ויבאו שני המלאכים, these were the two who had previously been described as שני האנשים, “the two men.” When next to Avraham, they did not outrank him; therefore the Torah did not accord them the title “angels.” When compared to Lot, they outclassed him spiritually so much that they could not be described as אנשים, men. (Bereshit Rabbah, 50,2)

וירא לוט ויקם לקראתם, he had learned the virtue of welcoming guests while he had been with Avraham.

הנה נא, א-דוני, the word נא always expresses a plea. In this instance the word הנה has the vowel segol, because of the dagesh (dot) in the letter נ of the word נא.

א-דני, the vowel under the נ is a patach instead of the kametz we might have expected. This proves that the word is not a sacred attribute of the name of G’d. Lot, at that stage, had assumed that these strangers were simply extraordinary important people, judging by their attire and their general demeanour. When looking at them at the beginning he had thought they looked like angels.

ולינו, he had to ask them to stay the night, seeing that had arrived in the evening.

ורחצו, the letter ר has the vowel patach, as the word is in the imperative mode. Its meaning is just as it was when the angels arrived at Avraham’s in chapter 18. The invitation to wash one’s feet is normally extended as the first step in inviting guests to partake in a meal. In this instance, Lot did not bother to announce that he would feed these angels, seeing that he had already invited them to spend the night, something which would include supper as a matter of course.

והשכמתם, if you want you may rise early and be on your way, a remark quite similar to that of Avraham in 18,5.

ויאמרו לא, from this verse our sages deduce that it is in order to decline invitations from insignificant people, whereas one must not turn down an invitation from prominent, highly placed people (quoted by Rashi) The same men, when visiting Avraham, had immediately accepted his invitation, whereas here, when an invitation seemed even more called for, they at first refused Lot’s offer of hospitality.

כי ברחוב, in the public street or square of the town. They were not prepared to be the guests of anyone else in the city either.

ויפצר בם מאד, he spoke to them intently on the subject, urging them to accept his invitation, until eventually, they did come to his house. Onkelos writes ותקיף בהם, that he actually took hold of these men until they concurred to spend the night with him.

ויעש להם משתה, seeing it was night he did not have time to slaughter an animal in their honour, but he prepared something at short notice, served them drinks, and unleavened bread which can be prepared at short notice. It is good manners to prepare something at short notice for guests who arrived unexpectedly. The guest arriving at such a time is usually tired and does not care to wait until an elaborate meal can be prepared in his honour. The story has been recorded for all times in order to teach us how to serve unexpected guests arriving at night.

ויאכלו. If the whole sequence is a vision which Lot did not actually experience, the meaning of the word ויאכלו must be understood literally; if the Torah describes actual events, the word means that Lot had the impression as if the angels ate and drank his food. The food and drink, which are composed of different components, simply dissolved into their basic ingredients so that they were not visible as such. [imagine water, i.e. H20, being dissolved into the gases oxygen and hydrogen, becoming invisible in the process. Ed.] This, of course, would occur miraculously.

טרם, why did the Torah have to write the wordsאנשי סדום, “the men of Sodom,” having already immediately before identified these men as אנשי העיר, the men of the town?” The Torah wanted to emphasise that by their actions they proved that they must be inhabitants of the city of Sodom. This bore out the Torah’s previous characterisation of the inhabitants of this city as רעים וחטאים, “wicked and sinful,” (13,13)

ועד זקן, the old people were no better than the people in their prime whose perversions might have been due to their youthful vigour. All the people ganged up on Lot’s house. As a result of their extreme self-centeredness, they had passed a law that no stranger was to be entertained in that city. Lot’s having broken with this tradition so enraged them that they decided to teach him a lesson by attacking his guests. The reason why the Torah goes into all this detail is merely so that subsequent generations will realise that G’d’s action in destroying such people was justified.

ויקראו...ונדעה אותם, who these people are, and how such people had dared to enter our town at night in spite of our reputation. The word ונדעה is a euphemism for the intention to kill these people, just as it is in Judges 19,22 as reported by a party involved there in 20,5 Other commentators believe that the euphemism concerns the intention of sodomising these men.

ויצא....סגר אחריו, either the person within the house locked the door from the inside, or Lot locked the door from the outside.

ויאמר אל נא, “please guard the welfare of these men for you are my brothers and neighbours; do it for my sake and leave them alone!”

