The Abraham Story Part 17: A Flood of Fire

A Flood of Fire

Genesis 19:15–22 NASB95

15 When morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Up, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away in the punishment of the city.” 16 But he hesitated. So the men seized his hand and the hand of his wife and the hands of his two daughters, for the compassion of the Lord was upon him; and they brought him out, and put him outside the city. 17 When they had brought them outside, one said, “Escape for your life! Do not look behind you, and do not stay anywhere in the valley; escape to the mountains, or you will be swept away.” 18 But Lot said to them, “Oh no, my lords! 19 “Now behold, your servant has found favor in your sight, and you have magnified your lovingkindness (חֶסֶד (ḥě·sěḏ) Loyal love), which you have shown me by saving my life; but I cannot escape to the mountains, for the disaster will overtake me and I will die; 20 now behold, this town is near enough to flee to, and it is small. Please, let me escape there (is it not small?) that my life may be saved.” 21 He said to him, “Behold, I grant you this request also, not to overthrow the town of which you have spoken. 22 “Hurry, escape there, for I cannot do anything until you arrive there.” Therefore the name of the town was called Zoar.

And they made him go out, and then they (put him outside the city) rested him," the word "rest" is Noah's name as a verb. "They rested him outside the city.

Yahweh made this promise to Avraham and, you know, Avraham covered for you and Yahweh's gotta keep his promise. "'I can't do anything until you get outta the city.'

Well this is the reason, dear reader, that the name of this city is called Zoar."

So it's a little city, the word "city" and the word "little" are spelled with graphically similar letters. And then the name of the city, Zoar, is spelled with the same letters as the word "little." It's the little city.

Do you remember that when you were introduced to the five kings of the Canaanites, the king of Bela, whose name means "devoured" or "consumed," that's Zoar. So think through the macro structure of this whole thing. This was in the flood moment of the kings, now we're in the other flood moment. And is this city associated with anything good?

Lot is a bad chooser.

Yeah, okay. Yeah. Let's pause. Let's talk about what's going on here. Why are we pausing an epic dramatic escape scene for this long digression of a conversation about this nice little city that Lot would rather flee to than go to the place that God is telling him to go? 

So God's saying, "Go to the mountain." And what's Lot doing? He's like, "Well, you know, I've got this idea. There's this nice city right down there," right? 

He's a bad chooser. Has he already chosen the wrong city before? And we're like, "Oh no, it's happening again." So for sure we're recalling his poor choice of the city in the first place to go down to the valley of Sodom. And do you remember there it was, he said it, it looked like Eden down there.

So we're bringing all that to bear here. He's got his own idea. God provides a means of escape, and he's got his own idea about how his salvation should be worked out. 

And so he wants to go to this little city that is in fact Zoar, the city reigned by one of those corrupt kings back in chapter 14. 

This is a good example of how little details, and you're like, "What does that have to do? I don't know," you keep reading, and then all of a sudden here it comes up again. This is a city of a Canaanite king and he thinks it's a great idea to go there.

This bears an important resemblance to Cain's negotiation over the deliverance that Yahweh provides after the murder of Abel.

God provides a “sign” for Cain, but Cain goes out and builds a “city” (ריע) for his own protection (Gen. 4:17).

Cain builds his city because of his fear that someone will “find” (אצמ) him and murder him in revenge for his brother’s death (Gen. 4:14).

The analogy between Cain and Lot accentuates what was implicit in the Cain story: Both characters reject the provision of Yahweh and instead provide their own form of deliverance through a city (ריע).

Genesis 19:23–26 LEB

23 After the sun had risen upon the earth and Lot had entered Zoar, 24 Yahweh rained down from heaven upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from Yahweh. 25 And he overthrew those cities and the whole plain, and the inhabitants of the cities and the vegetation of the ground. 26 But his wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.

