(12) Then the agents said to Lot, “Whom else have you here? Sons-in-law, your sons and daughters, or anyone else that you have in the city—bring them out of the place.(13) For we are about to destroy this place; because the outcry against them before יקוק has become so great that יקוק has sent us to destroy it.”(14) So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who had married his daughters, and said, “Up, get out of this place, for יקוק is about to destroy the city.” But he seemed to his sons-in-law as one who jests.(15) As dawn broke, the messengers urged Lot on, saying, “Up, take your wife and your two remaining daughters, lest you be swept away because of the iniquity of the city.”(16) Still he delayed. So the agents seized his hand, and the hands of his wife and his two daughters—in יקוק’s mercy on him—and brought him out and left him outside the city.(17) When they had brought them outside, one said, “Flee for your life! Do not look behind you, nor stop anywhere in the Plain; flee to the hills, lest you be swept away.”

(23) As the sun rose upon the earth and Lot entered Zoar,(24) יקוק rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah sulfurous fire from יקוק out of heaven—(25) annihilating those cities and the entire Plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities and the vegetation of the ground.(26) Lot’s*Lot’s Lit. “His.” wife looked back,*back Lit. “behind him.” and she thereupon turned into a pillar of salt.

אל תבט אחריך LOOK NOT BEHIND THEE — You sinned with them but art saved through the merit of Abraham. It is not fitting that you should witness their doom whilst you yourself are escaping (Genesis Rabbah 50:11).

אל תביט אחריך, first of all on account of their going to experience the anguish of seeing the destruction of their city; secondly, in order not to afford them an opportunity to see the angels performing their destructive work as angels when there was no need for them to witness this.

"And she became a piller of salt" - Due to her having sinner with salt. How? In that on that night on which the angels came to Lot's house, she went to her neighbors' places with pretext to ask for salt. Her neighbors said to her, "And why do you need salt? Didn't you know that you were short on salt to got and take salt while it was still daytime?" She said to them, "We didn't need salt until guests came to us." And therefore, the people of Sodom knew about the angel that came to Lot's house.

The Tears of Salt

by Ruti Timor

translation by Yehudah Mirsky and Ilana Kurshan

And as they were bringing them out, he said: Escape for your life, do not look behind you and don't stand still anywhere on the plain, escape to the hill country, lest you be slain (Gen 19:17).

As the flames began to devour the houses of Sodom, Lot said to his wife, quick, get some bread and a skein of water and we’ll run for our lives or be killed.

She said, we’ll save ourselves, and our daughters will stay here?

And how do we know Lot had other daughters who stayed behind? At the outset it says And the men said to Lot: Who else have you here? A son-in-law ? Your sons ? Your daughters? (Gen 19:12) And later it says Get up, and take your wife and your two remaining daughters (Gen 19:15). We learn from this that the married daughters stayed behind with their husbands.

He said to her: Quiet, woman! Do as I say!

She was silent.

And the angels took them out of the city, and Lot did not say to his wife a word of what they said. He walked sure-footed, and she lagged behind him. Her heart was heavy upon her, she looked back and saw her city, her family, and her property going up in flames.

And his wife looked behind, and became a pillar of salt (Gen 19:26). Tear after tear dripped from her eyes, and the tears grew fuller and fuller, stronger and stronger, until they became a pillar of salt. She stumbled and fell, and stirred no more.

And Lot did not look back.

Our Sages of Blessed Memory said, with salt she sinned and with salt was she punished. And I say, she sinned not, but was punished all the same.

(27) Next morning, Abraham hurried to the place where he had stood before יקוק,(28) and, looking down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and all the land of the Plain, he saw the smoke of the land rising like the smoke of a kiln.(29) Thus it was that, when God destroyed the cities of the Plain and annihilated the cities where Lot dwelt, God was mindful of Abraham and removed Lot from the midst of the upheaval.

(16) The agents*agents Lit. “[other] participants whose involvement defines the depicted situation.” See note at 18.2. set out from there and looked down toward Sodom, Abraham walking with them to see them off.

(8) When some time had passed, Abimelech king of the Philistines, looking out of the window, saw Isaac fondling his wife Rebekah.

The Gemara relates another incident involving those Sages. On another occasion they were ascending to Jerusalem after the destruction of the Temple. When they arrived at Mount Scopus and saw the site of the Temple, they rent their garments in mourning, in keeping with halakhic practice. When they arrived at the Temple Mount, they saw a fox that emerged from the site of the Holy of Holies. They began weeping, and Rabbi Akiva was laughing. They said to him: For what reason are you laughing? Rabbi Akiva said to them: For what reason are you weeping? They said to him: This is the place concerning which it is written: “And the non-priest who approaches shall die” (Numbers 1:51), and now foxes walk in it; and shall we not weep?Rabbi Akiva said to them: That is why I am laughing, as it is written, when God revealed the future to the prophet Isaiah: “And I will take to Me faithful witnesses to attest: Uriah the priest, and Zechariah the son of Jeberechiah” (Isaiah 8:2). Now what is the connection between Uriah and Zechariah? He clarifies the difficulty: Uriah prophesied during the First Temple period, and Zechariah prophesied during the Second Temple period, as he was among those who returned to Zion from Babylonia. Rather, the verse established that fulfillment of the prophecy of Zechariah is dependent on fulfillment of the prophecy of Uriah.In the prophecy of Uriah it is written: “Therefore, for your sake Zion shall be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become rubble, and the Temple Mount as the high places of a forest” (Micah 3:12), where foxes are found. There is a rabbinic tradition that this was prophesied by Uriah. In the prophecy of Zechariah it is written: “There shall yet be elderly men and elderly women sitting in the streets of Jerusalem” (Zechariah 8:4). Until the prophecy of Uriah with regard to the destruction of the city was fulfilled I was afraid that the prophecy of Zechariah would not be fulfilled, as the two prophecies are linked. Now that the prophecy of Uriah was fulfilled, it is evident that the prophecy of Zechariah remains valid. The Gemara adds: The Sages said to him, employing this formulation: Akiva, you have comforted us; Akiva, you have comforted us.