הנה נא, the words mean “now!” Now restrain your urge to kill these people. I will now hand over to you my two daughters and you can satisfy your urges with them. You can rape them, seeing that they are still virgins. Alternatively, you may even kill them. This is what he meant when he added the words כטוב בעיניכם. אל תעשו דבר, “do not do something evil.!” כי על כן באו, seeing they have come to spend the night under my roof, leave them be, in my honour, I would rather have you abuse my daughters or even kill them, than to do any harm to these men.”

ויאמרו גש הלאה, they told him to get away from them, to leave and go someplace else.

נרע לך מהם, “we will treat you even worse than them.”

ויפצרו, they became very insistent, speaking very threateningly, beginning to assault him physically.

ויגשו לשבר הדלת, seeing that the door was locked.

ואת האנשים, the angels punished the men of Sodom who were at the entrance to the house

בסנורים, with a temporary blindness The word סנורים is a composite of the two words סני ראיה.

?ויאמרו...עוד מי לך פה, the same as asking “who else do you have here (in town)?”

ובניך, your grandchildren, the children of your daughters. Lot did not have any sons. If he would have had any they would have been in the house with him, whereas married daughters would not. Or, he would have spoken to his sons also, just as he went out and spoke to his sons-in-law.

וכל אשר לך בעיר, .and any livestock and chattels you may have in this town.

הוצא מן המקום, do not only remove it from this town but from the entire region.

כי משחיתים.... כי גדלה צעקתם, the outcry to G’d by the victims of the cruelties of the Sodomites has become too great. In this construction the pronoun ending has been appended to the subject as well as to the predicate, just as in Isaiah 56,7 ושמחתים בבית תפלתי it has been appended to the predicate or in Isaiah 38,1 שמעתי את תפלתך where it has been appended to the subject.

לשחתה, to destroy the town, seeing the town is part of the larger region described as המקום previously.

ויצא לוט ...לקחי בנותיו, they had become the sons-in-law having already betrothed his daughters to them. The Torah does not report that Lot spoke to his daughters, as it was understood that the daughters would concur with their husbands’ decision.

וכמו השחר עלה, at the time when dawn broke forth.

ויאיצו, they urged המלאכים, here the angels are described as angels again, not as in verse 10 where they were described as האנשים, “the men.” The reason is that here they performed the tasks of angels, i.e. they saved Lot and they destroyed the whole region.

ויתמהמה, Lot was still hesitant, apparently being loath to leave his wealth behind in the city. The angels therefore delayed until dawn, at which time they did not allow him time to save anything but his very life and the clothes he was wearing, even though, initially, they had asked him what else he owned in the city, implying that this too would be saved. (compare verse 12)

ויחזיקו האנשים בידו וביד אשתו וביד שתי בנותיו, in order to ensure that they could escape with their lives. Here the angels are referred to as “the men,” seeing that they acted like ordinary men, taking Lot and family by their hands, as if they themselves were physical beings.

בחמלת ה' עליו, they hastened to take Lot out of the city for the sake of Avraham even though the time had arrived when the destruction was to take place.

ויצאהו וינחהו, Lot, his wife, and his daughters.

ויהי כהוציאם, while they were in the process of removing them from the city of Sodom they urged them to hurry in order to be saved;

ויאמר, the angel whose task it was to save him, even though there were two angels that worked together.

אל תביט אחריך, they said that to him in order that he should not thereby create a delay. He was afraid that Lot would want to ascertain if the city behind him was really being destroyed.

בכל הככר, in the entire valley, seeing that all the towns in that valley were being turned upside down.

פן תספה, “lest you will be destroyed with the people of the city if you stand still. I have no authority to save you from the destruction once the process has commenced. The destruction will occur instantaneously and simultaneously in al the towns slated for this.” (compare Lamentations 4,6 on the expression ההפוכה כמו רגע).

ויאמר...אל נא, he begged them not to make him rush up the mountain as he was physically unable to move so quickly.

אדוני, the word is used in the secular sense, as proved by the fact that it concludes the sentence. Onkelos also translates it in this sense, writing בבבעו כען רבוני. [this may be so in the edition at Kimchi’s disposal; in our editions the words are rendered as בבעו י-י. Ed.] Our sages in Shevuot 35 claim that every time the word א-דני appears in connection with Avraham it is invariably a reference to G’d, i.e. is a sacred word. Every time the word occurs in connection with Lot it is secular, except here. The reason it is understood to be sacred in this instance is that Lot attributed to these angels the power to kill or to keep alive. The words of our sages are astounding, seeing Lot addressed them in the plural mode, something not appropriate when addressing G’d. Besides, when an angel is on a mission from G’d, he can obviously kill or bring to life just as his Master can. Moreover, the power to revive the dead was exercised even by such prophets as Elijah and Elisha.

