Lot and his family was guided out of Sodom, while the cities are destroyed by “fire and brimstone.” However, there was one family member that did not obey by the angels’ instructions. In this article, you will learn what happened as a consequence.
Before dawn arrived, Lot and his family must leave the city. Lot makes an attempt to convince the men his daughters are supposed to marry to leave as well, but they think Lot is joking. Even Lot begins to get hesitant about leaving, but the angels grab the hands of he and his family and took them outside of the city limits. As told in Genesis 19:16 and 17, the angels tell the family to “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!”
At first, Lot was not in favor of fleeing to the mountains, and he made it a point to request a different location for his family. He wanted to settle in the small town of Zoar, which was situated not too far from the city limits of Sodom. He was allowed to travel there. In the middle of the night as they traveled, Lot’s wife went against her instructions and turned back to look at Sodom and was instantly turned into a pillar of salt.
In the tale, there is no explanation given to as why Gomorrah was destroyed in the same manner as Sodom. There is also no reason given for why Lot’s wife was turned into a pillar of salt.
The fate of Lot’s wife and the end of the cities are explained in Genesis 19: 18-30:
“18 And Lot said unto them: ‘Oh, not so, my lord;
19 behold now, thy servant hath found grace in thy sight, and thou hast magnified thy mercy, which thou hast shown unto me in saving my life; and I cannot escape to the mountain, lest the evil overtake me, and I die.
20 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.
21 And he said unto him: ‘See, I have accepted thee concerning this thing also, that I will not overthrow the city of which thou hast spoken.
22 Hasten thou, escape thither; for I cannot do any thing till thou be come thither.’–Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar.”
23 The sun was risen upon the earth when Lot came unto Zoar.
24 Then the LORD caused to rain upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven;
25 and He overthrow those cities, and all the Plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground.
26 But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.
27 And Abraham got up early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the LORD.
28 And he looked out toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the Plain, and beheld, and, lo, the smoke of the land went up as the smoke of a furnace.
29 And it came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the Plain, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when He overthrew the cities in which Lot dwelt.
30 And Lot went up out of Zoar, and dwelt in the mountain, and his two daughters with him; for he feared to dwell in Zoar; and he dwelt in a cave, he and his two daughters.”