “If not,” the LORD said, “I will know.” Now Abraham seizes on those little words “if not” as the foundation for his whole plea. Abraham appeals six times for Sodom and each time the LORD says “Yes.” He agrees with Abraham’s basic logic.  

A repetition of threes is common in the Bible just like in all literature—think about the three bears or three wishes—but doubling that number gives Abraham’s intercession extra weight. 

He starts of confidently, “Would you sweep away the righteous with the wicked and not spare them for 50 righteous?” And God answers the first two requests positively, “If I find 50 I will spare them. If I find 45 I will not destroy them.” God’s middle two replies are simply, “I will not do it.” As Abraham begins the second round of three requests, the tension rises, “May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak” and God’s final two replies are more ominous. “For the sake of 20, I will not destroy it. For the sake of 10, I will not destroy it.” The tone of God’s replies lets Abraham know that he cannot be pushed much further. Abraham understands this when he begins his final request, “May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak just once more.” Even though Abraham pressed God hard, God always remained in control of the conversation. When he finished speaking with Abraham, he left. By disclosing His plans God had basically asked for Abraham’s intercession. Now God disappeared. Abraham was left standing alone. 

Sometimes some interpreters will suggest that Abraham did not have the courage to go an and ask God to spare the city for just one. No, God was now finished speaking. He had agreed with Abraham’s basic logic. He would not indiscriminately destroy the righteous with the wicked.  

But what would he do if he did not find even 10 righteous people in Sodom? What if He only found one? We must read on into Genesis 19 to answer that question. 

God investigates Sodom 

Let’s begin our reading with Genesis 19:1. 

The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city. When he saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground. “My lords,” he said, “please turn aside to your servant’s house. You can wash your feet and spend the night and then go on your way early in the morning.”
 “No,” they answered, “we will spend the night in the square.” 
 But he insisted so strongly that they did go with him and entered his house. He prepared a meal for them, baking bread without yeast, and they ate.
 Genesis 19:1-3 

This description sounds similar to the arrival of the guests at Abraham’s tent. It is told in a briefer fashion, but Lot was just as hospitable. 

We now have the final clarification regarding the identity of these men. Two of them are angels, and the third one, the LORD in bodily form, has not come to Sodom. Though they were angels, they must have seemed like men to Lot, just as they initially had to Abraham. They arrived in Sodom in the evening. They had spent most of the day at Abraham’s tent. Now they must have transported themselves to Sodom, since the 20 mile would have taken too long to walk after their leisurely midday meal with Abraham. 

Lot was sitting in the gateway. The gateway was the public gathering place of the city, where the elders sat, passed legal judgments, and held public meetings. Lot was now a respected community member. It is characteristic in the Bible that only the main characters are in focus and other passive figures are omitted. Yet, we might have expected other elders to greet the angels also. Does this indicate that the people of Sodom lacked hospitality? Was Lot estranged from the other men of Sodom and sat by himself? Ominous questions begin to rise, which the rest of the story may answer. 

Lot’s welcome is as effuse as Abraham’s, but since they came in the evening it was appropriate to offer them a place to stay the night, rather than just a meal and a rest under a shade tree. The cultural standard for hospitality was that the host initially offered hospitality, the guests then refused, so as not to seem entitled or a burden to their host, and then the host insisted more heavily. This is what we saw in the exchange at Abraham’s tent, and the exchange here begins the same way. The angels initially offer to stay in the square, which normally would be considered a safe place, but Lot’s insistence that they retire inside his house was particularly strong. It might even be translated “manhandled.”[1] What did Lot imagine might happen to them if they stayed outside? This arouses more worry in our mind. 

Lot prepared a meal as quickly as possible, not even waiting for the bread to rise. He was obviously in a hurry, but before they had even gone to bed, the reason became obvious. Let me read the story beginning at Genesis 19:4. 