Well, the sun finally came out over the land. The sun rises. Notice we went through the night. That's when the men arrived. And now we're at the sunrise. Salvation at sunrise.

"The sun went out over the land right as Lot got to Zoar.

And Yahweh brought the rain." This is only the second time that it's rained in the book of Genesis.

And you know, the other time, it's the rain waters of the flood. Does that mean it is the only time that it has rained in the land. Some would say yes. I would say that it is the only time that it matters to the story. because they are drawing attention to God’s working of the flood waters.

"Yahweh caused it to rain over Sodom and over Gomorrah sulfur and fire from Yahweh, from the skies. And he turned upside down, he flipped over those cities, all the cities of the valley and all the dwellers of the cities and even the plants of the ground." De-creation,

And do you remember that little command of, don't stare behind you? Don't look longingly after where you've come. Don't stop anywhere.

Ah, here's the thing, that's exactly what his wife did.

"His wife stared behind him, and she became a pillar of salt."

salt's related to two things. One is, this is another link back to Genesis 14. This valley is called the valley of Siddim. It's the valley of salt. So if you've go down to this valley today, I’m told because ive never been there, The Dead Sea. If you go to the beaches where you can go swim. It's not really swimming, you're just floating. The water's so salty. 

You don't have to tread water or anything. The salt density keeps you buoyant without doing it. So you can literally take a nap on the Dead Sea and you would never sink. 

And then the rest of it is big factories and industrial salt farms where they've sectioned off whole parts of the sea with, you know, big, like, walkable barriers and they just do salt collecting. 'cause there's just big salt pillars and weird mutant-like salt formations growing up over everything. 'Cause once any water splashes up and it dries, it just forms these mega mounds of salt. 

So the whole point is that it's a region known for desolation, no plants, and strange salt formations.

And so in the story, the city is de-created, even any garden growth of the ground is de-created.

And any people who look longingly on Sodom as if it were a good thing or sustained a good way of life, are themselves reduced, de-created. 

Cain doesn't wanna accept God's sign of protection. He wants to provide his own, so he builds a city.

You have humans building their own cities after the flood. And then those are brought together here where Lot's got this, a better plan of salvation that involves just this little city.

And so we're bringing together so many motifs of the story here. 

Avraham, the Righteous Intercessor

Genesis 19:27–29 NASB95

27 Now Abraham arose early in the morning and went to the place where he had stood before the Lord; 28 and he looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the valley, and he saw, and behold, the smoke of the land ascended like the smoke of a furnace. 29 Thus it came about, when God destroyed the cities of the valley, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when He overthrew the cities in which Lot lived.

So the moment that we have Lot going to Zoar, the camera shifts back up to the hilltop and Avraham is there up in the morning. "And he goes, right, at the morning, and he goes and he looks over to the place where he stood. And he looked down on the face of Sodom and over Gomorrah on all the face and all the valley. And what he saw was smoke of the land going up like the smoke of a furnace." Okay, just remember this, the furnace, the smoky furnace of Sodom and Gomorrah, what used to be there.

"You know, when Yahweh caused the ruin of the cities of the valley, he remembered Avraham.

That's why he sent Lot out in the middle of that overturning when he overturned the cities in which Lot had been dwelling."

So nothing in the story has led you to think, Lot's not the greatest person. He's kind of, he's human, which means he is glorious and stupid and selfish. But why is God putting up with this guy? And it's only at the very end. It's like, it has to be so on purpose that we come back to that little scene on the hilltop between Avraham and Yahweh.

And we're told that he looks down and it was only because of Abraham. 

Now, can I think of another time when Yahweh brought cataclysmic cosmic collapse, but there was one and Yahweh remembered?

Genesis 8:1 CSB

1 God remembered Noah, as well as all the wildlife and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. God caused a wind to pass over the earth, and the water began to subside.