הנה נא מצא עבדך חן בעיניך, seeing that the angel had told him המלט על נפשך, “save yourself,” it had become clear that the angel’s mission was to save him. Actually, both angels were on a mission of both saving Lot and destroying Sodom. The one who was speaking did so only because he was the senior of the two. The one who tried to save Lot said לבלתי הפכי את העיר, “I cannot yet overturn the city.” (verse 21) He also admitted that he was unable to destroy the town until Lot had been saved (verse 22).

תדבקני, the vowel patach under the letter ק is in lieu of the vowel tzeyre.

הנה נא העיר הזאת קרובה,“near” in the sense of “easy to escape to.”

והיא מצער, it is also a small town with few inhabitants. Even though the inhabitants are admittedly wicked, they are but few in number. They appear to have been spared from the destruction on my account.

ותחי נפשי, together with them.

אמלטה נא, the emphasis is on the letter ט. We have a similar construction in Samuel I 20,29 אמלטה נא ואראה את אחי, where the emphasis is on the מ instead of on the letter ט.

הלא מצער היא, he repeated the insignificance of the town due to its few inhabitants. Our sages understand the word מצער as meaning מזער, “young,” of recent origin; they therefore could not yet have accumulated so many demerits as the more established cities of the valley. (based on Shabbat 10) According to some sages Tzoar had been founded only 51 years previously, equaling the numerical value of the word נא used by Lot in his plea.

ויאמר אליו הנה נשאתי פניך, from this verse we may deduce that when G’d dispatches an angel on a major mission, He gives the angel some discretion in the manner in which he is to carry out the task assigned to him. The angel or angels may use their own intelligence in this respect. Clearly, an angel is not like a golem, but is an intelligent being.

מהר..כי לא אוכל, because I have been commanded not to destroy the region until you have been saved.

קרא, the city formerly known as בלע was renamed on account of what transpired on this occasion [We encountered the city and its king in Genesis 14,8. Ed.]

השמש...ולוט בא צוערה. As soon as Lot had entered Tzoar, the angel set in motion the rain that would obliterate Sodom, acting on instructions from G’d.

'וה, the angel now is called by the name of his Master, G’d. We already referred to this phenomenon in 18,3

מאת ה' מן השמים, what is meant is that the origin of this lethal rain was very high up in the sky.

ויהפך, He turned these cities and the valley from having been most fruitful to becoming most desolate. According to Job 28,6-8 the region had not only been good pasture land but its soil had yielded gold, gemstones, etc. The sulfur and brimstone which made up most of this rain made the earth forever incapable of producing crops or other matters of value to mankind. We know that even birds shun that region.

ותבט אשתו מאחריו, Lot’s wife who had been walking behind him turned around, seeing that she had little faith in such miracles as she had been warned would occur; This, in spite of the fact that she had personally overheard the angel warning Lot that no one was to turn around on pain of their becoming a victim of this destruction. Even though salt has not been mentioned as having been part of the lethal rain, the Torah speaking of sulfur and fire, it appears that the people themselves were turned into pillars composed partly of sulfur and partly of salt. We have proof of this in Deut. 29,22 when Moses describes the valley as it appeared in his time. The Israelites had not yet seen it, never having set foot in the land of Canaan as yet.

נציב מלח, a ruin resembling a castle of salt which had largely disintegrated.

וישכם...אל המקום אשר עמד שם, this is similar to 18,22 where we were told that Avraham was still standing in the presence of the Lord. This was the place where the angels had parted from him in his vision. Our sages (Berachot 26) state that Avraham initiated the morning prayer shacharit, as whenever the word עומד is used it refers to the amidah, the principal prayer. David makes reference to this in Psalms 106,30 where he said ויעמוד פנחס ויפלל, that Pinchas stood and prayed, meaning that it behooves man to recite prayers in the morning in which he gratefully acknowledges the daylight in the universe which was provided for him before he set out to go to work. They also add (on folio 6) that it is appropriate for a person to select a specific place where he offers up his prayers on a regular basis.

וישקף...קיטור הארץ, smoke, from the fire which had burned the earth.

הכבשן, a sort of kiln in which one fires stones and loam into earthenware. Alternately, this kiln is used to wash earthenware vessels.