All the men from every part of the city of Sodom —both young and old—surrounded the house. They called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.” 
 Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him and said, “No, my friends. Don’t do this wicked thing. Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don’t do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof.” 
 “Get out of our way,” they replied. “This fellow came here as a foreigner, and now he wants to play the judge! We’ll treat you worse than them.” They kept bringing pressure on Lot and moved forward to break down the door.
 Genesis 19:4-9 

Now, we see the character of the city. In the ancient Near East, hospitality was not just about being polite, it was often a matter of life and death for travelers and a central cultural duty. These people had taken inhospitableness to a totally new level. They were not simply impolite; they had weaponized their culture against outsiders. All the men from all parts of the city, young and old, were now pounding on Lot’s door intent on gang rape. 

The literal words of their demand was, “Bring out those men so that we may know them.” Some have tried to reduce the dreadfulness of this story by saying that the men of the city simply wanted to get acquainted, but that can’t possibly be what they meant. Frequently, in the Bible, the verb “to know” carries the connotation of sexual intimacy. Besides, the angels had entered publicly through the gate, so anyone who simply wanted to meet them could have already done so. Lot’s suggestion that they might accept his daughters who had “never known a man” proves the sexual connection. 

In ancient contexts, the threat of gang rape against male travelers by a mob of local men was an act of violent subjugation, humiliation, and terror. It was an act of dominance generally encountered in war. The city of Sodom was a cultural outlier in the ancient world, practicing pervasive violent hostility toward peaceful travelers . While the word “Sodomy” historically entered the English language as a result of this story, the primary intent of the mob was not toward homosexual relations, and certainly not consenting relations, but toward sexual aggression. They used sex as a weapon of abuse, violence, and degradation. 

This encounter not only shows us the character of the city, but also Lot’s character as well. He was brave! Shutting the door not only kept his guests safe, but also cut off his own escape. He also was totally committed to his guests’ welfare. For Lot, his highest, non-negotiable duty as a host was to protect his guests. He even offered to sacrifice his own daughters to the violent mob. This seems shocking to us, and it may have even seemed shocking to the author of Genesis, since he adds that Lot was totally committed to protecting his guests.  

In Lot’s day, daughters were viewed largely as property under the absolute authority of their fathers. Fathers were expected to protect their families, but the culture placed greater value on the male guests than the daughters. Lot made a desperate calculation between competing values. It is important to note that God did not instruct Lot to act in this way, and Genesis does not offer approval of his shocking bargain. It only describes the event. The irony of the story is that his offer wasn’t even necessary. The mob completely rejected his offer, “Shall a single immigrant be our judge. We will do worse to you than them.” Their verbal abuse escalated to physical assault. They shoved Lot aside and began to batter down the door. At that moment, the door opened ever so briefly, his guests yanked Lot back inside and struck the men at the door with blindness so that they could not find the door. The word used for blindness is an unusual word, closer to “night blindness.” Perhaps the angels shone with a blinding light—even through the door!  

The final description in this scene is almost comical; the mob could not find the door. How is it that they could not find the door, even if they were blind. Surely someone would have stumbled upon it by chance. There must have been some additional supernatural protection until the mob dispersed. And why did they not go home as soon as they were struck blind? Their small taste of divine judgment had not produced any repentance. 

The angelic visitors had now shown Lot their true identity. His close call with the angry mob had revealed the depravity of his neighbors. He was now prepared to hear the angelic warning they brought. 

Verse 12: 

The two men said to Lot, “Do you have anyone else here—sons-in-law, sons or daughters, or anyone else in the city who belongs to you? Get them out of here, because we are going to destroy this place. The outcry to the LORD against its people is so great that he has sent us to destroy it.” 
 So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were pledged to marry his daughters. He said, “Hurry and get out of this place, because the LORD is about to destroy the city! ” But his sons-in-law thought he was joking.
 Genesis 19:12-14 

Lot’s unmarried daughters would have been under his patriarchal protection, but not any married daughters or his sons-in-law. The New International Version says that the sons-in-law were pledged to marry his daughters. This is a reasonable translation, but the text could also be translated to mean that they were already married. If they were only pledged to marry, then their refusal is more understandable. They thought Lot was joking, just making an excuse not to go through with their marriages, claiming some imminent judgment after the riot outside his house. 