You remember this was the middle sentence of the flood story, and here's the ark floating in the middle of the waters, but God remembered Noah. And so that little phrase there is gonna become a trigger word for this whole section of the melody. When God remembers somebody, when there's rising conflict or death or tragedy, it's usually the pivot moment. And, but in this case it's odd because God doesn't remember Lot. Apparently Lot isn't worth remembering. But Avraham is, which is also surprising 'cause you're like, "Ah, you know, he's not all that different." But all the same, God made a promise to Avraham. And Avraham appealed for the righteous within the city. And Lot's kind of similar to Avraham 'cause he received the angels. 

When the righteous intercessor, on the high place, appeals to God’s justice, Yahweh will listen and show mercy. - Tim Mackie, The Bible Project

And so here's the category. When you have the righteous intercessor on the high place who's appealing to God's justice, even though Avraham does it in this kinda weird, arrogant kind of way, Yahweh will listen to his righteous chosen one and will show mercy. 

Sometimes really, really generous indiscriminate mercy on those who don't deserve it. So that doesn't mean the city is spared, but it does mean that the righteous remnant or even the semi-righteous or the half-righteous remnant is brought out of the city. 

All of a sudden this role of the intercessor on the high place is a key part of the melody now. He had Noah, gets off and he offers a sacrifice on behalf of creation. And God says, "Yeah, humans are really, really terrible, but I won't do the flood of cosmic collapse." However, apparently God will, and sometimes justice demands that Yahweh, perform local floods as it were.

Not of water, in this case of fire. And so think, you have a flood of water, you have a flood of fire. 

Sodom and Gomorrah and the Flood: Icons of Divine Justice

Do you remember Babylon

the de-creation and re-creation of the scattering of Babylon. And do you remember what Babylon is called but in the story of what Terah left it? When Terah left Babylon, it's called Ur Kasdim, the fiery oven of Babylon.

So the fiery oven of Babylon is, and the scattering of it, is parallel to the flood. And now here's the city of Sodom that's burning like a fiery oven because it had a flood, not of water, but of fire. So Sodom is truly the ultimate kind of mega monster city of man. And it's taken on cosmic proportions of everything that could possibly go wrong and it demands a response of God's justice. 

Throughout the Bible, the ruin of Sodom and Gomorrah is a common icon for a whole bundle of concepts involving human evil, the ruin of the land, and the resulting flood of divine judgment. The story itself is referenced throughout the Hebrew Bible. some examples

Deuteronomy 29:23–28 CSB

23 All its soil will be a burning waste of sulfur and salt, unsown, producing nothing, with no plant growing on it, just like the fall of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the Lord demolished in his fierce anger. 24 All the nations will ask, ‘Why has the Lord done this to this land? Why this intense outburst of anger?’ 25 Then people will answer, ‘It is because they abandoned the covenant of the Lord, the God of their ancestors, which he had made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt. 26 They began to serve other gods, bowing in worship to gods they had not known—gods that the Lord had not permitted them to worship. 27 Therefore the Lord’s anger burned against this land, and he brought every curse written in this book on it. 28 The Lord uprooted them from their land in his anger, rage, and intense wrath, and threw them into another land where they are today.’

Deuteronomy 32:32–33 CSB

32 For their vine is from the vine of Sodom and from the fields of Gomorrah. Their grapes are poisonous; their clusters are bitter. 33 Their wine is serpents’ venom, the deadly poison of cobras.

Isaiah 1:9–10 CSB

9 If the Lord of Armies had not left us a few survivors, we would be like Sodom, we would resemble Gomorrah. 10 Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom! Listen to the instruction of our God, you people of Gomorrah!

Isaiah 3:8–9 CSB

8 For Jerusalem has stumbled and Judah has fallen because they have spoken and acted against the Lord, defying his glorious presence. 9 The look on their faces testifies against them, and like Sodom, they flaunt their sin; they do not conceal it. Woe to them, for they have brought disaster on themselves.

