Reclaiming our Stories: Lot's Wife

by Alexandria Long

Read more of her story: Genesis 19:12-29 

Two angels arrived in Sodom in the evening and were invited to spend the night at Lot’s home.  Due to the depravity and wickedness of the men in Sodom, the angels were used by the Lord to destroy the town.  Lot, his wife, and two daughters were taken away from the town and told not to look back and to flee to the hills to survive.  Lot only wanted to go to a small, nearby town however, because he said he would die if he went to the hills.  The angels agreed.  As they were fleeing, Lot’s wife looked back and became a pillar of salt.

That’s all we have for Lot’s wife.  She is not named in the Bible, although some Jewish traditions (the Midrash) have named her “Edith.”  She doesn’t argue with the angels, she doesn’t defend the men or their actions in the town, and she certainly doesn’t offer up anyone else to be raped, like Lot did with their two virgin daughters.  She definitely doesn’t rape anybody herself, like Lot’s daughters do to Lot after the destruction of the Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding area.  She actually doesn’t say a word.

I thought, when I picked Lot’s wife to reflect on her story, it was going to be a story about a test of faith and Lot’s wife failed.  She turned into a pillar of salt because she didn’t have faith or trust in God.  And, it’s true that some commentaries say that.  Women in Scripture reads, “Salt preserves her in a fixed state.  Is this symbolic of her still being tied to the security that city culture is assumed to offer?”  Some traditions come in super aggressively, saying Lot’s wife disobeyed the angels and looked back because she was betraying her secret longing for that way of life (Schrafstein, Torah and Commentary), while some opinions are kinder, saying she was checking on her daughters.  All the text says is: The angels said, “Flee for your life; do not look back or stop anywhere in the Plain; flee to the hills, or else you will be consumed,” (Genesis 19:17).  Lot’s wife looked back, and she was turned into a pillar of salt (Genesis 19:26).  All the traditions and commentaries are just offering opinions and conjecture that the Bible certainly doesn’t have.  

There’s no real judgement or test in the Bible.  It wasn’t about her faith or her past sins.  The angels cautioned the humans to keep running and not to look back so they wouldn’t get distracted.  A natural disaster courtesy of God’s judgement and wrath was about to rain down on that area and any human still in the area was going to be consumed.  The text says “sulfur and fire,” and the Lutheran Study Bible says this could have been an earthquake with associated fires and natural bitumen deposits.  Lot’s wife becoming distracted and hesitating wasn’t about her faith or sins, it was about her getting caught up in an explosion in an environmental disaster because she didn’t flee the area.  The biblical text does not comment on Lot’s wife: she’s just another human, in the wrong place at the wrong time, caught up in an act of God.

How have natural disasters affected you or your faith community, especially when they’re blamed on God’s judgement for perceived wickedness (e.g. hurricanes and tornadoes being blamed on God for people accepting gay marriage)?  How do you react when life just happens, when you’re caught up in something damaging through no fault of your own and you just have to learn how to deal with it?  What does it mean to your faith or your outlook on God, that the oppressed and the oppressors are treated the same in this story? (The entire area was destroyed; those who sinned, those who were innocent, elderly, children, all animals, etc).