Genesis 19:17

19:17 When they had brought them outside, they ¹  said, “Run ²  for your lives! Don’t look ³  behind you or stop anywhere in the valley! ⁴  Escape to the mountains or you will be destroyed!”

Genesis 19:26

19:26 But Lot’s ⁵  wife looked back longingly ⁶  and was turned into a pillar of salt.

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¹ tn Or “one of them”; Heb “he.” Several ancient versions (LXX, Vulgate, Syriac) read the plural “they.” See also the note on “your” in v. 19.

² tn Heb “escape.”

³ tn The Hebrew verb translated “look” signifies an intense gaze, not a passing glance. This same verb is used later in v. 26 to describe Lot’s wife’s self-destructive look back at the city.

⁴ tn Or “in the plain”; Heb “in the circle,” referring to the “circle” or oval area of the Jordan Valley.

⁵ tn Heb “his”; the referent (Lot) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁶ tn The Hebrew verb means “to look intently; to gaze” (see 15:5).

sn Longingly. Lot’s wife apparently identified with the doomed city and thereby showed lack of respect for God’s provision of salvation. She, like her daughters later, had allowed her thinking to be influenced by the culture of Sodom.