Genesis 19:16-25, 29
And while he lingered, the men laid hold upon his hand, and upon the hand of his wife, and upon the hand of his two daughters; the LORD being merciful unto him: and they brought him forth, and set him without the city. And it came to pass, when they had brought them forth abroad, that he said, Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed.
And Lot said unto them, Oh, not so, my Lord: Behold now, thy servant hath found grace in thy sight, and thou hast magnified thy mercy, which thou hast shewed unto me in saving my life; and I cannot escape to the mountain, lest some evil take me, and I die: Behold now, this city is near to flee unto, and it is a little one: Oh, let me escape thither, (is it not a little one?) and my soul shall live.
And he said unto him, See, I have accepted thee concerning this thing also, that I will not overthrow this city, for the which thou hast spoken. Haste thee, escape thither; for I cannot do any thing till thou be come thither.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): The Lord has a very peculiar care for His own people—He is their Father and He guards them as His own dear children. Whenever times of great trouble come, He thinks especially of them. He drowned the antediluvian world, but not till Noah was safely in the ark. He burned Sodom and Gomorrah, but not till Lot had escaped to the little city called Zoar. In all His judgments He remembers His mercy towards His believing people—He does not suffer them to be destroyed even in the day of the destruction of the ungodly.
A. W. PINK (1886-1952): Whoever would have concluded that Lot was a “righteous man” had not the New Testament told us so!
C. H. SPURGEON: Lot was a righteous man, notwithstanding his imperfections.
MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): God’s electing, effectual, distinguishing grace will preserve His people from total and final apostasy—these indeed may fall frequently and foully, but yet they will not fall totally nor finally from God.
THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): Though in the midst of snares, and temptations, God will preserve them.
C. H. SPURGEON: There is Lot—evil Lot. He has been acting very badly and has got away down there in Sodom. Still, he is a child of God. He is vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked, proving that he has some fear of God in his heart. Well, what does the Lord say? “Haste you,” He says, “for I cannot do anything till you have come out of here.” Lot must get to Zoar. There must be a little city to shelter Lot!
THOMAS MANTON (1620-1677): But mark here, when God biddeth him go to the mountain―then he goeth to Zoar.
C. H. MACKINTOSH (1820-1896): What a picture! He seems like a drowning man, ready to catch even at a floating feather. Though commanded by the angel to flee to the mountain, he refuses, and still fondly clings to the idea of “a little city,”—some little shred of the world. He feared death in the place to which God was mercifully directing him—yea, he feared all manner of evil, and could only hope for safety in some little city, some spot of his own devising. “Oh! let me escape thither, and my soul shall live.” How sad. There is no casting himself wholly upon God…His soul seemed completely unhinged; his worldly nest had been abruptly broken up, and he was not quite able to nestle himself, by faith, in the bosom of God.
THOMAS COKE: What a mixture of unbelief! Why, could not He who called him out, help him on his way?―Lot betrayed the weakness of his faith, as if he saw a better way of security for himself than God pointed out, or, as if he doubted the sufficiency of the Divine protection. He urges two motives for permission to go to the city of Zoar; 1st, Because it was near, not so far off as the mountains; and 2nd, Because it was a little one, with fewer inhabitants, and so probably less depraved than the others―though there was much infirmity in Lot’s pretending to choose the place of his safety, the more mercy is manifested in God’s yielding to his request.
EDWARD PAYSON (1783-1827): Witness the preservation of guilty Zoar for the sake of Lot.
MATTHEW POOLE (1624-1679): God hath sometimes spared a people for the sake of one man.
ALEXANDER MacLAREN: Zoar is spared, not for the unworthy reason which Lot suggested―because its minuteness might buy impunity, as some noxious insect too small to be worth crushing―but in accordance with the principle which was illustrated in Abraham’s intercession, and even in Lot’s safety; namely, that the righteous are shields for others.
JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): These are the salt of the earth, that sprinkled here and there, preserve it from putrefying and perishing. God gave all the souls that were in the ship to Paul, and all that were in Zoar to Lot. If it were not for His elect in the world, He would make a “short work in the earth,” Romans 9:28.
JEROME (340-420): Zoar, of all the five cites, was preserved by Lot’s prayer.
MATTHEW HENRY: See what favour God showed to a true saint, though weak. Zoar was spared, to gratify him. Though his intercession for it was not, as Abraham’s for Sodom, from a principle of generous charity, but merely from self-interest, yet God granted him his request, to show how much the fervent prayer of a righteous man avails.
C. H. SPURGEON: I think that this sparing of Zoar is an instance of the cumulative power of prayer. I may liken Abraham’s mighty pleading for Sodom to a ton weight of prayer, supplication that had a wonderful force and power. Lot’s petition is only like an ounce of prayer. Poor little Lot, what a poor little prayer his was! Yet that ounce turned the scale. So, it may be that there is some mighty man of God who is near to prevailing with God, but he cannot quite obtain his request; but you, poor feeble pleader that you are, shall add your feather’s weight to his great intercession, and then the scale will turn. This narrative always comforts me. I think that Zoar was preserved, not so much by the prayer of Lot, as by the greater prayer of Abraham which had gone before; yet the mighty intercession of the friend of God did not prevail until it was supported by the feeble petition of poor Lot.
CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): God did indeed graciously condescend to Lot’s request; and spared Zoar for his sake: but his unbelief was punished, not only in the fears which harassed him in Zoar, but in the awful dereliction that he afterwards experienced.
WILLIAM JAY (1769-1853): Sometimes, by strange and even terrible things in righteousness, the Lord answers His people.
JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): But God will preserve His own elect.
MATTHEW HENRY: The purpose and the power of God, the purchase and the prayer of Christ, the promise of the gospel, the everlasting covenant that God has made with them, ordered in all things and sure, the indwelling of the Spirit, and the immortal seed of the word—these are their security.
