ויבואו שני המלאכים סדומה בערב, “two of the angels arrived in Sodom in the evening;” when Lot saw them, he asked them for the purpose of their visit. They told him that it was their mission to destroy the city. The reason why they volunteered this information was that they said to themselves that if they were simply to order him to leave town with their families without giving them a plausible reason, they would simply ignore them. But, since they had taken it upon themselves to reveal something G–d had not intended to be revealed at that time, they were punished by Him, by being exiled from the celestial regions for 138 years. This was in spite of the fact that what they had done had been well intentioned. Angels are subject to penalties even for committing “minor” errors by not having checked with their Master first, relying on the superior wisdom with which they had been endowed. This superior knowledge enables them to know what goes on in the minds of human beings. We find another example of punishment as warnings for celestial creatures where Mattatron, G–d’s “general manager” for running the universe on His behalf, was punished as stated in the Talmud tractate Chagigah, folio 15. This angel was expelled (temporarily) from the celestial regions and punished with sixty fiery strokes, in order to warn him not to fall victim to the same error as Elisha ben Avuyah on earth, who had arrived at the conclusion that Satan is an independent force in the universe rather than also a messenger carrying out missions on behalf of his Divine master. Rabbi Yehudah hachassid said that angels are punished with sixty lashes whereas human beings are not punished by more than forty (39) lashes, is that on earth already thirteen year olds qualify for such punishment, whereas such punishments are inflicted on over twenty year olds in the celestial regions. Just as 39 lashes on earth are three times thirteen so sixty is three times twenty.

ואיש אין בארץ לבא עלינו “and there is no other man left on earth to impregnate us with his sperm.” According to Ibn Ezra, they did not think that there were no more males alive on earth, but they thought no other man would be a suitable marriage partner for them for spiritual reasons. Since they had been miraculously saved by G–d, they considered themselves as of superior status.

ותהרין, “they became pregnant;” according to Rashi, this point is made by the Torah to show the miraculous intervention by G–d that although it is a natural law that a virgin does not become pregnant as a result of sleeping with a man for the first time, in this instance there was help from heaven. [If this had not been a firm conviction by earlier generations, all the documented stories about priests being the ones to deflower virgins before they were given to their respective husbands, would make no sense at all, as many such virgins would have given birth to children from such priests’ semen. Ed.] According to Bereshit rabbah 51,9 quoting Devarim 22,17, the words: ואלה בתולי בתי, “these are the tokens of my daughter’s virginity,” are proof that Judaism does not accept the so-called principle accepted by the gentiles on this subject.