Amos 4:11–12 CSB

11 I overthrew some of you as I overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were like a burning stick snatched from a fire, yet you did not return to me— This is the Lord’s declaration. 12 Therefore, Israel, that is what I will do to you, and since I will do that to you, Israel, prepare to meet your God!

Zephaniah 2:9 CSB

9 Therefore, as I live—this is the declaration of the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel— Moab will be like Sodom and the Ammonites like Gomorrah: a place overgrown with weeds, a salt pit, and a perpetual wasteland. The remnant of my people will plunder them; the remainder of my nation will dispossess them.

Lamentations 4:6 CSB

6 The punishment of my dear people is greater than that of Sodom, which was overthrown in an instant without a hand laid on it.

Corruption, Judgment, and the Righteous Remnant

if you put the flood story and the Sodom and Gomorrah story on top of each other, as it were, you get a really complete symbolic vocabulary of this moment of the melody. The language of violence, of sexual abuse, of an outcry against human evil. 

Think the exodus story. Enslavement of the Israelites, and their cry rose up to God. And it just, all of a sudden you're like, "Okay, I'm expecting God to do something." The ruin of a place or of a city being swept away, being wiped out, dying, expiring, rain or flood waters.

The people who are spared, there's usually word plays on Noah's name in the mix.

There's usually the language of the remnant or the escapees or the refugees fleeing to find life, to stay alive. And then you've got this whole network of images for refuges: caves, mountains, arks, houses, shelters, shadows, these kinds of things. And so it's really remarkable. You can just go right through, and the biblical authors will pull from just one of these and just paint that little moment of the story. But it's always Sodom and Gomorrah is like a crescendo to the whole thing.

The Vocabulary of Human Corruption

violence (סמח)

sexual abuse

the outcry (הקעצ/הקעז)

The Vocabulary of Judgment

ruin (תחש/תיחשה)

sweep away (הפס)

wipe out (החמ)

die (תומ)

expire (עוג)

rain/flood waters (םימ/ריטמה)

The Vocabulary of the Righteous Remnant

Noah / rest / comfort (םחנ/חונ/חנ)

remain / remnant (ראש/ראשנ)

escape / refugee (טלמה/טלמ)

flee (סונ)

images of refuge: mountain (רה) / cave (הרעמ) / ark (הבת) / house (תיבה) / shadow (לצ)

life / to keep alive (היחה/יח)

All of these terms and thematic motifs will be drawn upon and developed throughout the narrative. This verbal cohesion of the flood with Sodom and Gomorrah also explains why later Jews in the Second Temple period drew such close connections between these stories.

Jude 5–7 NIV

5 Though you already know all this, I want to remind you that the Lord at one time delivered his people out of Egypt, but later destroyed those who did not believe. 6 And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their proper dwelling—these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day. 7 In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.

2 Peter 2:4–9 NIV

4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them in chains of darkness to be held for judgment; 5 if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others; 6 if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; 7 and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the depraved conduct of the lawless 8 (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard)—9 if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to hold the unrighteous for punishment on the day of judgment.

The Blessing of Seed Distorted

Genesis 19:30–38 NASB95

30 Lot went up from Zoar, and stayed in the mountains, and his two daughters with him; for he was afraid to stay in Zoar; and he stayed in a cave, he and his two daughters. 31 Then the firstborn said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is not a man on earth to come in to us after the manner of the earth. 32 “Come, let us make our father drink wine, and let us lie with him that we may preserve our family through our father.” 33 So they made their father drink wine that night, and the firstborn went in and lay with her father; and he did not know when she lay down or when she arose. 34 On the following day, the firstborn said to the younger, “Behold, I lay last night with my father; let us make him drink wine tonight also; then you go in and lie with him, that we may preserve our family through our father.” 35 So they made their father drink wine that night also, and the younger arose and lay with him; and he did not know when she lay down or when she arose. 36 Thus both the daughters of Lot were with child by their father. 37 The firstborn bore a son, and called his name Moab; he is the father of the Moabites to this day. 38 As for the younger, she also bore a son, and called his name Ben-ammi; he is the father of the sons of Ammon to this day.

