But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt [Gen. 19:26].

I think this verse has been greatly misunderstood. Why in the world did Mrs. Lot turn and look back? I think that the reason is twofold. First of all, she turned and looked back because she did not want to leave Sodom. She loved Sodom. She loved Lot, too, but it was a lot of Sodom that she loved. And she didn’t want to leave it. She was probably a member of the country club, the sewing club, and the Shakespeare club. In fact, there wasn’t a club in town that she was not a member of. She just loved these little get-togethers in the afternoon. I’m not sure but what they met and studied religion in a nice little religious club also. She was right in the thick of it all, my friend, and she didn’t want to leave. Her heart was in Sodom. Her body walked out, but she surely left her heart there.
This is a tremendous lesson for us today. I hear a great many Christians talking about how they want to see the Lord come, but they are not living as if they mean it. On Sunday morning, it is difficult to get them to leave their lovely home. And on Sunday night, they are not going to leave their lovely home because they love television, too. They have a color television, and they are going to look at the programs on Sunday night because there are some good ones then. But when the Lord comes, my friend, you are going to leave the television; you are going to leave that lovely home; you are going to leave everything. I have just one question to ask you: Will it break your heart to leave all of this down here?
I have asked myself that question many times. To be honest with you, I am not anxious to leave. I would love to stay. I have my friends and loved ones whom I want to be with. And I have the radio ministry that I want to continue. I’ll be frank with you, I hope the Lord will just let me stay here awhile longer. But I also want to be able to say that when He does call, I will not have a thing down here which will break my heart to leave—not a thing. I love my home too, but I would just as soon go off and leave it. How do you feel about that today? Mrs. Lot turned and looked back, and this is one of the explanations.
The other reason that she looked back is simply that she did not believe God. God had said, “Leave the city, and don’t look back.” Lot didn’t look back; he believed God. But Mrs. Lot did not believe God. She was not a believer, and so she didn’t really make it out of the city. She was turned to a pillar of salt.
I am not going to go into the story of Lot’s two daughters in verses 31–38. It is as sordid as it can be. Frankly, Lot did not do well in moving down to the city of Sodom. He lost everything except his own soul. His life is a picture of a great many people who will not judge the sins of their lives. They are saved, “yet so as by fire.” The Lord has said in a very definite way to these folk who have put all their eggs in a basket like this that if they will not judge their sin down here, He will judge it. Apparently, that was the case in Lot’s story.
I want to conclude this chapter by looking at Abraham. What did Abraham think of all this?

And Abraham gat up early in the morning to the place where he stood before the LORD:
And 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 [Gen. 19:27–28].

When Abraham looked down toward Sodom, I think his heart was sad. I am not sure whether or not he knew that Lot had escaped. He probably learned about it later on. When he looked down there, he probably was sad for Lot’s sake, but Abraham had not invested a dime down there. When judgment came, it did not disturb him one whit because he wasn’t in love with the things of Sodom and the things of the world.
Remember that we are told, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world …” (1 John 2:15). I sometimes preach a sermon which I have entitled “Sightseeing in Sodom.” First, I look at Sodom through the eyes of Lot himself: he sure had a wrong view of it. And then of Mrs. Lot: she fell in love with it. You can also sightsee in Sodom with Abraham: he lost nothing down there. Finally, you can go through Sodom with the Lord and see it as He sees it. It is too bad that the church today is not looking at the sin of sodomy as God looks at it. I do not think it is any more prevalent today than it has been in the past, but there is a tremendous percentage of our population who are homosexuals engaging in perversion. We speak of it in a more candid manner than we ever have, and it is something that is right in our midst.
What is to be the attitude of the Christian toward homosexuality? Even Lot in his day said, “You are doing wickedly.” And God judged it. Isn’t it enough for the child of God to know that he cannot compromise with this type of thing. This is a sin! The world indulges in it and then calls it a sickness. The same thing is said about the alcoholic. Sure, he’s sick. Of course, he’s sick. But what made him take that first drink and continue to drink until he became sick? Sin did it, my friend. Sin is the problem, and homosexuality is a sin. It is so labeled in the first chapter of Romans where God says He gave them up (see Rom. 1:18–32). Genesis 19 is a very important chapter for this present generation in which we are living today.


McGee, J. V. (1997). Thru the Bible commentary (electronic ed., Vol. 1, pp. 83–84). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.

Ge 19:26 his wife looked back. Lot’s wife paid the price of disregarding the angelic warning to flee without a backward glance (v. 17). In so doing, she became not only encased in salt, but a poignant example of disobedience producing unwanted reaction at judgment day (cf. Luke 17:29–32), even as her home cities became bywords of God’s judgment on sin (cf. Is. 1:9; Rom. 9:29; 2 Pet. 2:5, 6).
19:29 the cities of the plain. The best archeological evidence locates Sodom and Gomorrah at the south of the Dead Sea region, i.e., in the area south of the Lisan Peninsula that juts out on the east (see note on 14:10). God remembered Abraham. Cf. 18:23–33.


MacArthur, J., Jr. (Ed.). (1997). The MacArthur Study Bible (electronic ed., p. 42). Nashville, TN: Word Pub.