Disobedient Woman

Fact? Or Story? An ancient tale of a salty gal.

I started writing to you about something that’s been on my mind this week: the perils of looking back. Which made me think about Lot’s wife. Which I began to research. Which got me sidetracked. Which is one of my favorite places to be.   

Growing up in the Bible Belt, I rarely missed a Sunday School class or a sanctuary sermon by the sanctified. Maybe you, too, were steeped in the doctrine. But if you’re wondering what’s the deal with Lot’s wife? Settle in. It’s story time.  

Genesis Chapter 19 recounts the tale of Sodom and Gomorrah. Historians believe these lost cities were located in the Jordan River Valley near the Dead Sea. Finding these cities to be filled with “grievous” sin, God destroyed them. 

According to the King James Version (KJV), the Bible of my childhood, “brimstone and fire” rained down from the heavens onto Sodom and Gomorrah. This is where we get the moniker for incendiary sermons about judgment and eternal damnation. Fire-and-brimstone preaching on the flames of Hell instills in listeners the fear of the Lord, prompting them to fall to their knees in repentance! 

The New International Version (NIV) speaks in easier-to-grasp language. Like this big ol’ Alabama trial lawyer I once knew. Johnny taught a room full of high-powered fancy-talking DC attorneys how to preach to a jury. Commanding the boardroom with his shit-eatin’ grin and deep Southern drawl, Johnny said, “We’ve gotta put it down where the goats can get it!” Those DC attorneys have been pondering Johnny’s wisdom ever since. 

Anyway … the NIV clarifies that the Genesis 19 fire and brimstone was, in fact, burning sulfur. The Devil is, after all, in the details.

What about Lot and his wife? The Sunday School and Southern Baptist Sermon version goes like this.

Lot extended hospitality and kindness to two travelers he met at the city gates. These men were, in fact, Angels sent to destroy Sodom. The Angels warned Lot that he should gather his family and flee the city.

Lot had two daughters, each pledged to be married. Lot went to his soon-to-be sons-in-law and said, according to the NIV, “Hurry and get out of this place, because the Lord is about to destroy the city!” These men thought Lot was joking. At the Angels’ urging, Lot fled the city with his wife and daughters. 

Here’s where Lot’s wife secures her infamy. The Angels accompanied Lot and the three women to the edge of town, at which point the Angels warned, “Don’t look back!” Alas, as they were running away, Lot’s wife disobeyed God’s instructions. She turned, looking back on the burning city. And in an instant, God turned her into a pillar of salt. 

Bless Lot’s wife, she’s been shamed ever since. The lesson? God is a God of Wrath! Do what God says or there will be consequences. Lot’s wife looked back in longing, so the theologians conclude, for she was a disobedient sinner who did not want to leave behind the wicked ways of the sinful city. 

Lot’s wife is a Disobedient Woman—a cautionary icon for all who would disobey God. Ah, but there’s more to the story. There always is. 

I suppose, as a child, I never took the time to read Genesis 19. Even if I had, I probably wouldn’t have caught the KJV’s subtle sexual references. Of course not! At our church, girls weren’t even allowed to swim with boys. Innuendo would have gone right over my head. I had no context from which to understand the implications of “do ye to them” and “she lay down.” 

But the NIV. It doesn’t mince words. Reading the NIV’s interpretation of Genesis 19 this week, I got a whole new take on the story. This is the part they didn’t tell us in Sunday School; neither did the pastor include this in his fire-and-brimstone sermons. Why? This is not a story fit for young ears and, certainly, not for the pious in the pews.

This is, as radio legend Paul Harvey used to say, “the rest of the story.”

Lot invited the Angels to his home. He made them a feast. That night, the men of Sodom surrounded Lot’s home. The KJV says these men demanded that Lot bring the Angels out “so that we may know them.” Innocent enough, yes? The NIV, however, doesn’t pull punches: “Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.”¹

Lot refused, offering a different solution: “Look I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don’t do anything to these men [the Angels], for they have come under the protection of my roof.” 

Wait, what?! Aren’t Lot’s daughters also under the protection of his roof? Lot, the one Godly man the Angels found in all of Sodom. As the prophet Abraham’s cousin, Lot must have gotten a free pass. Maybe it is all in who you know. Oh, and there’s more … it gets better (or worse) from here.

The Angels pulled Lot back inside. Then they blinded the men surrounding Lot’s home so they couldn’t find Lot’s door. The Angels urged Lot to hurry! But Lot hesitated. So the Angels grabbed his hand, leading Lot with his wife and daughters out of the city.