So you remember that city Zoar that Lot, like, really negotiated to try and go to? Yeah, he actually never even stayed there very long.

Verse 30, "Lot, he left Zoar and he actually went up and decided to live on that mountain anyway, the mountain that he said he didn't wanna go to. And his two daughters were with him because he was afraid of dwelling in Zoar." I would be too. It's like everything scorched except for one place.

"So he decided to go live in a cave, just him and his two daughters." The word "cave," I'm not making this stuff up, is a noun form of the Hebrew word "naked." So the best I can do in the English idiom is, we might talk about an exposure in the rock as maybe like a ledge or something you could get on. And that's a similar idea of talking about an exposure in a rock face that gives you shelter. So that's the Hebrew word that gets translated as cave. So he's going up to the high place and he finds a little naked exposure, and he goes into the place of nakedness.

"Now the firstborn daughter said to the little one," remember for Lot, negotiating about the little city was about his scheme to come up with his own idea of salvation. Now you've got the older sibling talking to the littler sibling saying, "'Man, our father's really old and I think we're the only humans left around.

There's no man in the land who's gonna come over us. You know, like the way it is with all the land. So I've got an idea, let's get Dad drunk and then let's have sex with them. Let's lie with him and we will make seed have life from our father.'" This is their plan to preserve seed in the world.

Can you see the Ham and Noah in the tent?

What was God's purpose in the ark? It's to keep seed alive. To keep life alive in the land. And so they are taking upon themselves the role that God has already provided, which is keeping them alive. 

"And so they got their father drunk with wine, the firstborn went laid with her father and he did not know."

Do you remember in the Noah story when Noah woke up and he knew what his son did to him? They got him so drunk he did not know when she laid down or when she got up. 

"Next day, the firstborn said to the little one, 'Hey, look, last night with my father, I laid with him. Let's get him drunk again, you go lie with him so we can keep seed alive from our father.' And again, they made their father drink wine. The little one got up, she laid with her father, he had no clue when she laid down or when she got up. 

And so yeah, the two daughters of Lot got pregnant by their father."

As far as I know, in terms of cultural comparatives, there is no culture in the world where it's acceptable for a father to impregnate his daughter and, like, this is okay or, like, this is a good thing. 

So the point is, even by the standards of Sodom and Gomorrah, this is not okay. "And so the two daughters of Lot become pregnant by their father.

The firstborn gave birth to a son and she called his name Moab," which is spelled like you would spell the Hebrew word "from the father," Moab.

"She called his name Moab and he's the father of the Moabites to this day.

The littler one also gave birth. She called his name Ammon," just some kind of Semitic word for "relative." "And he's the father of the sons of Ammon to this day."

This is, like, coming burlesque and grotesque and everything in between.

It's that little scene with Ham in the tent, with the volume turned up on it.

Lot’s folly wasn’t in accepting the counsel of the angels and the deliverance that they sought to provide. Rather, his folly was in his desire to secure his own deliverance by going to a “little” city (Zoar). His folly creates further problems. For some unstated reason, Lot and his daughters leave Zoar and go up to the eastern hills, where his choice of a cave isolates their entire family. It’s precisely that isolation that leads the daughters to think that they’re the only people left in the region and that they need to come up with their own plan to “keep seed alive” (Gen. 19:32, 34).

In both cases, the result of the father’s folly and the children’s inappropriate behavior is the birth of sons who will become hostile to Avraham’s descendants for the rest of the Hebrew Bible.

Moab, Ammon, and Sibling Rivalry

Do you remember who, what people groups followed after that weird story about Ham and his father?

Canaanites.

