Genesis 19:9 Commentary and Bible Study

Lot’s answer infuriates them. His dreadful offer of yielding up his daughters has been rejected by them because they are intent on satisfying their unnatural and depraved lusts. Now they are pushing hard against the door, determined to get in the house and find Lot’s guests, and Lot is blocking the door, not without considerable courage. The consciences of these evil men have been touched by what he has just said to them: ‘I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly’. Although his words were so mild considering the circumstances, they will not tolerate being rebuked in any way or hindered in their evil goal. When someone does not yield to their conscience, the only way they can deal with its unwelcome voice is to fight even harder against it, and this produces some extreme responses. An unrepentant sinner is never more angry than when he is separated from his sin. But his unrighteous anger will be completely overwhelmed by the righteous anger of God, and his stubbornness only further adds to his guilt. They are angry that anyone has dared question the morality of what they do. Even wicked men and women cannot get rid of their consciences. They must live with them because they are part of the human constitution, but they are locked in the dungeon of the soul, as Bunyan says. Lot was the source of this unwelcome reminder, and that calls for revenge. They have never liked him because of his superior standards, and though he has been allowed to proceed a certain way in their society, he has now dared to do what he never seems to have dared do before, and actually criticise their vile moral behaviour. That is more than they can bear and they will do worse to him than they were thinking of doing to these strangers. Note, that they are fully agreed on what they intend. Their joining forces in this evil is a further effort to silence any repulsion that any single individual might have for what they are doing. But to achieve this degree of unity, there has had to be a tremendous bludgeoning of all their consciences, and joint self-deception. They are so intransigent in their sin that it costs them considerable effort still to try to obtain what they want, and they struggle hard against the judgment of God which is obstructing them.But those angels – they seem to be men, but of course they had supernatural strength, and they did two things. They somehow open the door, pulled Lot in while pushing out the marauders, and they struck them blind. ‘They smote the men that were at the door of the house with blindness, both small and great: so that they wearied themselves to find the door.’ The Hebrew word translated ‘blindness’ is not a word that refers to literal blindness, but to mental delusion or confusion. It is exactly the same word that is used of the Syrians in the town of Dothan, who came after Elisha, and they were struck by God with blindness, so that they could no longer make sense of what they were seeing. So whether they could literally see or not, we are not sure; possibly they could, but they could not make out what they were seeing or where they were going. They were utterly bemused and confused, stumbling around, and then they took themselves away from the door.