ויהי בשחת, the reason why the Torah phrases this thus is to remind us that Lot’s having been saved was due to the merit of Avraham. Even though, by comparison to the people of Sodom he was relatively righteous, he was not righteous enough to have deserved G’d extending Himself to save him as a result of his own merits. G’d now wanted to put Avraham’s mind at rest by indicating to him that Lot had indeed been saved from this conflagration.

וישלח את לוט מתוך ההפכה, He had sent away from the midst of this upheaval, i.e. immediately preceding it.

בהפך את הערים, when He was about to turn these cities inside out, for the angel had told Lot that he could not carry out his task until he had brought Lot to safety. (verse 22).

ויעל, as soon as he had the opportunity, after all that was to be destroyed had already been destroyed. He left Tzoar being afraid that Tzoar might face the same fate as Sodom, even though a little later, seeing that he was well aware that its inhabitants were also wicked people.

וישב בהר, this was the mountain which the angel had originally told him to go to. (verse 17)

וישב במערה, a cave in the side of the mountain

ותאמר...אבינו זקן, there is no chance that he will marry again and have children from such a woman. If we will die without having children there will not be a memory of our father at all. If you were to say that we should take husbands and have children, where would we find such husbands?

איש אין בארץ לבא עלינו. Most interpreters assume that these daughters thought that that just as there was no survivor left from the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, so there were none in the rest of the world. It is very difficult to accept such an interpretation, seeing that they had just left Tzoar which had not been destroyed, so that they had every reason to believe that other regions of the earth had also not been affected. Not only that, but their father had told them that the reason why Sodom and Gomorrah had been destroyed was due to their inhabitants’ wickedness. I therefore prefer an explanation which I have heard in the name of Rabbi Yoseph Karo (the elder) that the elder sister told her younger sister that none of the remaining men of the world would want to marry them, seeing they had lived in the wicked city of Sodom. People would not want to associate with anyone who had only narrowly escaped the fate of the Sodomites.

לכה, we have already explained the meaning of this expression on Genesis 11,9 as well as the meaning of the word לכו, the same in the plural mode.

נשקה את אבינו יין, enough to make him drunk, so that he will not know what to do when we sleep with him. He certainly would not agree to sleep with his daughters while in full possession of his faculties. Anyone subscribing to the cultural mores of an Avraham would not knowingly engage in such a practice. This story is related in order to teach us that even people not subscribing to the moral standards of the Torah would not stoop to this kind of sexual licentiousness. The entire story reveals the origin of the peoples of Ammon and Moav, two nations who will feature prominently in Jewish history from the time even before the Jews entered the Holy Land until the destruction of the first Temple. G’d prevented the Jewish people under Moses from attacking these nations seeing that their founder, Lot, had been a nephew of Avraham. Also, the Jewish people were not given any part of the lands occupied by these nations at the time when Moses and Joshua were involved in conquering the lands which became their home land.

ותשקין...בלילה הוא, the letter ה at the beginning of the word which would have served as the definitive article for the adjective is missing here, as it is also Samuel II 6,2 את העגלה חדשה, [which should have beenהחדשה Ed.] just as it is also missing in Numbers 28,4 את הכבש אחד, instead of האחד.

ולא ידע, even when his daughter broke off the physical contact with her father, Lot remained totally unaware of this. [this is why we speak of “drunk as Lot,” when referring to someone’s drunken stupor. Ed.] The Torah mentions this detail to hint that had he noticed any of this Lot would have resisted the sexual union with his daughter and would have severely remonstrated with her for performing such a despicable act. According to an allegorical approach, (quoted by Rashi,) the dot over the letter ו in this word suggests that Lot did notice when his daughter broke the contact, and therefore he can be faulted for not ensuring that the same did not happen to him on any of the following nights.

ויהי...אמש, the previous night; the same word is used to describe a previous night when Lavan had been chastised by G’d and warned not to harm Yaakov in Genesis 31,42.

ותשקן..ובקמה, this time with the letter ו in the word ובקמה missing.

ותהרין, they each became pregnant as a result of one sexual union with their aging father. As soon as they became aware of this, they desisted from further such contact with their father.

ותלד..מואב, meaning מאב, “from my father I bore this son.”

אבי מואב, the founding father of the people called Moabites until this day.

והצעירה...בן עמי, meaning “the father of this child was a member of my family.” This name was somewhat more chaste than the name given by her older sister, as she did not spell out that Lot was the father of her child.