The Angels told Lot, “Flee for your lives! Don’t look back, and don’t stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away!” Lot said I can’t and I won’t go all the way to the mountains. Rather than heed the Angels’ instructions, Lot negotiated. Let me go to Zoar, a small town in the valley. Spare that town and my life. At this point, the Angels surely sighed and rolled their eyes. “Very well.” And they sent Lot and the ladies on their way. 

Now, in every Sunday School version of this story I ever heard and every artist’s depiction, it was as they were running from the burning city, flames licking at their heels, that Lot’s wife turned.

Picture Indiana Jones and Marion running away from the burning Nazi bomber plane in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Like that.

But the Genesis 19 timeline isn’t so dramatic. Lot and his family left Sodom at night. By the time they reached Zoar, “the sun had risen over the land.” Only then did God cause burning sulfur to pour from the heavens. Safely in Zoar, “Lot’s wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.”

Lot was afraid to stay in Zoar, so he and his daughters took up residence in a cave. Lot’s daughters became frustrated (important word choice here) because “there is no man around here to give us children.” So they got their aging father drunk and slept with him. Yes, in the biblical sense. 

Genesis 19 excuses Lot, of course, saying he was too drunk to even know what happened. Nonetheless, both daughters become pregnant. Science and experience would question the likelihood that ol’ Lot, passed out drunk, could have performed such a feat. But the Bible is full of miracles. 

Now you understand why I got sidetracked? Let’s recap.

Angels visit Sodom. Lot invites them to his home. Lot feeds the Angels. After dinner, the city’s entire male population drops by Lot’s home, demanding sex with his guests. Lot says no, that would be inhospitable. But wait fellas, here’s an idea. I have two virgin daughters. You can have sex with them! 

The men are angered. The Angels zap the men Harry Potter style, blinding them so Lot can escape into the night. Lot hesitates. The Angels insist. Lot and family make it safely to Zoar. The sun rises. Sodom and Gomorrah go up in flames. 

After their Mom is turned into a salt statue, the girls and Lot move into a cave. Lot gets super drunk. In fact, he’s completely sloshed for two nights. In his drunken stupor, he gets both daughters pregnant. It was the girls’ idea, of course, so Lot. Is not. Guilty.

Out of all of this, the headline is Lot’s WIFE?! 

No one is talking about Lot, the very least of whose folly was to question God’s emissaries when they said “Run!” And when the Angels told Lot to go to the mountains, did he go? No. He argued with God’s messengers, prioritizing his convenience over their mission. Yet, in the retelling, Lot’s Faith is unquestioned.

Like our sister Eve before her, Lot’s wife (notably nameless) takes the heat.² One commentator even blames Lot’s wife for the all-male mob scene at Lot’s front door. Lot’s wife must have cooked the feast Lot served the Angels. Lot’s wife must have needed salt (highly valued in ancient times) to prepare the meal. She must have gone door to door, asking her neighbors for salt. She must have been talking up the fact that she was having a dinner party for out-of-town guests. If Lot’s wife hadn’t run her mouth all over the city, no one would have known about the visitors, the men wouldn’t have surrounded Lot’s home, and Lot wouldn’t have had to offer up his daughters. This must be why her punishment was to be turned to salt. Theological speculation at its finest.

Let’s engage in our own speculation, giving Lot’s wife some Grace. 

She wakes up to an ordinary day. Her husband brings unexpected guests home for dinner. The guests turn out to be Angels, which in and of itself is a lot to process. Then her husband suggests a crowd of men rape her daughters. In a panic, they run from their home in the dead of night. At sunrise, just as she’s catching her breath, the sky catches fire, blasting all she’s left behind. 

Lot’s wife. Simply. Turned. To look. Disobedience! Or instinct? It would be hard not to look at fire pouring from the sky. 

We’re back to Raiders of the Lost Ark, blinding light pouring from the Ark of the Covenant with the wrath of God: “Marion, don’t look at it. Shut your eyes, Marion. Don’t look at it, no matter what happens!” Indy knew, and he made sure Marion understood. 

Did Lot encourage his wife with the same urgency? Another commentator suggests this either-or scenario: Either Lot told his wife of the Angels’ warning yet she chose to look back, having lost her will to live. Suicide. Or patriarchal rule meant Lot did not tell his wife of the warning. Homicide.  

What if we were to remove the label Disobedient Woman from Lot’s wife and simply consider her as a woman? A human.