Notice that when God judged the city of Sodom, He did not issue a blanket condemnation against the entire population. The sons-in-law were given an opportunity to believe the warning of coming judgment and find salvation with Lot and his family, but they chose to ignore it. As a result, they were evaluated based on their own decision. In our world, nations may resort to carpet-bombing or broad sanctions that harm innocent civilians indiscriminately. God refuses to sweep the innocent away with the guilty. God judges with surgical precision, because God is always fair.

God rescues Lot and destroys Sodom

Our Genesis story continues in 19:15: 

With the coming of dawn, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Hurry! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away when the city is punished.” 
 
 When he hesitated, the men grasped his hand and the hands of his wife and of his two daughters and led them safely out of the city, for the LORD was merciful to them. As soon as they had brought them out, one of them said, “Flee for your lives! Don’t look back, and don’t stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away!” 
 
 But Lot said to them, “No, my lords, please! Your servant has found favor in your eyes, and you have shown great kindness to me in sparing my life. But I can’t flee to the mountains; this disaster will overtake me, and I’ll die. Look, here is a town near enough to run to, and it is small. Let me flee to it—it is very small, isn’t it? Then my life will be spared.” 
 
 He said to him, “Very well, I will grant this request too; I will not overthrow the town you speak of. But flee there quickly, because I cannot do anything until you reach it.” 
 Genesis 19:15-22 

Just as the sun began to lighten the sky, the angels shook Lot awake. “Get up! Get up! Take your family and get out of here. The LORD is about to destroy the city.” 

Earlier in the story, Lot had forcibly urged the angels to stay in his home; now, they forcibly urge him to take his family and leave. The angel’s reference to “your two daughters who are here” may imply that he had other daughters elsewhere in Sodom, partly explaining Lot’s initial hesitation to leave.  

The angels literally grab Lot by the hand and pull him and his family out of danger. Lot now truly understood the urgency. God’s judgment would fall at any moment. He also understood his own weakness. He could not flee all the way to the mountains before judgment came. Would it be all right if he just ran to the nearby city of Zoar. Its name means small. If God was willing to let that small city live, then Lot could make it that far. 

“OK, OK, I will keep that town safe but run as fast as you can. I cannot do anything until you reach it.”  

Even though Lot hesitated, God did not abandon him in his weakness. The angels’ use of force was an act of mercy. He also spared this nearby town so that he could spare Lot. God’s judgment is fair, because he judges with patience for our human frailty.  

Reading from verse 23: 

By the time Lot reached Zoar, the sun had risen over the land. Then the LORD rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah —from the LORD out of the heavens. Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, destroying all those living in the cities—and also the vegetation in the land. But Lot’s wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt. 
 Genesis 19:23-26 

The way the story is written implies that the sunrise, Lot’s arrival at Zoar, and God’s judgment happened simultaneously. The angels had roused Lot at dawn; now he entered the safety of Zoar at sunrise. According to Gordon Wenham in his commentary on Genesis, in the Middle East there is barely half an hour between these two time points.[2] Lot must have moved quickly! Just as Lot entered the small town, God’s judgment rained down.  

Here is the final answer to the question, “Is God’s judgment always fair?” Yes, indeed. True fairness isn’t only about punishing the wicked; it’s also about protecting the righteous. God put a pause on his operational clock until Lot had reached safety. This demonstrates, again, the true nature of God’s fairness. God prioritizes rescue over judgment. 

