A RARE LOOK AT LOT'S WIFE AND THE STORY BEHIND HER

Lot's Wife Pillar of Salt rock formation beside the Dead Sea, Jordan

In keeping with my fascination for legends and folklore, I am reminded that the Bible is an excellent source of these types of tales from olden times and the story of "The Woman Who Looked Back" is one of the earliest examples. The Bible does not tell us the woman's name in Genesis 19:26, as she is only referred to as “Lot’s wife,” but Jews reflect her name as either Adith or Irith.

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Question: "Why was Lot’s wife turned into a pillar of salt?"

Answer: Genesis tells the story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Lot, Abraham’s nephew, lived in Sodom with his family. His daughters were engaged to local men. Lot was sitting at the gate of Sodom, the area where financial and judicial transactions took place, when two angels came into town. Lot invited them to stay with his family. After a rather exciting evening, the angels made sure Lot, his wife, and his two daughters left before God destroyed the city. As they fled, the angels warned them, “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”.

Lot ran, his daughters close behind. “But his wife, from behind him, looked back and she became a pillar of salt”. She lagged behind. She turned and watched the flaming sulfur fall from the sky, consuming everything she valued. Then it consumed her. The Hebrew for “looked back” means more than to glance over one’s shoulder. It means “to regard, to consider, to pay attention to.” The Scriptures don’t say whether her death was a punishment for valuing her old life so much that she hesitated in obeying, or if it was a simple consequence of her reluctance to leave her privileged life quickly. Either she identified too much with the city she was leaving behind—and joined it—or she neglected to fully obey God’s warning, and she died (turned into a pillar of salt) as a result.

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Fifteen words in the Old Testament tell the story of Lot"s wife.

This one brief, dramatic record has placed her among the well-known women of the world. The 15 words are: "But his wife, from behind him, looked back and she became a pillar of salt." (Gen. 19:26)

In the New Testament there are three other references to Lot's wife...Jesus held her up as an example, saying: "Remember Lot's Wife (Luke 17:32). This is one of the shortest verses in the Bible, its terseness probably best explains its urgency. In a previous passage Jesus had been speaking of those in the days of Lot who "did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded (stet), but out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all" (Luke 17:28,29).

The impression conveyed is that Lot's wife was a woman who ate and drake and lived for things of the world. In Genesis we do have a scriptural record that her husband was a rich and influential man. We can also assume that Lot's wife was a worldly, selfish woman who spent lavishly and entertained elaborately. Max Eastman, in his movingly realistic poem Lot's Wife says, "Herself, like Sodom's towers, shone blazingly." Here, we imagine, was a woman who wore many jewels and dressed in the richest and most gleaming fabrics.

Rubens, in his "Flight of Lot" (see photo below) painted in 1625, pictures Lot's wife with her daughters and an angel speaking a solemn warning. One of the daughters leads an ass loaded with vessels of gold and silver, while another bears a basket of grapes and fruit on her head. The wife clasps her hands and looks beseechingly in the fact of an angel who warns of her fate if she be disobedient. The family procession, accompanied by a little dog, steps forth from the gates of Sodom. Above the towers of the city walls fly frightful demons preparatory to their work of destruction. The air seems full of imps, while an evil spirit (hardly visible) hovering above Lot's wife, glowers at the angel who is trying to save her from destruction.

Painting "Flight of Lot" by Rubens

The fate of Lot's wife has inspired other artists too, all depicting a woman who had lived under the law, knew its penalties to be swift and immutable, and yet so loved the city on which God was raining fire from heaven that she willingly gave her life for one more look at it.

We can then understand that the 15-word Old testament biography of Lot's wife was written for those who love the things of the world more than the things of the spirit, those who do not possess the pioneering courage to leave a life of ease and comfort and position for a life of sacrifice, hardship and loneliness. The biography also speaks a message to those who are unwilling to flee from iniquity when all efforts to redeem iniquity have failed.

It is likewise telling to note that Lot's earlier actions with his uncle Abraham were indicative of the kind of wife he had. Abraham and his nephew had become prosperous in herds and flocks. As a result, Lot was eventually offered a choice of territory and he chose the most fertile plain of the Jordan. Though we have no record of his wife in this transaction we can visualize her as a woman sharing his selfishness, without dissent, and prodding her husband to greater wealth at any cost.

When Lot first came into the fertile plain of Jordan, he pitched his tent "toward Sodom," a phrase that indicates that he was not then a part of the wicked Sodom and Gomorrah. But again, isn't it easy to imagine that his wife wanted a big stone house in keeping with her husband's great wealth? Was a tent on the outskirts enough? Wasn't she hopelessly bound up with all the materialism of Sodom?

When she had to flee, she just had to look back in spite of warnings otherwise. In this she reminds us of a woman who, after leaving her burning house, rushes back for treasured material possessions and is burned to death in the process.

Certainly Lot's wife bears none of the qualities of greatness that we find in the noble women of history -- those, for example, who left England on the Mayflower and landed on a desolate coast in the dead of winter to carve new homes in the wilderness of the New World. Those women, too, had to leave all behind, but they were wiling to make the sacrifice in order that they and their families might have religious freedom.

Even though Lots wife was well out of Sodom with her daughters and husband before the destruction came, she could not be influenced either by the warnings of the angels or by the pleading of her husband. And as she looked back, she was turned into a pillar of salt as depicted in the painting below.

Tradition has pointed out, however, that a mountain of salt at the southern extremity of the Dead Sea, was the spot where the event took place. The text described it as a rain of "brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven," by which the whole district was engulfed and destroyed.

Geologists explain that at the south end of the Dead Sea is a burned-out region of oil and asphalt. A great stratum of rock salt lies underneath the Mountain of Sodom on the west shore of the sea. This stratum of salt, they say, is overlaid with a further stratum of marl, mingled with free sulphur in a very pure state. Something kindled the gases which accumulate with oil and asphalt resulting in an explosion carrying red hot salt and sulphur high into the air.

Literally it could have rained fire and brimstone...The cities, the whole plain and everything that grew out of the ground were utterly wiped out. This may explain the incrustation of Lot's wife with salt when she hesitated and possibly even turned back.

The differences of opinion regarding the myth and the literal aspect of Lot's wife do not change the great truths of the story. She still stands as a permanent symbol of the woman who looks back and refuses to move forward; the woman who faced toward salvation still turns to look longingly on material things she left behind.

One thing is certain. The story of Lot's wife has not lost its savor in all the thousands of years since Old Testament writers recorded it.