Canaanites are directly connected to that. And then also then Ham's grandson, Nimrod, Babylon, and Assyria. So there's something similar happening here, Moabites, but there's a twist. That's always, with the Hebrew Bible there's a twist. 

The births of Moab and Ammon, whose descendants will form the kingdoms on the east side of the Jordan, become the mirror image of the Canaanites on the west side of the Jordan. However, unlike the Canaanites who came under the curse of Noah (Gen. 9:25-27), the Moabites and Ammonites are, like Yishmael, family with Avraham (they’re his great-nephews). So their hostility is open to resolution and perhaps even reconciliation.

The Hostility of Moab and Ammon

Moab will conspire with Midian (sons of Qeturah) to curse the Israelites as they wander in the wilderness (Num. 22-24).

Moabite women seduce Israelite men into worshipping their gods

Eglon the king of Moab allies with Ammon to oppress Israel (Num. 25). (Judg. 3:12-14).

Moabites and Ammonites spar with the Israelites in the days of Jephthat(Judg. 10:6-8), King Saul (1 Sam. 11:11, 12:12, 14:47), David (2 Sam. 8:2, 12), Ahab (2 Kgs. 1:1), Elisha (2 Kgs. 3).

This is the birth story of some of the most notorious, snake-like enemies of the sons of Israel. Nahash, the Ammonite, his name means snake. And he comes and he comes to blind and gouge out the eyes to take away the sight of the Israelites

The Future Reconciliation of Moab and Ammon

The Moabite Ruth is integrated into the lineage of Avraham, Judah, David, and Jesus Messiah!

David forms a peaceful alliance with Moab and even leaves his parents there for safety from Saul (1 Sam. 22:4).

Jeremiah anticipates the eventual restoration of Moab (Jer. 48:47) and Ammon (Jer. 49:6).

Asteroid?

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/destruction-of-city-by-space-rock-may-have-inspired-biblical-story-of-sodom-180978734/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/fernandezelizabeth/2021/09/23/a-massive-meteor-may-have-destroyed-the-biblical-city-of-sodom/

Two LORD

https://youtu.be/GxftCFJNNfE

Don’t show just give to do research

Abraham Surrenders His Sons

Bibliography

https://bibleproject.com/classroom/abraham

Middleton, J. Richard. Abraham’s Silence: The Binding of Isaac, the Suffering of Job, and How to Talk Back to God. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic: A Division of Baker Publishing Group, 2021.

Cotter, David W. Genesis. Edited by Jerome T. Walsh, Chris Franke, and David W. Cotter. Berit Olam Studies in Hebrew Narrative and Poetry. Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 2003.

Josephus, Flavius, and William Whiston. The Works of Josephus: Complete and Unabridged. Peabody: Hendrickson, 1987.

Richard N. Longenecker, “The Melchizedek Argument of Hebrews: A Study in the Development and Circumstantial Expression of New Testament Thought,” in Unity and Diversity in New Testament Theology: Essays in Honor of George E. Ladd (ed. Robert Guelich, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978), 161.

https://bible.org/article/melchizedek-covenantal-figure-biblical-theology-eschatological-royal-priesthood#P8_421

Anders Aschim, “Melchizedek and Jesus: 11QMelchizedek and the Epistle to the Hebrews,” in The Jewish Roots of Christological Monotheism: Papers from the St. Andrews Conferences on the Historical Origins of the Worship of Jesus (eds. Carey Newman, James Davila, and Gladys Lewis, JSJSup. 63; Leiden: Brill, 1999), 130.

Paul J. Kobelski, Melchizedek and Melchiresa (CBQMS 10; Washington DC: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1981), 126-7.

https://bible.ca/manuscripts/Septuagint-LXX-Shem-was-Melchizedek-Masoretic-chronology-Messiah-Jesus-Christ-priesthood.htm

https://www.ancient-origins.net/history-ancient-traditions/history-circumcision-0010398

https://www.gotquestions.org/city-gate.html