As Lot, now safe in Zoar, cast a quick glance back across the plain, he realized that his wife was not among them. She had lingered, perhaps sorrowing over the home she must leave. She disobeyed the specific instruction of the angels not to look back and was taken by God’s judgment. 

The destruction of Sodom and its sister city, Gomorrah, was an act of God, but he very well may have used natural processes to do it. What could those processes be? The plain of the Dead Sea sits on top of a major tectonic faultline known as the Jordan Rift. This region contains huge deposits of petroleum, natural gas, and bitumen, which is a naturally occurring asphalt mixed with a high concentration of sulfur. An earthquake could have triggered a violent underground explosion forcing the highly pressurized gas and bitumen up through fault lines and high into the atmosphere. This violent expulsion could produce enough friction, static electricity, or sparks to ignite this airborne material, raining down a sticky, unquenchable, burning liquid mass across the valley.[3] 

Another, less accepted theory, is that a meteor exploding in the atmosphere caused a massive high-temperature shockwave, creating a similar rain of superheated debris.[4]. However it happened, God knew it would happen and planned for it. 

The traditional description was that fire and brimstone rained down on Sodom and Gomorrah. Brimstone is simply an archaic word for burning stone, which is the bitumen that I just described. Modern translations normally use the description “burning sulphur” to describe this phenomenon to a modern audience.

 Our story ends as it began, with Abraham looking down toward Sodom. Listen to the Genesis account, beginning with verse 27. 

Early the next morning Abraham got up and returned to the place where he had stood before the LORD. He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, toward all the land of the plain, and he saw dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace. 
 So when God destroyed the cities of the plain, he remembered Abraham, and he brought Lot out of the catastrophe that overthrew the cities where Lot had lived.
 Genesis 19:27-29 

Presenting the story through Abraham’s eyes, the narrator makes it more human. Abraham really wanted to know what had happened to his nephew. What had happened to his family? He returned to the place where he had interceded before the LORD for his nephew and the city. From his high vantage point, Abraham saw dense smoke rising from the land. All below him was destroyed. Surely his nephew, that boy he had raised as his own, was gone. Abraham still did not yet know the result of his prayer.  

·         He did not yet  know that God bases His judgment on full knowledge. 

·         He did not yet know that God judges with surgical precision.

·         He did not yet know that God judges with patience for human frailty 

·         He did not yet know that God prioritizes rescue over judgment. His nephew Lot had reached safety

Incest in the cave

So far in this chapter, we have dealt with some difficult subjects. At times during my study for this podcast, I have been really troubled, even losing sleep, over the dirtiness of depravity exhibited in this section. I wish that I could end this episode with a sweet, beautiful story, but that was not the biblical author’s plan. Mercifully, this next event is straightforward to understand, and my own comments can be brief. 

Let me beginning reading at Genesis 19:30. 

Lot and his two daughters left Zoar and settled in the mountains, for he was afraid to stay in Zoar. He and his two daughters lived in a cave. One day the older daughter said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is no man around here to give us children—as is the custom all over the earth. Let’s get our father to drink wine and then sleep with him and preserve our family line through our father.” 
 
 That night they got their father to drink wine, and the older daughter went in and slept with him. He was not aware of it when she lay down or when she got up. 
 
 The next day the older daughter said to the younger, “Last night I slept with my father. Let’s get him to drink wine again tonight, and you go in and sleep with him so we can preserve our family line through our father.” So they got their father to drink wine that night also, and the younger daughter went in and slept with him. Again he was not aware of it when she lay down or when she got up. 
 
 So both of Lot’s daughters became pregnant by their father. The older daughter had a son, and she named him Moab; he is the father of the Moabites of today. The younger daughter also had a son, and she named him Ben-Ammi; he is the father of the Ammonites of today.
 Genesis 19:30-38 

The angels had first instructed Lot to flee to the mountains, but he pleaded to be allowed to take refuge in Zoar. Now he moved to the mountains, but this was not motivated by faith, but fear. God had promised Lot divine protection in Zoar, but Lot wanted to put extra distance between his family and the site of God’s judgment. Lot, the rich herdsman, who had chosen to live in the fertile plain near the Dead Sea, was now reduced so much that all he had could be accommodated inside a cave.  

