Genesis 19 - Page 8

Questions and Answers - Verses 28 – 30

28. a) How visible was the destruction?

It was very visible. The smoke rose very high into the atmosphere.

28. b) Did AvRaham know that Lot had escaped from the city?

AvRaham is a prophet. He therefore will know certain things by the prophecies given to him. Yet, I don’t assume that any prophecy referring to Lot was given to him.

AvRaham knew that for the sake of ten righteous persons, a city would be spared. AvRaham never asked Yehovah if Yehovah would rescue anyone of 9 or less who were righteous in such a city. Yet, I propose that AvRaham, seeing that Yehovah was very personally attending to these matters, would have brought Lot out. I don’t find AvRaham going into mourning over Lot, a man that AvRaham previously had rescued at great risk.

28. c) Exactly what were the accusations that Yehovah had regarding the citizens of Sodom by which He destroyed them?

Ezekiel 16:49 Behold, this was iniquity of Sodom thy sister:

Arrogance

Sufficiency of bread

Prosperity of quietness—he was to her and to her daughters.

And she didn’t cause-to-grasp the hand of a humble-[one] and a poverty-stricken-[one].

And they heightened!

And they did abomination to my faces!

And I turned- them [fem.] –away just-as I saw!

28. d) Why refer to smoke as incense?

Incense is a fragrance that often in the Bible typifies, and therefore, has a meaning.

The incense from the Menorah in the Tent of Appointment is a perfume that is very pleasant, and upon which rests a true curse for anyone in Israel who attempts to copy and use that fragrance.

The prayers of Saints that are not immediately granted are stored before Yehovah as incense so that when they will be later granted, that incense will be released. Revelation 5:8: “And when He took the scroll, the four living beings and the four and twenty elders fell before the Lamb, each having violins and gold bowls full of incenses that are the prayers of the Saints.”

Exodus 30:8 And Aharon, via cause-to-ascend the lamps between the evening, will incense her, incense of continuity to the faces of Yehovah to your generations! Ye shall not ascend upon him strange incense and ascension and rest. And ye shall not drink-offer upon him a drink-offering.

Isaiah 1:10 Hearken-ye-to a Speech of Yehovah, dictators of Sodom! And cause-ye-to-‘ear’ Torah of our Elohim, people of Amorah! 11 “To what is the multiplication of your sacrifices to me?” Yehovah will say. “I was-sated—ascensions of rams and fat from well-fed-[ones]—and I didn’t delight-in blood of bulls and lambs and goats! 12For will ye come to see my faces? Who requested this from your hand—to trample my courtyards? 13Do not increase-ye to bring a resting of vanity! Incense—she is an abomination to me! Month and shabbat, to call a calling—I will not be able!—cruel-devising and restraint! 14My being hated your months and your appointments. Were they concerning me?—to a bother I wearied to carry! 15And I will-cause- my eyes -to-hide from you via your spreading your palms [of the hands]! Also-that ye will multiply prayer, I ‘ain’t’ hearkening! Your hands filled—bloods; your fingers: swelling-longing!”

In some of the examples above, incense isn’t pleasant! It can be an abomination; I propose that it can be a stink.

What Yehovah did was to cause the entire plain to become a fire producing incense so that all humans in the area could smell what Yehovah thought of those humans and their works: the incense of sulfur.

28. e) This incense that ascended to the heavens—was it from the fire and the brimstone, or was it the fragrance before Yehovah of the sinful works of the persons in the plain?

I propose that this incense was a combination of sulfur, of burning flesh and hair of humans and animals, of structures made of wood, and of all things that burned. These smells combined, are as incense of the stink that Yehovah experiences from the sins of humans, since both sin and righteousness are portrayed in the Bible as giving smells to God.

28. f) Does a furnace give off a bad smell?

This text isn’t about the smell; it is about the way that smoke from a furnace ascends with great fury if the furnace is being heated up! The whole land got that hot! This fire is so intense, and intense fires do give off smells.

29. a) Identify the following pronouns:

He (in, "And he was"): It is the event about to be described.

He (in, "And He sent Lot"): Elohim (Who will later be identified as Yeshua).

Them (in, "which Lot sat in them"): They are the cities of Sodom, Amorrah, Admah, and Zeboim.

29. b) Who actually rotted the cities of the plain according to this verse?

Elohim did this rotting! (This isn’t ‘sweet baby Jesus.’)

29. c) Why did the text even need to state, “And Elohim remembered AvRaham”?

This will set a scene change from the destruction back to AvRaham.

Whenever Yehovah did a vengeance destruction that was large-scale, and a Saint was in the area or even affected by that destruction, that is when the text states, “And Yehovah remembered …” specifying a person. That remembrance can be easily not seen by Saints who are witnessing such a destruction. So, the text must include that detail. In this case, Elohim’s remembering AvRaham will be causative.

During the Tribulation, I am thinking that many folks who are righteous will begin to get the impression that God forgot them. That is one reason, I am thinking, that Yehovah will do great works of power for them: to remind them that Yehovah is with them, and hasn’t forgotten them in the midst of His fury!

29. d) The text words it in a manner such that the reader can conclude that Elohim’s saving Lot was for the sake of AvRaham. After all, Elohim remembered AvRaham (it doesn’t say that Elohim remembered Lot). Was Elohim’s saving Lot for the sake of AvRaham, or was it because Lot was righteous?

The question has an ‘or’ as a premise; that is a wrong premise. The answer is that Elohim did what He did for the sake of both men.