In Sodom, Lot was a “foreigner.” But this was his wife’s childhood home. A place filled with memories. Perhaps she looked back out of Love and concern for family and friends, momentarily forgetting the warning in her compassion and grief.

This is no more speculative than the Sunday School story that she looked back longing to return to Sodom’s sinful ways. Nowhere does Genesis 19 say why Lot’s wife looked back. Her wickedness and God’s condemnation are merely presumptions.

The same is true of her transformation. Genesis 19 says, quite matter-of-factly, that Lot’s wife looked back and became a pillar of salt. Was it God’s wrath? Punishment for her disobedience? The Bible doesn’t say.³ That’s a man-made theory. Another mere presumption. 

What if, instead, it was Nature? There are many salt caves in the region. One could suppose that the chaos in the valley was such that it shook the ground and dislodged the salty sediment, covering Lot’s wife. 

Or perhaps this is a religious myth. Genesis’ recounting of a tale told and retold around campfires through the ages. An early fairy tale. An ancient attempt to make sense of a natural disaster.

Modern study of geological forces shows that the 65-foot-high salt pillar by the Dead Sea, known as “Lot’s Wife,” appeared quite suddenly about 4,000 years ago—around the same time geologists have documented a massive earthquake in the area. And “right around the time traditionally attributed to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.”⁴

It is essential to step away from the stories we’ve been told. Ancient stories. And modern.

There are facts. There are the stories we create from those facts. And. There are the stories that others create for us from those facts.

If the latter becomes insistent. Like a drumbeat. This is the truth. This is the truth. This is the truth. Don’t you see it? This is the truth. One could start to believe the stories created for them.

In relationship, especially where there is an imbalance or hierarchy, it becomes easier to accept the stories created for us. Even if those stories don’t fit what facts we know. Even if those stories run counter to our intuition. 

Keep the peace. Don’t rock the boat. Maybe he has a point. She is so certain. The media politicians preachers teachers leaders masses must be wiser than I. And just like that, agency is gone. Agency relinquished without even a word. 

If we are to reclaim our agency, we must remember. Presumptions are not facts. But in the telling and re-telling, presumption becomes perceived as fact. And yet. When we return to the original source, we may find no evidence to support the supposed fact. 

When our emotions run high. When euphoric. When certain. When hurt. Or angry. Or disturbed. Or sitting in judgment. When filled with righteous indignation. Think of Lot’s wife. And ask. 

What is the real headline here?

What facts were omitted in the retelling? 

What facts were embellished?

Where is the line between fact and story? 

Whose story is this? And why are they telling it?

Presumptions are creations of perception. Perception is shaped by experience. Your experience is different from my experience. We may each be presented with the same facts yet create our own, vastly different, stories around those facts.

When we believe without questioning stories created by others about a neutral fact. Well, that’s where the danger lies. And we end up assuming—for thousands of years—that this was a Disobedient Woman. Ungodly. Wicked. So filled with evil that, with one stray glance, she was destroyed. Based solely on presumption. Careful, there.

Dear Reader, thanks for getting sidetracked with me. I suppose I’ll be unpacking my own history with religion (and the stories I’ve created around it) for the rest of my days. What’s your story? XO, Ash

1. From this, the term sodomy originates. But long before this incident, God was angry with the Sodomites’ lack of concern for others. Consider this article, which posits that the true concern was the use of sex “to dominate, humiliate, and terrorize others.” https://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/ngier/sodom.htm The sin, the author posits, was that the people of Sodom and Gomorrah “had pride, surfeit of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and the needy” (Ezekiel 16:49-50); and they “refused to receive strangers when they came to them” (Song of Solomon 19:14). One could easily get sidetracked here. But. Only Love Today.

2. In some Jewish traditions, Lot’s wife is known as Ado or Edith. It is believed that Lot also appears in the Quran as Lut, a prophet whose wife did not flee with him. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lot%27s_wife Seriously, I could pull this thread for days.

3. Jesus speaks of Lot’s wife in Luke 17:32-33. More on that, perhaps, when I get myself un-sidetracked and back to the issue of looking back.

4. If you’re curious, this article covers the geology of Lot’s Wife. https://library.biblicalarchaeology.org/article/how-lots-wife-became-a-pillar-of-salt/

Also riveting is National Geographic’s episode “Buried Secrets of the Bible with Albert Lin: Sodom and Gomorrah.” As a matter of fact, just binge-watch everything NatGeo/Albert Lin—especially the Lost Cities series—you won’t be sorry! https://exploreralbert.com/