19:1 The two angels came to Sodom in the evening while 1 Lot was sitting in the city’s gateway. 2 When Lot saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face toward the ground.
19:29 So when God destroyed 3 the cities of the region, 4 God honored 5 Abraham’s request. He removed Lot 6 from the midst of the destruction when he destroyed 7 the cities Lot had lived in.
1 tn The disjunctive clause is temporal here, indicating what Lot was doing at the time of their arrival.
2 tn Heb “sitting in the gate of Sodom.” The phrase “the gate of Sodom” has been translated “the city’s gateway” for stylistic reasons.
sn The expression sitting in the city’s gateway may mean that Lot was exercising some type of judicial function (see the use of the idiom in 2 Sam 19:8; Jer 26:10; 38:7; 39:3).
3 tn The construction is a temporal clause comprised of the temporal indicator, an infinitive construct with a preposition, and the subjective genitive.
4 tn Or “of the plain”; Heb “of the circle,” referring to the “circle” or oval area of the Jordan Valley.
5 tn Heb “remembered,” but this means more than mental recollection here. Abraham’s request (Gen 18:23-32) was that the
sn God showed Abraham special consideration because of the covenantal relationship he had established with the patriarch. Yet the reader knows that God delivered the “righteous” (Lot’s designation in 2 Pet 2:7) before destroying their world – which is what he will do again at the end of the age.
6 sn God’s removal of Lot before the judgment is paradigmatic. He typically delivers the godly before destroying their world.
7 tn Heb “the overthrow when [he] overthrew.”