29. e) A number of places in the Bible uses the wording that God remembered a person, like Noah, and like AvRaham in this text. Does God forget, such that He must remember? Explain what is meant by God remembering.

The Gods of AvRaham never forgets unless He intentionally forgets, in which case, He will not remember after forgetting! The only two cases that I remember where God intends to forget is regarding sin in one case, and the name of a person being put out of remembrance.

The cases that I have observed where God remembers a person or group are the following:

When God is doing a very great destruction or when He has completed it, and His concentration seems to be solely on that destruction, that is when the text states that God remembered a person or group.
When a very long period of time has transpired where it seems like God is inactive (from the Earthly vantage), that is when the text states that God remembered a person or group.

In other words, when it appears that God is either focused on something that would take His eyes off of a person or group, or when God in anger is silent and apparently inactive, that is when the reader of the text is assured regarding a person in the Bible, that God remembered.

This is vital for the Tribulation! Many good guys in the Tribulation will quickly become convinced that Yehovah has forgotten them! They will see the destruction of their homes; of their families; of their friends; of their cities; they will see the rise of violent folks who will be successful. They will see and experience Yehovah’s terrors on Planet Earth and in the heavens! They will think that Yehovah has forgotten them, just as Mount Zion will do the same. Yehovah showed by previous events that He will remember. One particular statement that translators didn’t know to translate in the sacrifices that are types in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, etc., is a one-word statement placed at important points in those sacrifice/types: “I will remember her.”

29. f) What is a flipping-over?

This, being pictured by turning something totally upside down, is used to describe a complete change, and very often, a destructive change. This word is not rare in Hebrew.

When Yehovah was finished with the cities of the plain, they must have appeared to have suffered a destruction that came from outer space! No common fire would have done what was done to those cities and to the fields. Yehovah made sure that the fields couldn’t be used for more than 3500 years.

29. g) Were the other cities, Amorrah, Admah, and Zeboim also done the same way, such that nothing can grow (with a few exceptions that are widely dispersed)?

Yes.

29. h) The text states that Lot sat in them. Didn’t Lot only occupy the one city: Sodom?

The cities of the plain were considered one group. Lot lived in that group. Therefore, Lot ‘sat’ in that group: in the cities of the plain.

29. i) Why did Elohim remember AvRaham to rescue Lot instead of the text declaring that Elohim remembered Lot?

Readers of these texts must gain the hope that they will have during the Tribulation if those readers are among the fearers of Yehovah in Truth. In this text, two righteous persons are featured: AvRaham and Lot. AvRaham has no way of knowing what is becoming of Lot. AvRaham knew that Lot is a righteous person. Yehovah’s wrath is very clearly being exhibited here, as that wrath will be clearly exhibited during the Tribulation. AvRaham loved Lot. Yehovah therefore did a rescue of Lot for the sake of AvRaham. This will occur numbers of times in the Tribulation where two righteous persons know each other, and are located in places where they cannot communicate. If one righteous person sees or hears about the destruction of the location where the other righteous person was located, that can bring anxieties that are very intense even in the Tribulation. The character of God is being shown to readers. If Yehovah remembers AvRaham to save Lot, folks in the Tribulation will be able to set aside the particular anxiety regarding those whom they know and love who ‘sat’ in a location that Yehovah destroyed! That way, they can have hope that they will see their friend or relative in mortal flesh, should they both live and survive to come to Mount Zion.

30. a) The Hebrew word that means to sit also means to dwell.

In its most basic definition, it means to sit; it is, again, a childism in the Bible, since where a child sits is where the child dwells, at least for a time. Very young children view their locations as where they sit. Thus, the Hebrew text uses the same word for sit to also mean to dwell.

30. b) Why did Lot ascend from Tzoar?

He was afraid to remain in Tzoar. The cultures and the behaviours of the inhabitants were the same as those in Sodom. The only difference was the smallness of the population. Lot had already lost at least two daughters in Sodom; he must have been haunted by the recognition that he could easily lose the other two, and his own life, by remaining in a city that deserved to be scraped off as much as Sodom had.

30. c) To where did Lot walk after exiting from Tzoar?

He went to a mountain that had a cave; that mountain was in the midst of the very mountains that he had feared that the bad would cling to him, and he would die!

30. d) Why are his two daughters with him?

They walked with their papa for the following reasons:

They also knew that the city of Tzoar was akin to Sodom in immorality.
They desired to stay with their papa, knowing that otherwise he might die alone in those mountains. They loved him, and they had no desire to be apart from him when he was going into danger.
They remembered what the two angels had done to save their lives together. This is no time to split up.

30. e) If he sat in a cave, what did that make him?

It made him a caveman!

30. f) When they left from Tzoar, did Lot and his two daughters have a load of provisions from which to survive in the stark mountains to which they fled?

The factors that we do not know from the text are the following:

How long they ‘sat’ in Tzoar before determining to leave
Whether they ‘sat’ in Tzoar long enough to gain some provisions
When they left Tzoar, what they found to eat in those stark mountains
Whether they planted grape vines that would take several years to produce enough to make wine
Where they got the skins in which to place the wine
What else they had in the way of crops, and how those crops were planted, or if they were already there (for example, if they were wild crops, or abandoned by someone else)
If they obtained some food from hunting game and capturing birds
Where they obtained materials for clothing
How long a time elapsed in these few verses

The list of unknowns is very long. As the reader will see, they didn’t trade with the locals, once they left Tzoar; they thought that humans weren’t in this area at all, and they were totally alone in a large area of land.