Just like the flood story ended with Noah getting drunk and being victimized by his children, so Lot also suffers the same indignation. The narrator leaves us to pity Lot at his painful loss of honor at the hands of those who should have loved him most and seems to offer Lot relief from blame by reporting twice that Lot was drunk and didn’t know what he was doing. The daughters do know what they are doing, and don’t seem to see anything wrong with their behavior. They had totally imbibed the cultural attitude of Sodom. There is a pathetic irony in this story. Lot had offered to sacrifice his daughter’s virginity to satisfy the mob in Sodom; now his daughters give up their own virginity and their father’s honor when there is no actual danger.[5] 

Lot suffered directly from his daughters’ sexual entrapment. The ancient Israelites, even though they lived hundreds of years later, also suffered from the ripple effect of these sordid sexual relations. As the neared Canaan, they already had experience with the Moabites, who had refused them passage through their land, forcing the young nation to travel completely around their territory and enter Canaan along Moab’s northern border. Not only that, but the Moabites also sent women into the camp to seduce them into idolatry. Learning that their new neighbors were descended from incestuous relations would have been revulsive. 

Believe it or not, we can find meaning for our own lives in this story, as well. We too live in a world filled with people who have made bad choices. Sometimes we suffer, not only from our own bad choices, but because of the bad choices of others. If we imagine that all our suffering is a direct act of God, we miss an important reason for our pain. It often is not a result of anything we did, but because of someone else’s flawed willful choice. 

Final Comments

Earlier we read Genesis 19:29, which says, “So when God destroyed the cities of the plain, he remembered Abraham, and he brought Lot out of the catastrophe.” We might easily read that as a simple review of the story just told, but it has a richer meaning than that.  

God remembered Abraham. This is another echo of the flood story, where God remembered Noah. We might have expected the text to read, “God remembered Lot,” but the narrator hides an important theological message here. God remembered Lot, not for his own merits, but because of Abraham’s intercession. God kept his covenant with Abraham because God is always fair. True fairness means that God honors His promises to those who trust Him. This is the nature of his character that God declared to Moses some 400 years later. 

“the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, [is] slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished
 Exodus 34:6-7 

God does judge, and He does so fairly, but his distinctive character is mercy. 

When we look again at the book of Genesis in our next episode, we continue revisiting the same themes that we saw in the first half of the Abraham story. Each theme is presented twice, once before and once after the midpoint of the story. Next week, we again see Sarah in a foreign palace because her husband has lied about their marital relationship. Really, Abraham? You’re going to make that same mistake again? Don’t miss our next episode, when we will see how God turned around this difficult situation of Abraham’s own making and ushered in a period of peace and success, including the birth of his long-awaited son.  

If today’s episode has been helpful to you, one of the best ways you can support this podcast is by sharing it with your friends. Do you know someone who would benefit from thinking through these ideas? Why not simply send them a link to this podcast website, biblewisdomtoday.com, and tell them why it mattered to you. That would mean so much to me. Thank you for your help in growing this Bible Wisdom Today family.

[1] Wenham, G. J. (1987). Genesis 16-50. Zondervan.
[2] Wenham
[3]  Wood, B. G. (2026, May 11). Sodom and Gomorrah: Is there evidence for their destruction?. Sodom and Gomorrah: Is There Evidence for Their Destruction? https://biblearchaeology.org/research-articles/sodom-and-gomorrah-is-there-evidence-for-their-destruction/
[4] Eames, C. (n.d.). Uncovering the Biblical City of Sodom. ArmstrongInstitute.org. https://armstronginstitute.org/1178-uncovering-the-biblical-city-of-sodom
[5] Wenham