Lot did not want to leave Sodom. He was by no means alone. It seems none of his family was moved by Lot’s invitation to avoid destruction, not even his intended sons-in-law (19:14). (In)Famously, his wife — although she fled with Lot and their daughters — looked back to Sodom contrary to their rescuer’s instructions (19:17, 26) such was her longing for the place of destruction.

In this setting, the brief comment on the action is all the more telling. The Lord’s messengers physically dragged Lot and his family from the city, setting them on the path to preservation, in which act, the narrator tells us (19:16):

…the LORD [was] being merciful to him…

It must have seemed very far from “mercy” at the time. All Lot’s fondest hopes and dreams were wrapped up in the place that put him in the path of destruction. His insistence on fleeing to another city rather than the “hills” as instructed (vv. 17-21) indicates his inability to let go of his misplaced affections and desires.

I can’t think of many parallels in the Bible to being saved against one’s wishes. The man by the pool of Bethesda is, I think, the only instance of Jesus taking the initative to heal in the gospel accounts, and the exchange with the man suggests he wasn’t especially in tune with what Jesus had done for him, or what it meant for the rest of his life (John 5:1-17). Similarly, when Paul warns the Corinthian church about abuses at the Lord’s Supper, he tells them that these abuses account for the deaths of some as judgment by the Lord — but judgment that saved them from being “condemned along with the world” (1 Corinthians 11:30-32).

In the light of Lot’s experience, and its limited echoes in Scripture, one can’t fail to reflect on this and pose the question: what cherished hopes and dreams in my life prevent me from cooperating with God’s saving work in my life? Thank God for mercy which rescues us from our own foolishness.

‘…and Joseph’s hand shall close your eyes.’ (v. 4b)

God is a good God.

The Lord shows great mercy here that recognizes and even affirms (it at least does not deny) the special affection of Jacob for Joseph. With this promise, God in some way mitigates the pain of the years of supposed loss and real separation. Clearly Jacob hears it this way, as his response to seeing Joseph once again, reported in v. 30, attests (“Now let me die, since I have seen your face and know that you are still alive.”).

There is a stream of thought which says that God strips away everything in order that we might come to know him. One powerful statement of this is found in John Newton’s hymn, “I asked the Lord…”, in which the Lord replies:

[I] break thy schemes of earthly joy
That thou may’st find thy all in me

But that isn’t quite the whole story. God is the greatest good, our highest goal, our deepest and eternal joy. And he has made us, we are his creatures.

Having broken Jacob’s “scheme of earthly joy”, and weaned him of his idolatrous love and false hope, the Lord is able to give back the son who was lost. There is real resurrection here.

These two chapters intertwine the famous “debate” of Abraham with God (Genesis 18), as well as the (in?)famous story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19). Several striking themes are woven through the narrative, but I want to follow just one thread for the moment.

In Genesis 18, the Lord’s revelation to Abraham of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18:17-21) induced Abraham to intercede on behalf of the city. And, to an extent, his intercession was successful: the Lord agreed not to “sweep away” the righteous with the wicked, even for the sake of ten (Genesis 18:32). Clearly Abraham engaged with reverence and deference to the Lord, but … why stop at ten? Perhaps he was confident of Lot and his household being on the Lord’s side?

The fundamental problem, of course, is that there weren’t even ten righteous to be found. In fact, there wasn’t even one. In spite of that, as the story unfolds, God still goes on to rescue those who do not realize the danger they are in. And ultimately, there would come one righteous man, for whose sake wicked people could be counted righteous.

And so in Genesis 19 the scene changes to Sodom. Given the traumatic and thoroughly dehumanizing events, it is amazing that Lot and his family are so reluctant to leave the city. But this all the more clearly shows the roles of the destroying angels (Genesis 19:13) to be also angels of mercy (Genesis 19:12, 15-17). In this way God was both just and merciful in propelling the hesitant Lot and his family to safety (Genesis 19:16).

Genesis 19:23-29 completes this phase of the story, and embeds the experiences of Lot within the prayers of Abraham (Genesis 19:27; compare 18:22). In answer to Abraham’s heartfelt cry, “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” (Genesis 18:25), the clear answer is: Yes, he does what is just — and more: he extends mercy. Almost in an inversion of Sodom and Gomorrah, it would be the undeserved death of the “one righteous” that would make possible real hope for those who should justly stand under the judgment of God (Romans 5:6-11).

The after-effects of the ejection from the Garden echo into this chapter, and its closing verses also mark some narrative progression from ch. 4, although this chapter itself is a bit thin on plot (!). In fact, the development continues really from ch. 2.

Man/Adam was given a task in ch. 2 of tending the earth (a facet of the commission of 1:28, it seems). Although the distortions that man’s disobedience brought (ch. 3) introduced struggle and hostility into that task (3:17b-19), it was neither lost nor withdrawn. In the deepening sin of Cain, (ch. 4), the difficulties also deepened (4:14), as the curse which the ground itself received now rebounds and stains Cain himself, the first human being to be “cursed” (4:11).

But with ch. 5, we see the first glimmer of hope that the curse is going to be alleviated. That hope was first aroused in the curse on the serpent (3:15), with the announcement that the “seed” (or “offspring”) of the woman would defeat the enemy. Here, Noah is identified as the first “child of promise” who “shall bring us [rest] from our work and from the painful toil of our hands” (v. 29).

The days of Noah would see “rest” for that generation, but not in the terms which Lamech had in mind. However, the hope that he expressed certainly pointed in the right direction.